Frequently Asked Questions
General knowledge about PeekYou
What is PeekYou.com?
PeekYou.com is a people search engine used by over 5.8 million monthly visitors to find their friends, relatives, and colleagues across the Public Web.
How does PeekYou's search engine work?
Traditional search engines calculate the likelihood of any URL being associated with a keyword. PeekYou's search engine calculates the likelihood of any URL being associated with an individual.
The two main associations PeekYou recognizes between a URL and a specific person are: 1) whether the person in question either owns that URL or has created it (e.g., homepage, blog post, social networking profile, etc.) 2) whether the content of the URL references that person (e.g., news article about the person, public-records entries, etc.).
What kind of information can be found on PeekYou?
PeekYou can find only what Google, Bing, and Yahoo can. If these traditional search engines cannot find a piece of information, then PeekYou cannot find it either.
But whereas traditional search engines might bury certain kinds of personal information as not relevant to a keyword search, PeekYou is actually premised on searching for a person, or searching by personal information (school, work, etc.) so it puts this kind of information front and center—by cleaning it up, organizing it, and presenting it in a useful format. Illustrative graphic below:
Is PeekYou a data miner?
PeekYou is first and foremost a search engine. We are not a data miner in the sense of aggregating data for data's sake. For example, PeekYou explicitly refrains from indexing your financial and medical history, unless you share it very openly on the Internet, whereas a data-mining company might be particularly interested in this type of sensitive, private information.
Does PeekYou sell to third parties people's private contact information, such as e-mail and physical addresses or phone numbers?
No, we do not.
Is PeekYou free?
Of course! We are 100% free to use. If you find that you are being asked to pay money or charged money for any services/products whatsoever, this means you have clicked on a link from one of our Advertising Partners and/or you are no longer on our domain (which is www.peekyou.com). At no point will we ever ask you for your credit card or billing information, as we do not charge you anything to use our free search engine service.
My identity on PeekYou
What is my PeekYou Page and who created it? It wasn't me!
Your PeekYou Page is a unique web page about you, of the following URL format: peekyou.com/first_last/uniqueID. This page contains public information about you collected from miscellaneous sources on the Internet. It always lists your real name and whereabouts, and might include your known social networking profiles, blogs, homepage(s), news articles about you, and other links to your public activity on the Internet. It might also list your age, interests, where you've worked or gone to school. The source of all this information is the Public Web (i.e., material that everyone can find on the Internet because it has been publicly divulged, either by you or by authorized third parties). Your PeekYou Page has been created and is maintained by PeekYou but consists of an aggregate of information from third-party public sources.
Is it possible that someone added me to PeekYou.com and/or created an account on my behalf?
No one can directly add information to our search engine since it's job is to find information that is publicly shared and/or publicly available on the web. Further, no one can create accounts/register for an account on PeekYou.com. The information that is shown on our website is displayed because our search engine was able to find some information about you that was publicly available and/or publicly shared on the web (and in many cases, you may not have realized that you were sharing this information with the entire internet).
Does my PeekYou Page ever change?
The information listed on someone's PeekYou Page gets periodically refreshed from new data fetched by our crawlers or from corrections dictated by our matching algorithm. Someone's PeekYou Page is typically updated every week, but in some cases it might not be updated for months. In some cases, if you notice that the information on a page looks stale or old, this might be caused by our caching operations, which we do for technical reasons. If you see a page like this and would like to update it (i.e. you would like our web crawlers to search and find the freshest possible information from the source) you can send us an update request and we will be sure to process it.
Can I claim my own PeekYou Page and manage it?
Not as of yet. But our developers are working on tools that will allow you to do just that and more.
Why can't I claim and edit/manage the information that I see on my own PeekYou Page?
Currently, we don't allow you to claim an Individual Listing as we are still an impartial search engine that simply finds information that is readily available and matches it to it's owner. But, as mentioned previously, we are developing tools that will potentially help our users manage their Individual Listings in the future. More to come soon!
How can I delete my PeekYou Page?
If you wish that the PeekYou Page about you be removed and deleted, please fill out and submit our opt-out form. We kindly request that you specify an e-mail address containing your real name, so as to help us verify that the PeekYou Page in question is indeed about you. Opt-out requests are honored within a few business days.
All the information concerning you which was aggregated and displayed on your PeekYou Page can be found on the Public Web by anyone using Google, Bing, and other traditional search engines. Removing your PeekYou Page from our listing does not remove from the Internet at large the information it used to contain. To learn more about how information is found by our web crawlers, please visit our Privacy Pledge.
I have deleted my PeekYou Page but information about me still appears on PeekYou's Live Results. Can this information be removed as well?
