Monetizing People Search: MyLife.com CEO Jeff Tinsley (Part 6)
SM: What is the benefit of having a paid personal profile?
JT: By having a profile you can get access to the actual directory for your own benefit and be notified when people search for you. The demand for people finding each other is so huge it is shocking. The people who have gone out and found people quickly realize that we are the best at finding people. We have everyone in one place.
SM: How do you resolve duplicates? I went to your site and did a search for my name, and it came back with 13 results. All of them are profiles of me.
JT: It is a lot of work. We have over 1 billion records. The best records are probably at the top. We do a lot of work to pull this information together. The hardest work we have been doing is pulling the right kinds of records together. We want to tie the correct public record to the correct social profile and enhance that with user- generated data. We are not perfect at it, but we do have enhanced profiles from over 205 million individual adults in the United States alone. Those are clean base records of individuals which have gone through a painstaking process to ensure they are correct.
SM: How do people learn about MyLife? Do you do advertising?
JT: Fortunately, as we have a business that generates profit, we have been able to fund organic growth. We have been able to use the capital to advertise quite a bit in the marketplace. We get a lot of word of mouth and traffic from Google that we do not have to pay for. We run a lot of ads on the Internet and a lot of display. We have run a lot of Google AdWords as well.
You can even find us on WhitePages. If you do a search there you will see us below. We are willing to spend a lot of money to generate traffic and subscribers. We will spend more than $30 million in marketing this year.
SM: Where do you advertise?
JT: We are lucky in that we can advertise everywhere. We do advertise in the obvious spots where we know people are looking for people. That is the case with WhitePages and Google when people type in names. We have a mass marketing option which in the next three weeks will include television. We are going to have a campaign to let people know about the service.
We are able to fuel growth in this business because we generate a profit. In 2008 we grew 90% to $46 million in revenue. Last year we grew 41% to $63 million even though the consumer market environment was really tough. Now things are really picking up in the business because the service is better than ever.
SM: So you increased revenues by 41% to $63 million last year?
JT: We did. That was a tough year when a lot of people were down. We were fortunate enough to keep growing.
SM: Are you public?
JT: No. We raised capital a few years ago from Oak Investment Partners. We raised $25 million in our Series A. Fortunately, by the time we were interested in raising capital we had scaled the business and were growing very well organically.
This segment is part 6 in the series : Monetizing People Search: MyLife.com CEO Jeff Tinsley
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Why do you post personal information about people on profiles when they are not even members of your service? You posted my wifes home address. Having one of your fake " profiles" removed is next to impossible. Your Web site is a real bargain for serial killers and stalkers. I think that MyLife is dangerous and an invasion of privacy. It also violates Californias
"Online Privacy Protection Act of 2004"
"MyLife" should be shut down.
Agreed This DB is making money of selling info that is illegal……..tried to remove my info—–next to impossible…….shut it down
I never signed up, but clearly personal info is listed when I did the free search (it was censored but portions that were shown fit my info exactly!) Maybe I should have a word with the Attorney General of Colorado.
I agree with everyone here commenting. These types of business are run by people's fear. People pay for this type of business either because they fear that their almost too personal information is out in the public and they want to remove it or they were mislead and didn't realize they were going to be charged fees.
MyLife is a complete invasion of privacy! I looked for my name through a search engine and found "my profile!" It listed ALL of my previous addresses and birth year! This is insane, their claim is that they get their information from social networking sites, but I have NOT posted all of my previous address on any social networking sites! Sure, let the world know where I live! I then further questioned this and they told me they got it from public records and NOT a social networking site.
MyLife should NOT be compiling data on people without authorization, even if "the data is supposedly already online." This is a complete violation of privacy and this whole entire company should cease to exist.
This site is perfect for people that commit fraud and identity theft! Bravo MyLife.com!
I agree. Shut My Life down. It's an invasion of a private citizens rights!
