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CBS 46 Investigates: Who's Googling You?
POSTED: 11:25 am EDT April 28,
2008
UPDATED: 10:33 am EDT April 29,
2008
ATLANTA -- Statistics say someone “Googles” a person’s name 50 million times a day.Atlanta consultant Brandyn Briley can rank her name among the list of millions of people searched every day."I got five hits yesterday,” Briley said.Briley is an avid “Googler” who uses the Internet to check-up on potential clients, her kids, even herself. Now, Web sites like Ziggs.com and Naymz.com give Briley a way to trace who and when someone is cybersearching her."It's like being able to peek into everyone's window, and getting to see what the folks are having for dinner," Briley said."What is does for the individual is it really gives them a strong sense of who is out there tracking them," said Ziggs.com Tim Demello.Demello called the technology to caller ID for the Internet."I think people sort of hope some long-lost sweetheart is still really interested in them," Demello said.The Internet is also making Web searches that were once believed to be private very public."I could not only know who was looking for me, but also what they were looking for," Briley said.Each time someone clicks on a Ziggs profile, the Web site sends a real time alert to the user's e-mail, tracking the searcher’s location, the search engine used, and exactly who or what that person was searching for."If someone types their name into Google, we track that through and send them a real time e-mail saying you are being searched from Chicago at 8:52 on a Friday," DeMello explained.Ziggs tracks searchers down to the street and block level. But the one thing the Web site won't tell you is the name or exact address of the person doing the search."We don't provide the name of the person searching, and the primary reason is that we believe very strongly in privacy," Demello said."I’d love to know more," Briley added. But she said she is shocked by how much information she can trace."It's curiosity, the wow factor,” Briley said.
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