People search engine
A people search engine is a vertical search engine that searches the Internet solely for personal information .
introduction
People search engines can be differentiated based on the preparation of the search results:
- Search engines that extract the data found for a name (e.g. photos, addresses, messages, etc.) from websites and aggregate them on a search results page.
- Search engines that individually list websites found for a name with relevant data (profiles in social networks, news, etc.) on the search results pages (SERP).
Services based on search ads (e.g. Google Earthquake), biography databases and address directories (e.g. telephone books) can also be categorized as search engines in a broader sense .
People search engines can also be differentiated according to the form of data processing .
- Search engines that build their own search index and store personal data.
- Search engines that perform a live search and only display the data they find.
technology
The search index or the live search can be set up either via an API , which is used to transmit data sets (e.g. from social networks), or via a crawler that searches the web and indexes websites.
Website operators can use microformats for the semantic identification of personal data on websites; so there are B. Microformats for people or for social relationships. A detailed documentation of the XFN (XHTML Friends Network) and hCard standards is available on the microformats.org website. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have started an initiative with Schema.org for a standardized vocabulary for structured data on the web. A format for the semantic identification of living, dead and fictitious people is also documented here.
Individualization of data sets
Individualized data records can be assigned to exactly one person. This means that in addition to the person's name, characteristics must be added that uniquely identify the person, mostly the life or impact data (pseudonyms, life data, occupation ...) serve this purpose. In addition to individualized data sets that uniquely identify a person, there are data sets that can only be traced back to a name, i.e. H. may apply to more than one person.
A challenge for people search engines is the individualization of the data sets - i.e. the clear assignment of data obtained from various sources to a person. For example, several people with the same first and last name can live in the same city. In this case, no clear assignment is possible. When the data found was aggregated, information about different people would be mixed up.
Data protection & law
People search engines that provide information about living people are subject to the provisions of the applicable data protection laws . It is not clear which international jurisdiction a people search engine is subject to in cross-border conflicts. Example: The company headquarters of the people search engine is in one country (e.g. USA) and the person from whom data is being collected lives in another country (e.g. Austria).
Even if people search engines only find data that is generally accessible, this data is processed by various people search engines in such a way that the representation is viewed critically by data protection officers.
In Germany there are already various judgments on people search engines. To display images in search engines, z. For example, in April 2010 the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) pronounced a judgment according to which there is no copyright infringement if the images were originally published on the Internet with the consent of the person concerned. In another decision, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court found that a person search engine is not liable as a troublemaker for any violations of the law by third parties. The LG Cologne has decided that the use of preview images by a people search engine does not violate the personality rights of the person depicted if the person publishes the image on the Internet without securing it from access by third parties.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Haimo Schack: International Civil Procedure Law . 4th edition. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54833-4
- ↑ Data protection agency: Person search engines incompatible with German law . heise online, August 16, 2007
- ↑ Hannes Obex: Legal hurdles for people search engines . ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 1.6 MB) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: DFN-Infobrief Recht , 11/2009, 2ff.
- ↑ Janine Seidel, Judith Nink: People search engines . Legal issues . In: CR - Computer und Recht , issue 10/2009
- ↑ Playing thumbnails in Google Image Search is not a copyright infringement . April 29, 2010 (BGH: I ZR 68/08).
- ↑ Photos in result displays of people search engines . June 16, 2010 (LG Hamburg: Az. 325 0 448/09)
- ↑ Person search engine operators are not liable for infringements of third parties . November 13, 2009 (OLG Hamburg: 7 W 125/09)
- ↑ Commentary on the judgment of the OLG Hamburg. Internet Law, November 16, 2009
- ↑ People search engine does not violate the right to own picture . LG Cologne: Az. 28 O 819/10
