Compare SEON vs Spokeo

Spokeo is a people search engine promising to be of aid to anyone seeking information about individuals and businesses.

The purpose of such investigations can range from forensics to business lead generation, as well as preventing fraud and scams. 

So, how does Spokeo compare to SEON’s lookup functionality, and which is better suited to your needs?

Both are frictionless and confidential, but there are several key differences. Let’s take a closer look.

About Spokeo

From the company’s Pasadena, CA headquarters, Spokeo started life in 2006 as an aggregator for social networks, famously out of the basement of the founder’s parents, per a CNBC article. It has since been featured in popular media outlets – such as The Huffington Post and Forbes – as a startup success story with an innovative product that went on to be valued at over $78 million.

Spokeo’s search engine only does manual searches, yet it does them very well, covering several bases at the same time as it returns results from consumer records, court and police databases, historical and business records.

You can investigate using someone’s full name, their online handle, email address or street address, phone number, as well as the name of a business. The results are useful in several different scenarios.

Similar to SEON, Spokeo also searches more than 120 social media platforms for a given email address, though this online footprint is presented as-is, without any risk scores or interpretation.

Though there is no automation that can help in fraud prevention, it can be useful at the manual review stage as a way to gauge a customer’s intentions and legitimacy.

Spokeo is undoubtedly useful to professionals and private individuals, from those in HR and the legal profession to consumers seeking to avoid falling victim to scams. There is an important caveat, though: Spokeo only works for search subjects based in the USA and is only available to buy if you are based in the USA as well.

Therefore, anyone who either is not in the States or needs to look up people elsewhere would be advised to instead consider SEON or another OSINT tool. 

Key Products

• Name lookup, including the names of businesses.
• Email lookup, returning the full name associated with it and several social media accounts.
• Phone lookup returning records linked to a landline or mobile.
• Address lookup, to find current and previous residents, ownership, property details, etc.
• Username search, where you will find all handles by that name – though not necessarily owned by the same individual.

Pros of Spokeo

• Long-standing, reliable product well known in the USA.
• Combines offline and online data including business details, property information, criminal records, etc.
• Searches diverse types of databases, returning more results than the industry average.

Cons of Spokeo

• Searches are limited to the US – and you can only subscribe if you are US-based too.
• No risk ratings, with results up to interpretation rather than presented in context.
• Quantity over quality: useful as a starting point to your OSINT search rather than concluding it.

SEON vs Spokeo Features Comparison Table 

Where Spokeo Wins over SEON

• Searches public databases, court records, business records, historical records.
• Casts a wider net when it comes to digital footprinting.
• Can start with a username or street address.

Where SEON wins over Spokeo

• Results always live – no stale data.
• Facilitates deeper understanding and interpretation of information, including risk ratings.
• Automation options, with AI-powered rulesets triggering actions depending on search results.

Further Reading

Learn more about:

Browser Fingerprinting | Data Enrichment | Device Fingerprinting | Fraud Detection API | Fraud Detection Machine Learning | Fraud Detection & Prevention

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