Yahoo People Search

The Yahoo People Search tool formerly provided a way to find someone's email address via the Yahoo search engine.

Yahoo People Search, a service offered from Yahoo.com, was a simple search utility that searchers could use to find phone numbers, addresses, and email information. Some information that was found at Yahoo's People Search tool was supplied by Intelius, an information retrieval organization that licensed this data to Yahoo (this information is found in publicly accessible databases). Most information found using Yahoo's People Search was absolutely free. If searchers decided to pursue the information that Intelius offered, they would have to pay.

The People Search tool funneled publicly accessible information from phone books, white pages, and yellow pages to Yahoo's search service. This information can be found on the web and is available to the public at large. In other words, it is not sensitive, secure, or potentially harmful data. Yahoo People Search was helpful for finding addresses, full names, phone numbers, and even email addresses.

A person's last name was required in order to find a phone number or address. A reverse phone number search could retrieve names and addresses associated with that particular phone number, and a search for an email address (last name required) could return names, addresses, phone numbers, and related email information.

If users found information that was not correct in Yahoo's search results, they could opt to correct said information, or they could choose to remove their listings completely from Yahoo's search service. However, neither of these options would remove the information from where it originally resides online. Yahoo also offered a few services users could leverage to find someone:

• Yahoo People Search was the main access point into the Yahoo phone book. You could look up addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses here.
• Yahoo Yellow Pages is a simple business directory; you can search by topic + geographical area, for instance, type in "pizza San Francisco" and you'll get a list of pizza joints with addresses and phone numbers.
• Yahoo International is where you can jump directly to any of Yahoo's portals all over the world; if you're looking for someone who resides in another country, this might be a good site to jump off from.

If your searches are initially unsuccessful, try experimenting with the search fields, narrowing or widening your search filters with the information that you have. Many times all it takes to be successful is a simple search tweak that unearths previously hidden data.

However, sometimes people just can't be found. Yahoo People Search is only able to access public data compiled by a third-party information retrieval company. Therefore, if the person you are looking for is not listed publicly, Yahoo will not be able to retrieve relevant information.

Information found using Yahoo's people search tool was found in publicly accessible databases, online phone books, and public records. In other words, none of the information returned from Yahoo People Search was placed there without it being found somewhere on the web where it already resided. You could request to have your information removed from the Yahoo People Search listings by using a removal form. However, this does not remove your information anywhere else on the web.