Apparantly you don't understand the difference between maiden name and mother's maiden name. About 50% of us are women and when us women get married often we have maiden names. We also have married names which long lost friends don't know. They can only contact us via our maiden names. The maiden name is probably optional because guys don't have them and not all women have new last names from marriage.

In regard to the "mother's maiden name":
Ah, my mistake. I've corrected that part with brackets. Thanks for reading.

You are mistaken. I have a membership, and it works great. I was able to see schoolmates that have signed up before I joined, and I saw people I wanted to contact. Then I joined and wrote them, and it worked fine--they wrote back in a few days and now we are back in contact. I also have tried the meet new friends part, and that works too. Good way to meet people in other countries.

I saw your post because I was looking up information and I was concerned, so I actually wrote them. Turns out that they just replaced the google content with real content, i.e. the content from The Names Database, so that is just wrong.

Also, the counter is right to about 1 in a hundredthousand. When you come into the site it takes the exact right value, and then proceeds at the rate that was just happenning on the real site. If open two windows, they diverge because there is randomness in the counter, but then if you start them both over they start at exactly the same place. It would have taken the real value all the time, but they couldn't figure out how to do that in javascript yet.

Maybe you should do some research before doing posts like this, because it just hurts legitimate services like this one. Please modify or remove your post.

Thank you.

Are you sure by "I actually wrote them" you don't mean "I actually am them"? I wish you hadn't taken the anonymous route to avoid actually backing up what you said.

I'll bet that positive post came from them. I was searching to find out why I had a mail from namesdatabase. I've never heard about them before, so thanks for the info, I will delete it.

When I get an email purporting to be from someone I'm *positive* I never heard of... Feel free to email ketan_khairnar@infosys.com and ask him where he knows me from, or how he got my email address that's less than 3 months old...

BTW, Infosys is an outsourcing/offshoring firm. Or at least purports to be. Yeccchh.

And the site's "counter" is powered by JavaScript. Any Web professional will tell you that this is a dead giveaway that screams, "FA-A-A-A-A-KE!!"

I got a solicitation, legitimatly, from a dear friend of mine. I was under the impression you could create groups and track friends of friend, and connect for topics of interest.
When I got thru the registration and everything, I figured out it was just another giant database in the "sky" that could be anyone, collecting data, for any purpose.
I figured it is just Big Brother wanting to know where we all are, or someone collecting nams to sell.
If it's Big Brother, they now have ALL my email addresses, about 15 of them. Foo, have to get to work on that invisibility screen again.

thanks for this. i got one from a naive friend of mine. always good to have people looking out for us.

You [Merv] commeted that "just your name, e-mail address.." That is information enough to compare to a purchased list from D&B, Harris, TransUnion, Expedian, etc.

I've worked with list brokers in the past and have found that whole network of direct marketing to be very shady indeed. From two or three purchased lists, you can combine bits of information in order to produce a very, very detailed personal profile of an individual (or thousands of individuals). This is all legal.

What is considered 'personal information' is up to the party collecting it (think: AOL [more on that later], your grocery discount card, credit-cards, medical invoices, etc.). Each creditor, service, etc. provides a different statement on how they share and sell that information. Some state that just the purchase history and geographic data will be shared to improve choices at your local grocer - your name, credit info, and social-security number will never be shared. Notice the 'geographic data' part? That means address. Now, take that information and compare it to your names database address (if you provided it), merge those into your Experian credit file (many of those online deals have a clause that authorizes credit worthiness checks, thus access to your Experian) and anyone with this soup of data could tell you when you're most likely to buy a quart of milk, what your cycle is (for women) or when your last AA meeting was (no kidding; a FL company once showed me how to merge files to best determine if a member of a household fits an alcoholics profile; very scary shit).

Anyway, beware the data you share. Big brother wears a blue vest, Mc-facepaint, and is so good no wonder they're number-one.

PS: AOL is not an 'Internet Service Provider.' They are a premier list management company that holds one of the most expensive lists. They track every e-mail, instant message, browsing habit, purchase online, etc. and share this information (to various degrees) with anyone willing to pony up the cash to a broker. I ran killaol.com for eight years, battling AOL on many issues, mostly dealing with their full EULA. Beware.

