Due Diligence Tools and Techniques

Using Linkedin Anonymously 

Linkedin can be a useful due diligence tool as it contains relevant information on individuals including their employers, employment history, education and publications. When looking up profiles on Linkedin for due diligence purposes, more information is available if the searcher has a Linkedin account. At the same time, it can be desirable to search anonymously so that the target of the search does not identify the individual conducting the due diligence. In these circumstances it can be useful to enable Linkedin’s anonymous ‘profile viewing’ option, as shown below. This allows the searcher to view profiles without revealing their identity.

Advanced Web Searches

Major web search engines such as google generally offer advanced search tools that can be helpful in uncovering due diligence related information.

Google Site Search

Googling the following will identify any pages on the site mentioning the exact term, export control. This approach can be taken for any website and with any keyword. It can also be used in combination with Boolean operators (see below).

Domain Search

Similar to site search, Google allows you to search a country’s entire internet domain (i.e. .ru in the case of Russia) to identify keywords. Domain searches are generally best undertaken in the country’s own language.

Boolean Search

Some web search engines such as Google allow the use of Boolean operators. The following returns results that mention China.

The following returns results that do not mention China.

Way Back Machine

It is often useful to be able to refer to older versions of a website particularly in the context that information cab be removed from websites to obfuscate a company’s role. A useful tool for this is the Way Back Machine (https://web.archive.org/), which is a project of the Internet Archive. Over the years, the Way Back Machine has taken copies of many websites. Although it is less likely that the Way Back Machine will have captured clones for obscure websites, it is worth checking whether the platform has stored previous copies of any site of interest.