How to be an Online Bounty Hunter

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By Brothers
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be an Online Bounty Hunter

In the last twenty years the process of finding information has changed greatly. What once was a long and tiring hunt through a phonebook or newspaper has now become as easy as typing a few words in a Google search. What may be the scariest thing about these changes is how easy it is to discover massive amounts of information on any single person with small amounts of information like a name or email address.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

computer
internet
patience

Step 1

Email address: Almost all social sites on the web have the option to search by email address, an address that is planted firmly on every email sent out. So if an email is received by a person, that person can copy and past the address into any or all of the numerous social sites on the web. A few quick seconds later and a profile will be brought up like a dish on a silver platter.

So what, you may ask? Well, a social site profile is just that, a collection of personal profiles. On a profile is usually important information, likes/dislikes, where someone lives, who they are friends with, and multiple pictures of the individual. That is lots information gained from a simple email address. The thing about email addresses is that they are the equivalent to a finger print on the web. Every address is unique to that one account.
Step 2

Phone Numbers: Now this is not as powerful as a tool as it once was but it still has it uses when finding out about someone. With the area code one can do a simple web search and find what region the phone is from. Keep in mind, however, that cell phones have the same area code no matter where they are actually broadcasting. So a person can be in Illinois with a Florida area code. Also there are some sites that have phone number as a search option. With that you can get at least part of the name and maybe a city and state.
Step 3

Location and Name: With a full or even partial name, if you know what they look like, and a city and state one can do any number of searches to find individuals online. The major search engines all have people searches. The results, however, may not be very clean cut. The search can bring up dozens of profiles but with a little patience and some looking it will not be hard to narrow it down.
Step 4

Friends: The best part of a social site is the wonderful connection they make to thousands of people. If one knows that a person is a friend to the one being looked for, then that person can simply find them in the friends list and click on the profile. This is probably the easiest way to find someone.
With a little work it is possible to find out just about anything about anyone. It just takes time, tactics, and a small piece of information. That is something to keep in mind when updating personal profiles on myspace.