I just got the email. I think it may have been sent to me as i clicked on that new MSN 'virus' thats been going around just a little while ago. I came here wondering how legit the database site was. It sounds bogus.

From what i figure, the MSN the virus sends automatically to all the people online in your listonce u click on a link. All it is is a message that says "Look at this picture, quick!" and a link to a website. If your are gullible (like i was) enough to click on it this downloads a program to your computer and resends the message onward. Watch out for it.

Comment on the post you got. What a bunch of pricks to actually post on this site anonymously to say remove your post, when they in fact are about free speech, or free information for that matter. Hypocrites. That just proves they are only about money and collecting data to sell to spammers and the like.

To everyone just be more careful in links you click on. One more thing, use fake names whenever signing up to a website or info database. Get yourself Ad-aware or Spybot etc and dont give your information out if its not worth it. How hard is it to look up the yellow/white pages or a real agency to find your friend?

I just got one of those notes, with my whole name, saying I'd registered with them on 9/11/03. I don't remember ever hearing of them, which is why I looked them up on Google and found this site.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions!

I received a mail from a friend, telling me to join.
As I work in a IT security company I was suspicious from the beginning.

I can double what you said in you blog. It's all about phishing.

This site should be closed, as they are clearly NOT what they are pretending to be.

I got an email in my junk inbox from somebody called Michelle Lee Chessels... I don't even know who that is so instead of enabling links and clicking it, I googled "namesdatabase" and found this. I had a hunch that it was a scam, and now I'm sure.
Harlz.

I've gotten a few e-mails from them, all purporting to be from a long lost friend who I'd never heard of, so I decided to look them up on Google. And whois.

Not surprisingly, it's run by an anonymous person, and out of a P.O. Box.

I googled and found this site also, I keep getting this email with my brothers name attached, and am sick of it. I thought they were bogus and now I know for sure, will put in junk email list.

Thanks Marv, I have never met you but I bet you are a great person to know. I received a friendly little message from a stranger who sent me an invitation to join the namesdatabase. I meet so many people sometimes I just cannot remember if the person sending me the invite is a stranger or not! However I act on the side of caution always and I do a search on Google for the key word to the site to see what comments there are on it before going in. I am glad I did. Your blog came up 5th on the first page. I trust honest sleuthing! Nancy B (Montreal)

I used Google to search for a long-lost friend. Her name came up in two hits - one of them being a namesdatabase page. Unawares, I clicked on the link and found myself on a page that did, indeed, include her name, along with a few others who may (or may not) be her family members.

I was pretty excited and started clicking around trying to get more information. Inevitably I ended up on the front page and almost began registering.

But for some unknown reason, I thought to myself that perhaps I could extract all the name from Google if I tried harder. I entered the search string 'namesdatabase' and your page was the first hit. It wasn't what I was looking for, but the title was pretty self-explanatory and I was intrigued. I read your article - thanks for the explanation.

In all due honesty I would have registered with a false name to begin with, but now I'm pleased I didn't. I almost was suckered into it. It's sad that countless thousands have probably been fooled into "signing up" already.

I used Google to search for a long-lost friend. Her name came up in two hits - one of them being a namesdatabase page. Unawares, I clicked on the link and found myself on a page that did, indeed, include her name, along with a few others who may (or may not) be her family members.

I was pretty excited and started clicking around trying to get more information. Inevitably I ended up on the front page and almost began registering.

But for some unknown reason, I thought to myself that perhaps I could extract all the name from Google if I tried harder. I entered the search string 'namesdatabase' and your page was the first hit. It wasn't what I was looking for, but the title was pretty self-explanatory and I was intrigued. I read your article - thanks for the explanation.

In all due honesty I would have registered with a false name to begin with, but now I'm pleased I didn't. I almost was suckered into it. It's sad that countless thousands have probably been fooled into "signing up" already.

thank goodness for your site, man. I have been getting these friggin' emails from some dude named dale nelson inviting me to namesdatabase.com. at first, i deleted them. then, i threw them in the junkmail and blocked the email address, then i got paranoid (smart) after i got more from dale nelson because i don't know anyone by that name and thought it odd that www. wansn't before the web address and googled it and found your site! you are a good man. thanks again! go to bugmenot.com if you need anykind of info to paste into some website offering you a service. i dont give my stuff out to anyone, ANYONE anymore!

hey man, i completely agree with your perspective towards this very painstaking & good for nothing site. I myself had tried it out & it was really a very frustrating experience.
Congrats on ur gud wrk.

