
Show HN: ContactOut – Find Anyone's  Email and Phone# - robertaoliu
http://contactout.io/
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brazzledazzle
I know this is just using what's publicly available but I do feel mildly
creeped out. But since I'm not the target market that's probably an
endorsement.

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username223
This just looks like the same address-scraping that spammers have been using
since the 90s, plus some half-assed attempt to link them to real names. People
who want to be contacted will make it easy to do so; those who don't, won't.

Are you actually proud of having created this thing?

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hughes
Can you tell us a bit about how it works? Or what has changed over the last
year since you first deployed it?

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robertaoliu
we crawl the web and index emails, then link them to names / social profiles.
Have gotten 3x more emails since we initially launched last year.

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applecrazy
Nice app and website, but I don't see the benefit of using a Chrome extension
versus a normal browser web app. I understand that you can use it to find the
phone number of a person on your current webpage, but I think it should be
secondary to the web app.

Especially since you're targeting business users, you should create a polished
webapp for them.

Also, I think many HN users would agree with me on the issue of privacy. In
order to use the extension, I need to grant it permission to read and write
data on all websites that I visit. Not saying you're evil, but this means (in
theory) you could sell by browsing history, my interests, or even my data
(again, not talking about you, but in general).

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scoot
Get ready for GDPR.

1\. You need consent to handle PII (doesn't matter that you scraped it) 2\.
Massive fines for data breaches

Good luck!

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rhubarbquid
Wow, that's super creepy

This looks like dream tool for stalkers

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dsl
Where is the opt-out?

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initself
I just tried 3 random contacts using a premium account, no dice on the email
or phone number.

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jjjjeshy
Its a bit scary, but totally useful. I tested it with people I know, and looks
like people who use different emails for fb/linkedin tend not to have as much
info available. But the number of mobile phones you have on there is crazy.

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robertaoliu
lol much controversy

