Intelius Buys People Search Engine Spock

imageUpdated: Intelius has purchased people search engine Spock. Financial terms of the deal, which was first reported by VentureBeat Thursday, were not disclosed, although Intelius co-founder Ed Petersen said in an interview that it was “hotly contested.” Spock has raised $8 million in two rounds of venture financing, but it’s in a crowded space. Even Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has entered the people search market with its introduction last week of profile results on the first page of some name queries.

The purchase of Spock will give Intelius an entry into the search market for unstructured data since Spock pulls its results from social networking sites and blog posts. By contrast, Intelius specializes in providing people search results and background checks based on data from public records. Spock