Hi! My gf was victimized by namesdatabase.com just this week. I received an email addressed from 'her' to all FIVE of my email addresses, including my cell phone 'inviting' me to join this site. When I called her, she had no knowledge of the site or the company, and denied ever sending me such a message. It turns out that her machine had been infected with spyware. It took her entire yahoo mail address book and spammed everyone in it, in her name!!! No doubt it took her password as well. I've been googling to find out more about this scam, and came across your blog entry. This company is only interested in one thing. Collecting as much personal information about people as possible. There are two other sites run by the same people. http://www.resumes365.com/ and http://findoutmoreaboutme.com/. Both ask for personal info, but give you nothing in return.

Furthermore, they flat out lie about your privacy. In the namesdatabase 'about' page, they state: "We enable people to remove themselves from The Names Database at any time, which instantly and automatically deletes any personal information associated with the profile removed from The Names Database." However, in their TOS they state: "You grant Opobox a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free right to (a) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat Your Information in any media now known or not currently known, and (b) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Opobox will not pay you for Your Information. Opobox reserves the right (but not the obligation) to remove or edit Your Information, but does not regularly review Your Information." Once you've supplied them with YOUR data, its THEIRS. They will never remove it, and make no bones about selling it.

If anyone else reading this has received an email inviting them to join namesdatabase, contact the sender and make sure it was them that really sent it. If they didn't, I want to hear about it!! I have already filed a complaint with the FTC, and am gathering information from other victims. This may lead to legal action. I can be reached through AIM as dazed and bemuzed, or the email link below.
Please include 'namesdatabase' in the subject. Thanks!

Good Man, Marv. I got one with my cousin's name on it. I figured so much. Someone should put together some code that inundates sites like these with bogus information to thwart this data collection.

This comment is from the support team at NamesDatabase. We believe that in the blog post and in these comments there is some confusion about our service. We are hopeful that we can clear it up.
First and foremost, we are very sorry for any trouble our service may have caused you. We intend no harm and we work hard to resolve all outstanding issues that are brought to our attention in a timely fashion. A detailed explanation of our service can be found at
https://namesdatabase.com/explanation.htm, which is linked off of all main pages at our site.
A few brief points of clarification follow. If you have further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to put in a support request at https://namesdatabase.com/support.pl. We really try to respond very quickly.
The absolutely only way we get information is from individual people themselves. In other words, all the information in NamesDatabase is from members entering it in. We save server logs so we can help you find out when and how your information was added to the site if there is a question or concern about how it ended up there. If your information was added by someone other than you (rare, but it happens), we would be happy to remove it for you.
Actually, anyone can remove their account information at any time. We have an automatic removal process that involves sending just one email with a special subject line. Directions detailing this process (with a pictorial example) can be found at our support page listed above.
Finally, we have not nor have any plans to sell any individual's information to third parties. We are just a simple service trying to help people worldwide keep in touch with old friends. Millions of messages have been sent through our site for that purpose, and we at the support desk routinely receive thanks for successful reunions.
Thank you for your time and for giving us the opportunity to share a little about our service. Again, we are very sorry for any trouble our service may have caused you, and we look forward to resolving any outstanding issues you may have as soon as possible.

I got such an email invitation from a friend of mine. I am generally suspicious of such sites. I thought right away that the "counter" had to be fake and the field for maiden name was also suspicious. But I KNEW that this site was very shaddy when in order to register you HAD to invite three additional friends. And if you typed in a nonsense email like sadfkjh@kjhsadf.com it told you to correct it. Anyway, I closed my browser at this point. However, a few minutes later I got an email from the helpful people at namesdatabase.com titled "how to access Names Database". It gave me a "unique access link" that it said "will bypass all sign up and referral pages". Clicking the link took me to a page where I was asked to tell them where I went to high school.

Then I read the following:

"Please also note that this message is a transactional relationship email that was explicitly requested by [my email address] from The Names Database at NamesDatabase.com using a computer with the IP address of [my IP] on [time stamp] while signing up for a Basic Membership."

