A people search site or people finder site is a specialized search engine that searches information from public records, data brokers and other sources to compile reports about individual people, usually for a fee. [1] [2]
Early examples of people search sites included Classmates.com [3] and Switchboard.com (later acquired by Whitepages.com). [4] With the rise of social media networks, sites like Spokeo, BeenVerified, and Truthfinder began to aggregate social media profile information alongside other personal data, allowing searches by username and email address. [4]