A website – ucloo.com.cn (UCLOO) – is offering for sale the personal data of 90 million people without the permission of those involvedThe data that UCLOO sells includes telephone numbers, home addresses, job status, instant messenger addresses, and even personal records on property, bank credit, and marital status. The information can be used to locate and identify individuals for personal contact.
UCLOO claims that their database of 90 million people is the easiest and most direct way to find Chinese people worldwide. They say it can help you look for people from your past whom you’ve lost touch with. An investigation by Beijing Youth Daily found that the database used by UCLOO is very similar to that of China’s biggest alumni directory website 5460.net.
Luo Wen from 5460 said the data UCLOO is using was stolen and that 5460 intends to sue them. However they are having difficulty finding UCLOO’s parent company.No telephone or address for contact is listed on the UCLOO website, only an email address. Our attempts to contact them through this received no reply.
A person named Randy Ding registered the global UCLOO domain in Seattle last May and also a Chinese domain in Xiamen in November. How this mysterious company could collect so much personal data within a single month remains a puzzle.
Luo said 5460 has taken measures to restrict access to their database of clients and will cut back on the time allowed for searches of the data it contains.
