How to track down the people you hate

When a survey suggests that almost 40 per cent of British internet users spend one day a month looking for people online, my first reaction is that a people search engine is the last thing we need.

This is why I am not in charge of yasni.com. This is a search engine that does nothing else but find people by trawling through sites such as MySpace, Google and Facebook. For the 70 per cent of people who spend 10 hours or more per month searching for themselves, their friends or their most hated enemies, this cut save hours. And free them to find even more of their Nemeses online.


So, yasni looks like the perfect solution for spies and vengeful creeps, especially now that YouTube and Wikipedia have been added to its search base. "Although we are very aware of the public’s growing need to spy online, I find it quite unbelievable that people are willing to waste so much time doing so," said Andy Barr, CCO of Yasni. 

"Would you rather spend the majority of your evening looking online for your friends or perform a quick search and then actually spend quality time with your friends and family instead? The answer seems obvious to us.” 

Hmm, perhaps you should ponder why Brits are spending so much time online in the first place.