No-at least not by PeekYou. The reason is that this information is freshly fetched in real-time from the Internet at large. If you wish that this information disappear, either delete it from its original source if it is in your power to do so (e.g., close your Facebook account) or request the webmaster of the web page (e.g. PeekYou is the webmaster of www.peekyou.com) where it is originally published or distributed to remove it. By doing the above, you actually remove the information in question from the Internet.
Where can I find some additional resources that will help me understand how the public web works?
Google, another search engine like PeekYou, has posted a great listing under their Q&A section regarding managing your online identity.
What does PeekYou know about me and how?
Does PeekYou collect my financial information and/or my health records?
PeekYou neither seeks out this information nor collects it willfully. The only way for it to end up on our index is if you've shared it very openly on the Public Web and our spiders have matched your identity to the URLs in which you have publicly divulged this information. For example, if you are sharing such information on an open forum or a public social-networking profile, PeekYou will usually index it. Therefore, it is your responsibility to be mindful of what kind of information you openly share on the Internet.
If you would like to learn more about how PeekYou regards your privacy, please read our Privacy Pledge.
Does PeekYou display my street address and location?
PeekYou does not display your street address. But it does display your location in the following format: city, state/province, country. The location we assign to you may change from time to time, as we process fresh content every day or update existing records. Matched locations may include your current whereabouts as well as cities where you've lived in the past.
Why is my address listed on PeekYou?
Any street address you may come across on PeekYou has been retrieved from an automatically generated feed belonging to our Advertising Partners. PeekYou does not have control over the information/data that is automatically provided to us from these partners.
These companies are considered Advertising Partners on www.peekyou.com, and are subject to our Terms & Conditions.
This information is not stored on PeekYou.com and our sole purpose in displaying it is to help users pinpoint the exact person they are looking for. If you do not wish this information to be displayed on PeekYou.com, you may contact the webmasters of web site from which the information is being retrieved and request that they remove it from their listing. Once you have done so, and our advertising partner has honored your request, PeekYou's automated feed will no longer display the information in question.
How does PeekYou determine where I currently live or have lived in the past?
PeekYou's crawlers look for your location on public records and other reliable sources on the Internet. Our matching algorithm then processes the list of potential matches thus acquired and narrows it down to one or few locations with which it can associate you confidently.
How does PeekYou know about my work, school, and interests?
Like all search engines, PeekYou employs crawlers to fetch publicly shared data from across the Internet. If you share information on websites, PeekYou's web crawlers might find it.
PeekYou then processes this data through its proprietary matching algorithm, to determine what person(s) are associated with it. If there is a match with your identity, PeekYou assigns the data to your PeekYou Page.
How does PeekYou know who my relatives are?
Among the public data PeekYou's crawlers fetch from the Internet, some may relate to a person's known friends or relatives. PeekYou processes this kind of information through its social graph technology and if it can track it back to someone's identity, it will assign it to that person's PeekYou Page.
How did PeekYou find my social profiles?
PeekYou, like other search engines, employs crawlers to index the Public Web. Web crawlers are employed by seach engines such as PeekYou, Yahoo! (known as "Yahoo! Slurp"), Google (known as "Googlebot") and Bing (known as "Bingbot" and formerly known as "msnbot"). When our crawler looks at a page, it attempts to determine algorithmically whether that URL can be meaningfully associated with an individual. If it can, then PeekYou establishes a match between that person and the URL in question.
Another method we employ for matching social profiles with someone's identity is following the track of social connectedness. This term refers to the cross-linking among a cluster of social profiles by and of the same person. For example, from each of your social profiles you may link to the others, so as to be more easily found by friends, family, colleagues, or recruiters. In this case, if PeekYou finds one of your social profiles, it can easily find the rest. Illustrative graphic below:
Reporting inaccuracies or abuse
How can I report abuse on a PeekYou Page?
Click the link that reads “Report Abuse” on the PeekYou Page in question. In order to submit the form, you must disclose your name, e-mail address, and the grounds for claiming abuse. We need this information to notify you once we process your request.
I see two or more PeekYou Pages about the same person. Why does this happen and can it be fixed?
In rare cases, PeekYou's matching algorithm groups information incorrectly because it “thinks” that the data in question belongs to different people of the same name instead of to the same person. If you have noticed one such instance, we welcome you to report it using this form, whereby you may list the two or more PeekYou Pages that ought to be merged into one. Our staff will review your request and will handle it accordingly; thanks for letting us know!
I do not see my town/city listed on PeekYou or its name is misspelled. What should I do?
Please let us know! Certain entries on our locations' listings may be outdated or inaccurate; we periodically refresh the names of cities and provinces in order to account for changes in names, spellings, etc. But if we've missed something, we would greatly appreciate it if you sent us an email about it. Thanks!
Can I edit someone's PeekYou Page or submit new information to it?
