How would I go about doing this?

Canada
January 18, 2012 11:41am CST
A few of us are trying to track someone down, who hasn't been heard from since last October. He's disappeared from the web completely and no one knows how to find him. He ran a webhosting site, probably had his own servers, and hosted several websites including a few of his own. He went to upgrade one of the sites and was never heard from again. The last time he was seen online was October 26th. I've tried looking him up online, no success, and I can't seem to find him in any phone directory, but then again, since I don't live in the same country, this proves to be a challenge. I'm wondering how many people here are from Italy and know how to track people down over there, perhaps some sort of contact with the local police in Legnano. I believe this is a suburb of Milan. Quite a few of us are concerned for his safety, since we haven't heard from him, no one knows what to do. If you have any ideas, please post here and if you can help, I'd appreciate some options.
3 responses
@john3l6 (187)
• United States
18 Jan 12
If you know the hosting site name you can do a whois which most times has the owners contact info. such as phone number and email address.
• Canada
18 Jan 12
Good idea, but unfortunately his hosting company is registered to his partner, so it doesn't help us with the information we need. That's not something I would have thought of though.
@stk40m (1118)
• Koeln, Germany
18 Jan 12
Have you tried all contact paths like email, telephone (number hidden on his website?), YT account, facebook, nicknames etc to get into contact with him? If so and to no avail... well, I don't know how far the powers of the Italian police go in such a case. Maybe you could file a missing person's report there. They certainly have the tools to find out the identity of any person on the net but it's questionable if they are allowed to do so if there's no charge against him or if he's just missing on the net. But you never know until you try :-)
• Canada
18 Jan 12
We found a phone number and have found someone willing to call it and see what's happening with him. Now all we can do is wait. I hate waiting, especially for something like this. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he's still alive over there. Still no word though, so I have to sit tight and just pray.
• Nigeria
18 Jan 12
well i have done this beofre on facebook, i lost contact with a friend more than seven years ago,and i needed to see here again,i searched on facebook but here picture is not there, so i remember she was use to telling me about her elder brother, so i searched facebook for that name and there were couples of them, so i sent message to all of them one happens to be her brother and thats how i got my friends phone number and i got connected to her again.
• Canada
18 Jan 12
That's an option I am trying as well. I've messaged 2 people so far, both on his friends list, and one with the same last name. The other one I think is his wife, based on what I saw in pictures on his profile. I wait to hear back from either of them, hopefully I do, but I'm not getting my hopes up yet.