Word of warning

[DisneyFirefly]

Just so you guys know, there's a website called Spokeo.com. They harvest all sorts of information about just about anyone they can. They had my entire family, my best friend and her husband, and a lot of other people I know. You can have your information removed, but you have to do it manually. I think this is a huge invasion of privacy, especially since they claim to not use Facebook or Myspace and somehow had on my page that I'm in a relationship, but I've only put that on one page that's attached to my name, which is my Facebook. So, just so you guys know.

Also, to remove someone from the site, you have to have their page address and go to this site: http://www.spokeo.com/privacy It has instructions on how to do it, but it's basically just a fill-in-the-blank thing with a CAPTCHA. They allow two removals per email address and five per IP per day.

Added: Someone pointed out that Snopes has them listed and is theorizing that they may just be collecting email addresses for Spam purposes. http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp So, I guess just use your own discretion.

 

[Aisling]

Someone told me about it yesterday. I deleted all the names of my family member.

Then I checked some old boyfriends.

 

[DisneyFirefly]

I think these kinds of sites are ridiculous. There's absolutely no reason for them, you know?

 

[aristocatz]

How do you manually get rid of the info on it?

 

[DisneyFirefly]

You have to go through the privacy link.

http://www.spokeo.com/privacy

The instructions are on there. They allow two removals per email address and five per IP per day.

 

[mykidsand_i]

Wow, that was interesting. I searched for myself and my family- and a HUGE amount of my info. was incorrect. My husbands name was wrong, my phone # was wrong, my age, birthday, What I enjoy doing (was TOTALLY off!!!) and it said my est. home value was over a million and that I had a pool (it's not and we don't)...

I don't like my info out there- but this was quite interesting. I wonder where this info. comes from? Because my facebook page info. doesn't match my stuff on this site.

 

[Ms Marigny]

I just checked mine and most of the info was wrong! Wrong race, said that I had no children, said that my house was worth more than 1 million , wrong astrological sign...pretty much all of it was wrong. I wonder where they get their info from?

 

[DisneyFirefly]

I honestly haven't got a clue where the info comes from, since my dad was on there and he doesn't even like having a Facebook page. A lot of it was wrong, but for us, there was pertinent information that we didn't want on there. Our addresses and phone numbers were correct, so I have no idea. It had my uncle still living in Washington, but he's been back in Chicago for at least twelve years.

 

[Mommy2cody]

LOL only had me by my madien name. It did have the correct address for when I lived there, but it said my house was worth 1 mil plus!! LOL! Im sure...I couldnt find anyone I know!

 

[aristocatz]

You have to go through the privacy link.

http://www.spokeo.com/privacy

The instructions are on there. They allow two removals per email address and five per IP per day.

Thank you so much for posting this.

 

[DisneyFirefly]

LOL only had me by my madien name. It did have the correct address for when I lived there, but it said my house was worth 1 mil plus!! LOL! Im sure...I couldnt find anyone I know!

Yeah, it had my best friend under her maiden name and her husband still living in their hometown, but her living in their current apartment. It's screwy.

Thank you so much for posting this.

You're welcome. Like I said, I think it's an invasion of privacy, so I thought I'd spread the word about it because there's so much identity theft going on.

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Double posted, sorry.

 

[kimmar067]

Someone told me about it yesterday. I deleted all the names of my family member.

Then I checked some old boyfriends.

 

[kimmar067]

...that was scary - especially since a lot of stuff was WRONG! It included a pic of someone else's kids!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Millian dollar home and this mystery man lives with my husband and I. (We have gotten junk mail for him for 10 years.....same last name, but noone by that first name. But spokeo says he exists. )


I don't know--my fake life sounds neat...expensive house--but my credit stinks. Decisions, decisions.

ETA: How do we delete? I really don't want to pay them to join just so that I can remove my data.

 

[Mono~rail]

http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp

Snopes speculates that the real intent of the site may be to collect email addresses.

Someone posted this on FB a few weeks ago so I checked out our info. The only thing they had correct was our names and that we are married. All the other stuff was so far off track it was hilarious. I got a good lol out of it.

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Millian dollar home and this mystery man lives with my husband and I. (We have gotten junk mail for him for 10 years.....same last name, but noone by that first name. But spokeo says he exists. )


I don't know--my fake life sounds neat...expensive house--but my credit stinks. Decisions, decisions.

ETA: How do we delete? I really don't want to pay them to join just so that I can remove my data.

http://www.spokeo.com/privacy That page explains how. I love how the information on how to get off the site is all the way at the bottom in tiny grey text that almost blends into the background.

 

[terri01p]

 

[mykidsand_i]

Most of the stuff that is on sites like this is other places online too. I looked at my moms- her phone number was correct, but that was about all! She isn't chineese/asian and she's not in her 40's...nor does she enjoy skiing, jogging or have an income of over 100,000 every year.

The thing about it is- when the info. is incorrect like this, I'm not too worried. AND the stuff that is correct on most people's info (some have correct phone # and address) can be found on legit sites, like the yellow pages or in the phone book. Yeah, it's scary to have all that info. out there, but no matter how hard we try, if we've been doing ANYTHING online, our info will be on hundreds of sites...just like this one. And when we think it's all under control, a new site will pop up...

People are so into being online nowdays (me included)...and every time we sign up for something online or open accounts with facebook, twitter, other similar places- our info. gets put out there. It stinks, but it's the new 'way of life' in our generation of 'online everything'

 

[pepperw23]

haha. It said I was a rich African American woman with no children living in a below average neighborhood in a 1m dollar home.

I am a white middle class woman with two college age children. No million dollar homes around here ha ha.

What it got right: I'm 41...yep, I used to live at that address it listed...when I was 18 with my Mom and dad ha ha. I like to shop, and I am not real in to politics.

Scarily it got my income correct.