The thing to note, however, is that I never "explicitly requested" anything. All I did was fail to complete their registration process.

Take a look at their "terms of service":

http://namesdatabase.com/terms.html?c=

It says things like "You grant Opobox a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free right to (a) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat Your Information in any media now known or not currently known, and (b) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Opobox will not pay you for Your Information."

The previous post from the namesdatabse "support team" says they're "just a simple service trying to help people worldwide keep in touch with old friends".

I say, bullshit. If they want to be seen as a legit service then they should act like one.

hey,
on their start page is an counter. it's funny to see how it counts new members without data flow between my pc and internet.
take a look into source code: just an simple javascript ;) with an comment: "This is very close to the real number of members."
cheers

Here's one of the latest versions of the scam (it was originally in HTML, so it appeared differently):
"
From :
Sent : Wednesday, April 19, 2006 6:55 PM
To : [address removed]@hotmail.com
Subject : Apr. 06 Update
April 2006 Update from The Names Database
This April 2006 update is from your free account created 02-08-2004.

View Who's In: from your MSN Hotmail Address Book.

Search: 24,099,347 Registered Members

Members from Your Extended NDB Address Book
[name removed]
[name removed]
[name removed]

This monthly update is from [name removed]'s account at The Names Database
created on 02-08-2004 on NamesDatabase.com and last used with the IP address [removed].
To manage updates, login using the links above and go to the Account section.
To prevent future update emails with your account at The Names Database, please use this link.
This is a transactional relationship message associated with your account at The Names Database.
Please note that this monthly update is from an email address that does not accept replies.
"
This includes links to their website which reads:
"
The Names Database TM
Making The World A Smaller Place.TM

Import Your Hotmail Address Book

Enter your Hotmail Username & Password below, and then click Continue.
(Or click here to abort this process and go back to your account.)

This will check your Hotmail Address Book within Hotmail.
Next you will be able to select which contacts to add/invite.

Hotmail Username: [already entered for you - how convenient]

Hotmail Password: [this is all you have to give them to become a victim]

Please note: your Hotmail Password will NOT be saved. [yeah right you bunch of F$$$ing liars]"

enjoy your life as everyone from your address book is sent REPEATED messages from an address that is spoofed to look like yours.

basically, someone else already gave them your name & e-mail address. They use this to steal your password. After that, they use the names & addresses in your account to phish for other names & passwords.

strange! its been two years since this post is online, yet the namesdatabase forwarded mails keep coming to peoples' inbox. so either the site is authentic, or the spam protecting companies are all lame.

i recieved an email telling me some ma. cristina something something (who ive never heard of) was asking me to join. Being a victim of cyberstalking lately, i am one of those who are seriously paranoid when such a thing pops up. But surprise surprise, I even recieved one in my uni email as well. WTF? I gave that to nobody, forwarded that or allowed that to be my contact email in any website for work, personal use or academic purposes. How in the world do they get this shit?
Probably run by some Eastern European or out of his basement in the middle of belgrade or Chernobryl. It really gets to me. Working in research I for one know the implications of being part of a databse, all that we need in quantitative research is a few key information about your choices and we can build a likely profile about your economic situation, financial and personal persuasions to benefit any corporate entity selling goods.
*sigh*
The gall of that a*hole pretending to be a satisfied costumer. gave himself away when he started to defend his "fake" javascript counter. if your gonna try to disguise yourself, at least be convincing. I really wish they should be closed down. The practice of this website intrudes on personal privacy, made worse by the fact that in comes as a wolf in sheep's clothing.thanks marv for warning the rest of the world. I just hope that people have read your post before they actually do click that damn link.

the site is still alive and kicking - i just got spam from it "from" a friend... =P

I put in decoy email addresses, and I got spam going to those addresses starting about 1.5 months after I submitted the addresses, and they are still getting spam - been doing so for months.

I'm not talking about the other junk from namesdatabase, I'm talking about getting real spam about "business opportunities" and crap like that.

I did not use the decoy addresses for anything else at all, and they do not show up on any google search at all.

Whether or not namesdatabase themselves send spam is irrelevant to me.

Fact is: I signed up some addresses that are only used once for that purpose, and 1.5 months later they got spam and continue to get spam.

this scam sucks and is very annoying and i think it should be illegal to go into my address book without my permission period. this is my personal contacts and information on my personal computer...who the **** do these people think they are?...is there no legal recourse?

