PagesJaunes Adds People Search

The French directory publisher PagesJaunes has made a significant move by acquiring 100 percent of the Austrian people search site 123People, which has a global audience of more than 40 million unique visitors in 11 countries, according to the PagesJaunes announcement. Terms were not disclosed.

Here is how PagesJaunes CEO Jean-Pierre Remy describes the deal:

“We are delighted to have acquired 123people, which fits perfectly with our growth strategy and reinforces our leadership in people search on the Internet. 123people is a genuine Internet success story and will enable us to accelerate the growth of our audiences and offer advertisers additional visibility and traffic. With this acquisition, PagesJaunes Groupe will significantly increase its total audience, strengthen its expertise in natural listing and benefit from new synergies between 123people and the Group’s sites in France and Spain.”

123People acts like a personal reputation management tool. It aggregates all the places where an individual appears online. I did a search on myself and found various photos of me, as well as of others who share my name, links to blogs I’ve written, videos I’ve posted, pages online where my name appears and so on. It’s a useful site to find and learn about other people, and to track the various ways in which you appear online.