PORTLAND, Ore. – Every time someone Googles Tony Birnseth - and clicks on his ziggs.com profile - he gets an e-mail alert.

It tells him where they were searching from and the time and date they did the search.

It's helpful for Birnseth since he runs an online business and is constantly looking for new customers.

"That indicates to me that they're kind of more serious," said Birnseth, pictured at left. "They are more interested in finding not only about what are the services my company offers but a little bit more about me and my background and my history."

Birnseth is part of a growing group of Internet users signing up to find out when someone is searching for them.

Several companies offer the service, including ziggs.com and naymz.com. The latter goes a step further, giving you the IP address of the person who is searching for you.

Every computer and web browser has an IP address that basically gives away its location. Click on that set of numbers and you might learn who the searcher is, what company they work for, or, at the very least, what Internet service provider they use - like Verizon or Comcast.

"I think one of the things that would probably surprise people is the amount of information that even the search engines keep," said Scott Hendison, an Internet marketing consultant and search engine expert.

He said it is important to remember that there's no such thing as anonymity on the Internet.

"People just have to realize that we live in a new age," he said. "Things are a lot different now than they used to be. There are a lot more ways of finding out information about people. And there are ways of finding out information about the people that are searching for other people."

People looking for jobs can use this to figure out which potential employer is looking at them.

It also might come in handy if you have a stalker you want to identify, or if you're just curious about who's researching you.

There is a fee for the premium alert services on both of the Web sites.

Ziggs.com CEO Tim DeMello said his service would never give up the searcher's name.

"We think that's a real privacy issue," he said. "And we need to make sure we always think about that."

For Birseth, the online businessman, the service is just another way to gather clues about who is looking for him and stay ahead of the game.

"I mean that's what kind of social networking is about," he said. "That's why you kind of lay your personal information out there."