My blogging friend Fabulously Broke alerted me of Spokeo this morning.
According to their website, Spokeo is a “people” search engine that aggregates all publicly available data (including but not limited to: phone directories, social networks, marketing surveys, mailing lists, government census, real estate listings, and business websites).
While a quick name search will bring up cursory information, paid members can access even more detailed data.
I knew that after being active on social networks for years, my information would most likely be listed. What surprised me is that they had the wrong information. More specifically, their information was vastly outdated — they had me listed as still living with my parents, circa 1999! And NO, my parents’ house is not worth $1 million (we wish!).
They did not have any phone numbers or emails listed, which is a common complaint by most visitors of the site. However, the information they did have bothered me, so I clicked on over to their privacy page and asked to be removed from their public search engine.
IMPORTANT: Since Spokeo gets their data from third-party sources, removing your information from their searches does NOT mean you’re in the clear. You would still need to contact those third-party sources separately and ask to be removed (or change your privacy settings).
I did a search for J and was pleased to see that he was not listed. The same for my sister. However, some close friends were listed, so I will be emailing them shortly to let them know.
I highly recommend that all my readers click on over to Spokeo to see what personal information is out there for all to see!
