People Search Company Settles with FTC over Deceptive Service

US Search, a company specializing in people search and background checks, has settled charges brought against by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allegedly offering a deceptive privacy-related service.

According to the company, its solutions involve looking through criminal and court records, marriage records, divorce records, property records, social networks and other public data.

The online data broker founded in 1994 also offers so called reverse lookup services, which are able to return the names of persons from phone numbers or addresses.

In June 2009, US Search introduced a new product called “PrivacyLock,” which in exchange of $10 per year was supposed to protect people's identities by preventing their information from appearing on the company's website, in search results or advertisements.

According to the FTC complaint the effectiveness of this service was grossly misrepresented. The agency alleges that PrivacyLock failed to do it claimed in numerous situations.

For example, the 5,000 consumers who signed up for it, continued to appear as associates in search results for other people.

Their names also continued to be returned in reverse lookups based on phone numbers and addresses, as well as real estate-related searches.

Moreover, if a PrivacyLock customer changed their address, a new unprotected record was created, causing their name to appear in regular people searches again.

"The settlement bars US Search, Inc. and US Search, LLC from misrepresenting the effectiveness of their PrivacyLock Service or any other service they offer that will allow consumers to remove information about themselves from search results, websites, and advertisements.

"The settlement order also requires that they disclose any limitations on such services and provide refunds to consumers who paid for the service," the FTC announces. The commission also acknowledges the assistance of the World Privacy Forum in the investigation.