Stop Spokeo.com in its Tracks and Protect Your Privacy – NOW
May 5th, 2010. By AbiK
If you hadn’t been aware of a newer site in town called Spokeo.com, it’s time you gave them a visit.
As you can see from the image here, you can “Uncover personal photos, videos, and secrets…GUARANTEED”. Tantalizing and titillating, yes. Acting with a shred of integrity or a nod to Internet privacy and online protection? No.
As they say, “It’s not your grandma’s phonebook.”
No, it sure isn’t. For a mere $2.95 a month (one year subscription) you and just about the entire webosphere can access quite a bit of info about you. What types of info? Take a little look-see…
Your address
Photos of you
Your online profiles
Credit rating information
The demographics of where you live
How many people (and children) are in your household
Your zodiac sign
Your interests and hobbies
Your home’s worth
Your marital status
Your ethnicity
Your education level
And more!
Now, yes, one can argue that all of this information is generally available online in various places—some free, some not. But, Spokeo.com comes along and aggregates all that info for anyone to see and puts it in a neat little package—a package of YOU—for a mere $2.95. It reminds me of actuarial work where values are placed on a life, or a limb—and they always seem a tad bit low given what a life or limb truly represent to those who own the life or limb. I’m thinking $2.95 is a pretty low value being placed on our personal details and online privacy.
GET YOURSELF OFF SPOKEO.COM NOW.
Here’s how:
Visit www.Spokeo.com. Enter your name and location in the search box. You’ll see a bunch of info come up. Some of it will be accurate, some not.
Scroll down to the very bottom of the page…to the teeny gray-colored type at the bottom and look for the word “Privacy”. Click on it.
A pop up window will appear. This is the screen where you can remove yourself, your information, your life from Spokeo.com.
Toggle back to the original page you were on. Go to the URL bar at the top and copy that URL.
Return to the privacy page. Paste the URL you just copied into the first box where they ask for your URL.
Enter your email—you need to do this so they can bounce back an email to you to verify that you’re removing your information.
Finally, in the last box, type in the squiggly characters you see. And click “Submit”.
You’ll receive a confirmation email in your inbox. Click the link in the email to verify, and double check (search your name again on Spokeo.com) to ensure you’ve been removed.
Do it now.
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Thanks for the heads up. This site is creepy! Have you investigated their partner – Reputation Defender? I'd like to see more info on that.
Keep up the good work.
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admin Reply:
May 6th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Hi Cindi, Thanks for your comment! No, we haven’t delved into Reputation Defender yet, but will check it out–thanks. The level of online access to private information is, indeed, creepy. It’s reached a fever pitch and I have to say it’s sad when an “all access” pass to your life basically costs less than a gallon of milk…
[Reply]
admin Reply:
May 6th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Hi Cindi, Thanks for your comment! No, we haven’t delved into Reputation Defender yet, but will check it out–thanks. The level of online access to private information is, indeed, creepy. It’s reached a fever pitch and I have to say it’s sad when an “all access” pass to your life basically costs less than a gallon of milk…
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I think both Spokeo and BeenVerified are pretty interesting people search sites. However, they have to really make sure their personal data is accurate or it could cause problems.
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There is a problem with this simple solution as the instructions come from spokeo's website. It might remove the display on spokeo but it wont stop the sales of the same identity information being sold to other companies. That same information is still there, sold but not displayed, and this is not a solution. This does not stop the sales of the same identity.
"You can also remove your Spokeo listing from public searches for free. Please note that removing your Spokeo listing from public searches does not remove your information from the third-party data sources. Your information will still be shown on other people search sites, and you will need to contact those third-party sites one-by-one, or use ReputationDefender to protect your online identity. "
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Why has no one started a class action suit? The information on me is very misleading!
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How do I get them to remove my picture which is being used for everyone ion the country with my name ?
James
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admin Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Hi James, I'm not completely sure –and it's an interesting question as it clearly works the same way a google image search works–you look for one "john doe" and you get every john doe's image. I may have to look into this more–have you tried contacting their customer service or "contact us" yet? I'm curious as to what their response was…thanks for bringing this up.
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admin Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Hi James, I'm not completely sure –and it's an interesting question as it clearly works the same way a google image search works–you look for one "john doe" and you get every john doe's image. I may have to look into this more–have you tried contacting their customer service or "contact us" yet? I'm curious as to what their response was…thanks for bringing this up.
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"Aprx credit score & wealth" is and invasion of privacy and potentially harmfull to ones character. Why has some young eager lawyer not gone after these guys! Can you imagine the jury after their names were pulled up! Not an attorney here but: Say the term libel when referring to the written defamation of someone's character. Libel is the defamation of an individual's or an entity's character which is published in a written medium, such as a newspaper. However, any written communication can be libelous as long as it's transmitted to a third party.
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Steve you have a good point but the damage is done once one posts harmfull and potentially wrong information on the net. Removing it does not matter once your reputation has been tarnished.
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