"Not your grandma's phone book"
This link was posted in a political forum I sometimes frequent and people got all up in arms over the supposed invasion of privacy, but after visiting I saw much of the information was wrong and other had to have been gleaned from online public records.
For example, it lists my age as several years older than I am and takes about fifteen years off the length of time at my current residence. Not only does it get the time wrong, it lists my house value at 1 million dollars.
I wish. (it also says my neighborhood is "under average", which is correct, but what am I doing in a mansion in a lower middle class neighborhood?
The most annoying thing about my personal info on the site is the list of interests. Some things are true and must have been shared from websites I've joined and surveys I've taken. It has a lot wrong, such as I like country music and that I own dogs, among other erroneous "facts". It also under-represents my education level.
I checked several members of my family, and found the same pattern of wrong information. I also plugged in the names of a few of my online friends and found what I think are errors. Under the photos tab I did see my sister's picture, but there are no photos of me online, at least none that are connected with my "real name".
Of course, to get the sensitive data such as credit reports and criminal background, you'll have to pay. If they get the simple stuff wrong, it makes me wonder about the validity of those "private" things.
spokeo
May 3, 2010
spokeo
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2 comments:
I had been tipped off about spokeo last month and they had much of my info wrong too.
I know that what they had was considered "public' information about me but I still used the "opt out" link they had and had them remove my "profile" associated with two email addresses I still use.
Lord knows what they have on me by the many now defunct email addresses I used to use back in the day of multiple passports/hotmail accounts. Sites like that are kind of creepy.
I've been meaning to post this for about a month; I bet that, considering the speed of sound on the 'net, that both the person and who tipped you might very well have been made aware from the same source, you reckon?
Anyway, I thought I'd get them to delete some of my information, so I plugged in some email addys. What freaked me out was they had some information in THREE separate accounts about my browsing at Amazon. What got me was that it mentioned some products I had looked at not but a few hours ago!
I think Google has a lot to do with this, they make a ton of bucks off of the information they glean about you, from email to searches.
I am really considering getting my own website and getting away from Blogger. As much as I love my blog, it's part of Google and Google is more evil than they let on.
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