I received an invite to join “mylife” from a friend, never heard of it before. At first glance it looked interesting, advertised as a “people search” place, also aggregator of other social media sites. Alarming flags went up as I noticed the “service” they offer and cost associated. It turns out, they are in the business of collecting personal information and selling those same personal information for anybody who is willing to pay.

The same company owns wink.com, which sells people search reports plus property information, death records, marriage records, divorce records and reverse phone lookup; and a $39.95 background report with all other information plus, aliases & maiden names, birth date, address history, property ownership information, relatives & neighbors and ‘much more”.

It can be argued many other sites including Monster.com sells valuable information for a fee. It’s always something users need to be aware of, and determine with whom to share what information with. Mylife appears to be a gold mine for thieves and stalkers. This is a company with a questionable track record which has been in existence for years. Where are laws and regulations to stop this type of invasion of privacy? This is far greater a threat to respond to than going after the kids downloading music.

Read more about the company background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunion.com