Digital Bits Technology Column QnA

Question:

We have a need for finding the owner of a GMAIL address. Could you help? How much would it cost us?

Answer:

Google Gmail does not have a user directory. Further, Google will not release a Gmail account owner’s personal info, including name, without a court order. With that said, if you are reporting illegal activity, or the user is causing harm or maliciousness in some way, you can indeed work with your local authorities to open a court order. Find Google’s language on these specifics at this link.

If this is not an option, and you simply need to find a person for non-abuse reasons (and simply emailing them won’t work), then perform a search on their email or portions of their email address. Many people use the same information across multiple accounts. For example, “johnsmith31415@gmail.com” may also have a FaceBook account called “JohnSmith31415″. This is the type of relational search you could try that may show results.

Finally, there are services that perform a fee-based “reverse email lookup“. That is, you give them some money and an email address, and they give you information about the owner of the account. I personally have never used such services, so have no idea of they’re legitimate or useful.

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