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the 'remember personal info?' button below?

I signed up for this malarky, but stopped short of entering my hotmail password, after being stung by WAYN. They're a bunch of wa*kers too

I would like to cancel my account, but cannot find out where to do it. I'm not mad or anything, it just isn't working out for me. Please advise or cancel my account and advise me. Thank you.

Okay, EXPLAIN this....

I got a NDB invite (with my friend's name and email addy in the Subj: line) from a friend who says, SHE NEVER SENT IT. NEVER HEARD OF THE COMPANY. NOTHING.

How does that work? How does namesdatabase.com get my friends name, that she never submitted, associated with mine????????????

If "they" are building databases of our cellphone numbers and who we call, why not emails??

I've had two of these, from two different companies, from two different friends, who both say they know nothing about them.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT!

i just sent them an email to their only address tell them they are cunts.
and asked why cant they run a legitimate business. i just want to know is google clean. haha. as soon as i saw namesdatabase.com i knew it was suss. these things pop up constantly, this is probably the worst attempt.

The funniest was their attempt at defending themselves anonomously:
"You are mistaken. I have a membership, and it works great. I was able to see schoolmates that have signed up before I joined, and I saw people I wanted to contact. Then I joined and wrote them, and it worked fine--they wrote back in a few days and now we are back in contact. I also have tried the meet new friends part, and that works too. Good way to meet people in other countries."
(previous blog)
why dont they just post a fucken ad on the page

I just received an email from them, "September 2006" update it's called, where they offer the possibility of updating my list of friends on the site by browsing automatically through my address book.
In order to complete that, I am redirected to a page where I simply have to enter my email address and the password I use to access it in 2 tiny, cute little input boxes...
... and to never ever ever press enter!

The guys at NamesDatabase are scum. Thanks for the great post. Luckily I used false info cause I was suspicious. But so many others won't.

I guess they've had a lot of crap, they actually test for bounced emails now.

One more thing - I hope they perish in Outer Darkness where they belong. Based on my digging around - they'll know what I mean and more importantly, they'll know they are headed their. Scum!

Yeah, I also got one of those emails. These guys are SCUM!

Something you're all missing - You're giving them your full name, year of birth, e-mail address, and (optionally) your maiden name. Then a few screens later they are going to ask you for a $12.00 payment. How? Electronically, of course. Now, even though your maiden name may not necessarily be your mother's maiden name there are enough genealogy websites out there that it would be fairly easy to discover your mother's maiden name. So you have given them a credit card number and expiration, birth year, e-mail address, possible access to your mother's maiden name, your full name (likely how it's billed on your credit card statement, right?) You have just paid someone $12.00 to have the privilege of being a victim of identity theft. This site should absolutely be shut down and investigated - but probably won't because you are giving them all of this information of your own free will. Please don't fall for it.

Namesdatabase is an absolute fake, i have to agree. I have found that you can enter any email address, be it real, or not, even garbage, and it comes back and tell you that that person has been invited already etc etc. What a bogus story. People must not be so naive! Great post, i wish more people could know about this...

I need someone to send me an example resume that's worth a shit. I haven't found one yet that is. I do not have any college education, but I have sales, custm service, data entry, and secretarial exp. I am looking for administrative jobs or something with a professional atmosphere.

i added my name on namestadabase and cant delete it cuz put fake email... HELP!!

I WANT TO BE REMOVED AND CANCLE MY MEMBERSHIP,AND THE PYMT.PUT BACK INTO MY ACCT. HOW DO YOU DO THIS AND HOW DO YOU GET IN TOUCH WITH THESE PEOPLE ON NAMESDATABASE TO DO THIS.THANKS

I need help to find a family named borriot, but I dont know why whith this site web I can not do anything, the only thing I know about them is their name, borriot, and maybe that they live in europe, but I dont want to contact them, I just want some information about this family to know if they know something about my past, and what I am, please, I need help, really, maybe this family is mine!!!

The link to the namesdatabase cancel page is:

https://namesdatabase.com/support.pl?c=4636880&q=removing

The comic visited the land for the first time in decades to promote his anRrpWTYnkmcou new animated movie about bees, and he was treated like royalty literally