Mylife spoofs you into thinking that you are going to sign up for a free account, but the reason it's free is because all they want you to do is enter in your personal information and create a profile of you without your authorization. Entering this data also validate their records as correct. Also when you search for someone, there is a mandatory selection that makes you choose why your are searching – Find a Family Member, Coworker, etc. This again is so they can create a relationship between you and the person you are searching for. It's all very misleading. The best thing to do is not use the website at all. If you are aware you will see that at every opportunity they are trying to gather information. They event keep records of your past searches. This folks are not to be trusted.
One thing you to create more confusion in their systems is to signup and create fake profiles and fake relationships.
Mylife.com a needed resource for Stalkers, Identity Theft, and Scammers…..Nice no I didn't give at any time a relation on any website to my brothers Ex-Wife from 15 years ago, no you shouldn't have access to information found on my Drivers License (including your address, dob and other pieces of information used for identity verification) This is the worst BS I have ever seen…. Atrocious through and through. I would like the home Address and Phone number of Jeff Tinsley (CEO of MyLife) posted for anyone to see, I would like his friends email addresses and pictures of his children for any scumbag to use. Wait they do have it MyLife.com ARE the SCUMBAGS….
I am naming Jeff Tinsley in my complaint to the Attorney General State of NY because MyLife gave my personal bank info to an outfit who has fradulently stolen from my account over 500 dollars.(MVQ savingsace)
unless I get my money back from MVQ by Friday Sept 23rd 2011.
the link below is to the complaint form for consumer action. i'd suggest contacting your local news stations as well; the more their exposed, the more complaints i'm sure they'll get.
http://www.consumer-action.org/hotline/complaint_…
REPORT THEM TO THE CALIFORNIA BBB:
This company practices what the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau (BBB) calls "negative option cancellation". In this sales strategy, customers agree to pay for services unless they cancel within a specified period of time. Members are required to cancel prior to the initial anniversary date to avoid continuing annual charges to their credit cards.[8]
Complaints from customers not resolved in a satisfactory manner caused the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau to rate Reunion.com 'F' in late 2008.[9] The BBB was concerned that the company used misleading advertising practices by e-mailing customers advising them that people 'may' be searching for them, and offers them to become paid members to find the identity of any people that may search for them in the future. In its FAQ section, the Reunion.com site describes this feature as follows: "'Who's Searching For You' will reveal the listed names of the specific users who have performed a search using your first and last (current or maiden) names and your age range within 5 years of your listed date of birth and is still saved in their Search History'.[10]
By late 2010, the rating had gone to 'A+', and the following summary and analysis of customer complaints and company responses was given:
“ Complainants generally allege that the company automatically renews memberships and debits accounts. Some customers report signing up for the service based on a low monthly rate but are charged for a non-refundable yearly or a lesser term subscription up-front. In some cases, complainants are dissatisfied that their information is posted on the company’s website and request its removal. The company generally responds by providing refunds and states that accounts are set to auto-renew at the end of the subscription term, unless the customer disables the auto-renew feature before the renewal is processed. In response to the amount of the charges, they state that customers signed up for a term account with a monthly subscription rate billed up-front for the entire term and is listed in several places on the order page. The company promptly removes profiles when requested and also states that the information was gathered from public sources.[11] ”
Less than a year later, the rating again went to 'F' and the company's accreditation was revoked, with the following factors cited as reasons:[12]
BBB Accreditation was revoked because business failed to honor its accreditation agreement with BBB
1185 complaint(s) filed against business
Business has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints
Advertising issue(s) found by BBB
The advertising issue was explained by the BBB as follows:
“ On June 20, 2011, we wrote to this company asking them to modify their website disclosures to more clearly advertise the cost of their services. Customers generally complain that they are charged for the annual membership fee rather than the monthly amount displayed on the webpage. The current offer does not display an asterisk to alert the member of additional conditions associated with the price offer. The asterisk that is on the webpage is not in close proximity to the price offer, and is in microscopic print on a gray background using gray font. We believe that the information referenced by asterisks should be clearly and prominently disclosed. The explanation of the asterisks is below the pricing information and is obviously confusing to consumers as delineated by the complaints we receive. The company submitted a response on July 13, 2011. The company generally disagrees with the BBB that their pricing methods are deceptive, and feels that the disclosures the BBB felt were questionable adequately convey the terms and conditions of the offer.[12]