PeekYou does not allow its users to edit PeekYou Pages. But if you come across a particular PeekYou Page that you believe is missing an important link (e.g., homepage, web project, article by or about the person in question, etc.), you may submit that link for review using the tools found on each PeekYou Page. This link is located in the body of the page, and says "Missing a link?". Any links that are submitted will run through our matching algorithm and search engine web crawlers to ensure that they are indeed properly associated to that individual. If our algorithm deems that they are matched, we will display this link. Currently, PeekYou only accepts Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn domains, but we plan to accept over 60+ domains in the next few months.
The ins and outs of PeekYou search
What is a Search Results Page in PeekYou?
A Search Results Page is a list of all results for a particular search on PeekYou. The most common Search Results Page is a list of PeekYou Pages for all people by a certain name. The URL of a Search Results Page is of one of the following formats or variations thereof:
- peekyou.com/firstname_lastname
- peekyou.com/country/firstname_lastname
- peekyou.com/country/state/firstname_lastname
- peekyou.com/country/state/city/firstname_lastname
How can I search on PeekYou for someone by his or her name?
To search for someone by his name, enter that name (first and/or last) in the search box and click on the Peek button. You will be redirected to a Search Results Page, which is a list of all people by that name found by PeekYou. Browse this list for the person you are looking for. You will have a better chance of finding that person if you know and enter both his first and last name.
How can I search for someone on PeekYou by his or her known username?
If you know someone's username on the Internet but not his actual name, you might still find that person on PeekYou. Enter the username you know in the appropriate field on the search box and click the Peek button.
How can I search for someone on PeekYou by the place where that person lives?
To browse the list of all people of a certain name whom PeekYou has associated with a particular location, first search by that name, and once you land on the Search Results Page, use the drop-down menu on the top right to narrow down your results by location.
How can I search by school, work, or interests on PeekYou?
PeekYou can be used to find people who went to a certain school or university (e.g., Duke), work(ed) at a certain company (e.g., Microsoft) or in a certain capacity (e.g., plumber, lawyer), or are interested in certain things or activities (e.g., music, skiing). To search for people by keywords associated to the above categories (i.e., school, work, interests), simply enter the keyword in question in the appropriate field of the search box and click the Peek button.
In what order are PeekYou's search results displayed?
PeekYou has developed a proprietary ranking algorithm known as PeekScore, which assigns a score from 1 to 10 to an individual's clout on the Internet. On the Search Results Page, entries are ordered by decreasing PeekScore, so that the people of more distinguished online presence are shown first.
Live Results from the web
What are PeekYou's live results and where are they displayed?
Live Results from the Web are those auto-generated sections of a Search Results Page located below the main list of PeekYou Pages. They contain information intended to complement said Pages. This information is fetched from the Internet by our crawlers in real time—and the crawlers' activity is triggered by your specific search.
What kind of information makes it on PeekYou's Live Results?
Examples of live results from the web we currently display include social networking profiles of people by the name you searched for (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.), public web documents (such as PDFs, MS Word Doc, and Excel Spreadsheets, etc.), and images of or related to people by that name.
PeekYou Messages & Messaging
What are PeekYou messages?
Users may leave a public message on someone's PeekYou Page in a tentative attempt to get in touch with that person. PeekYou does not guarantee that the message will ever reach its indented recipient.
What is the use of PeekYou messages?
If you know not how to get in touch with a long-lost friend or relation, you may wish to leave a public message on his PeekYou Page. If that person comes across his own PeekYou Page, he will read your message, know that you are trying to reach him, and write you back through PeekYou (by leaving a public message on your PeekYou Page) if he too is inclined to get back in touch.
Are PeekYou messages entirely public?
Yes! When you submit a message to another individual, you are posting this publicly on the web for everyone to see. This is similar to posting a message on an open bulletin board in a public space that anyone can read if they come across it. Anyone with a browser and internet connection may view a PeekYou Page and read any messages left there. So be mindful of the public nature of your message when you compose it. We cannot stress this point enough.
Why does PeekYou need to collect my contact information before allowing me to post a message?
We collect your contact information in order to prevent spam. We also use it to notify you if the recipient of your message responds to it.
I posted a PeekYou message without realizing its contents were public. Can I delete the message now?
Yes. Please submit an email to remove@peekyou.com and we will honor your request within a few business days of receiving it.
Feedback, Suggestions, and Beta Testing
Does PeekYou welcome feedback and suggestions?
Yes we do, and are very grateful for it. It is only by taking to heart and incorporating our users' suggestions that we can hope to become the world's greatest people search engine. Please send an email to info@peekyou.com and share your ideas with us. Our staff will read and acknowledge your note.
May I volunteer to beta test new products and features by PeekYou before their release?
Of course. And our development team greatly appreciates your participation in our tests. Please send us an email with your name and interest in becoming a beta tester to get started.
By signing up for our Beta Testing Program, you give PeekYou permission to periodically contact you regarding new products and features. You may opt out of this program at any time.
