New site feeds off of other Web sites

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (KGO) -- A new Web site is claiming to be the next step in on-line social networking.

A new Web site is claiming to be the next step in on-line social networking. Spokeo.com was created by a group of Stanford graduates.

It takes your e-mail addresses and finds out what your friends are doing on several websites, including MySpace, YouTube and Amazon.

In a tiny office in Mountain View, this could be the next big thing on the Internet.

"Spokeo basically finds what your friends are doing across the web," said Harrison Tang from spokeo.com

With so many social network sites on the Internet, Harrison tang and a couple other Stanford graduates decided to bring it all together on one website: Spokeo.com.

To get started you have to enter your email address and password.

"And we'll search those contact emails against all the social networks out there," said Tang.

If someone from your contact list is posting something on one of the 36 most popular social networking sites like MySpace, Pandora and Flickr, it shows up on your spokeo screen in seconds and tracks those people for future updates.

"You're not going to go across how many social networks that we track and find your friends one by one. That's just too tedious," said Tang.

Spokeo has grown exponentially since its public launch two months ago. They have users in India, China, Russia and Latin America. They have investors looking at them right now, and they're hoping to see their business grow even more.

Spokeo doesn't notify people that you're looking at their online content.

Employers could easily track employee's online adventures and ex-boyfriends tracking ex-girlfriends without their knowledge.

Stanford professor, Hiam Mendelson, says technology brings new concerns, but doesn't see any ethical problems with spokeo.

"It's unreasonable to expect the site to notify the person who is being tracked, In the same that its unreasonable to expect Google to tell you when someone searches your name," said Stanford professor Haim Mendelson.

Tang says spokeo will not track Web sites marked private, but with his friends it doesn't matter he believes younger people are more open with their virtual identity.

"Before 2003, no one would ever imagine putting their photos online," said Tang. And in 2008, spokeo is taking social networking to the next level, whether you know about it or not.

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