Sometimes you can't even find yourself or people you know. People finders are popular. In September, Switchboard logged 6.8 million visitors, Infospace 3.5 million, and Anywho 1.5 million. These electronic directories can be easier to use than directory assistance or the white pages of a phone book, as their databases do not require surfers to know the full name of the person they are seeking. That site also provides searches for E-mail addresses, government officials and people in foreign countries.
Some people finders offer lots of bells and whistles.
But for some people who value their privacy, these services may make it difficult to get and stay lost. Many sites provide Web surfers with a map to your house and listings of nearby neighbors, hotels, restaurants and even post offices. That degree of detail is a little alarming if there are cyberstalkers who want to know where you live. Conceivably, a stalker could get a person's name with a search based on an E-mail address, then find where the person lives. We were concerned about privacy.