Personal Information On the Internet

[Miss Linda]

I have just been made aware of a site that provides personal information such as name, address, spouse and children's names and ages, financial information, etc. Some of the more detailed information is available for a price, but available nevertheless. The site is Spokeo.com . I was extremely upset when I discovered it, but opting out of their "service" so that your personal information is not visible is easy and free. Just click on the 'privacy' link at the very bottom of their home page and follow the instructions.

I also discovered that WhitePages.com has similar information available, and if you are willing to pay for a subscription they too will provide you with detailed personal information about essentially anyone. I went to their "help" section and found out how to remove my information from their database.

Apparently these services glean information from a variety of public sources and then aggregate them into one place for easy access.

One mildly amusing aspect about this was that both sites listed me as married--and the husband was an Indian man with five syllables in his first name. Apparently somewhere along the way I managed to get married. Funny, you would think I would remember doing that. You would also think that I would occasionally see this phantom husband of mine. My apartment is pretty small. Perhaps he hides in the closet while I'm home and only comes out when I'm at work. Maybe he's very shy.

[Pastor Matt]

Thanks for the info Linda. I also noticed that alot of the info on Spokeo was wrong for me. It said I make over 150K a year. I know I live in Ct where I hear everyone is wealthy and rich, but they got me wrong in the finance area and a few others. Someone along the line I lost three kids too.

FYI: You can remove your listing here http://www.spokeo.com/privacy

[1Timothy115]

I just went there the other other day to check up on me after a friend passed me the site via email. I appear to be well spread out...
I'm in 26 states!
There are 22 of me in my home state.
Nationwide there are 139 of me.

I checked for me in every state I've lived in and none of them are me. Heh, I'm under the radar and probably because I stay off social networking sites and sites that sell my information. I prefer my animosity with the world...God knows where I am and will look me up when His timing is right.

[Wilchbla]

You won't find me on there.

When I got my fingerprints for my CDL-A HazMat endorsement the folks at the TSA couldn't find any records that I was a citizen even though I sent them photocopies of my license and S.S. card along with my fingerprints. Talk about "flying under the radar".

Edited January 18, 2011 by Wilchbla

[HappyChristian]

Just a heads up on removing yourself from Spokeo - you will likely have to do it once a year or so. I removed myself from there about a year ago only to find that I was on there again last week...

[no name joe]

They get this information from public places on the internet. So, really, if you disseminate information on the internet and open it to the public such as facebook, twitter, etc., they can go get it, and they also probably use the phone book. I can find many people and much information about people without Spokeo if they have openned themselves up on the internet. THis site is not evil, it just compiles the data that you have already published., I do not think there is a privacy concern or breach. Just make sure your user name etc. on facebook is private and that you do not disseminate information on the internet that you do not want to be public.

I suspect Spokeo started this chain e-mail, and people jumped on it and passed it on as a way of free publicity to the site.