Yahoo! people search is a robust suite of Internet tools that allows users to quickly and freely look up many people using either their name, phone number (landline or cell phone number), address, or even e-mail address.
As with all people-related searches the Yahoo! people search is not 100% complete due to the fact that individuals can opt out of the program, as well as the fact that individuals with unlisted phone numbers are often times not included in the database. Yahoo! people search does however rely on a huge database of phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and physical addresses to round out their database nicely.
When you first attempt to use Yahoo! people search, which does not require registration, you will find three main options; a US phone and address search, an e-mail search, and a reverse phone number search. Depending upon the search option you choose you only have to enter between one and three separate text fields of information.
Yahoo! offers several intuitive tools alongside their search options that work in a fairly integrated way offering a smooth user experience. For instance once you use the reverse phonebook to look somebody up you can then click on a link to view a map to that person’s address, which is all made possible, of course, through the Yahoo! maps service.
Yahoo! people search also offers links to several advertisers on their people search results page which are actually more helpful than they are distracting. These advertisements are all targeted towards the results of your search and therefore are designed to help you further your search. As an example, if you were to search for an individual using the reverse phonebook some of the targeted ads may direct you towards criminal background check services or even credit history services. While this may sound rather big brother-ish to some people it is in fact quite handy to have all of this information listed on one page even if it is from advertisers.
No matter which search you use the likelihood of finding your information is quite high. Although Yahoo! allows people to opt out of the program through a simple form this option is available only by clicking a very small text link that reads “remove my listing”. Although the link itself is quite self explanatory its position on the page is rather diminutive and easy to overlook. Furthermore Yahoo! people search is not used by everyone therefore it is unlikely that most people realize that they are listed in Yahoo!’s reverse phonebook.
The Yahoo! e-mail search feature is not as well-rounded as they’ll phone number searches due to the fact that much of the information comes from within Yahoo!’s own e-mail servers. Therefore you will not find people using Microsoft or privately held e-mail addresses with this service. On the flip side of this the phone and address databases are quite large and mainly filled with information gathered from telephone companies by the third-party data Mining Company Acxiom resulting in one of the most complete phone listings available on the internet.
