A Sea Of Red

I don't know how many of you are familiar with http://www.spokeo.com/ but this site frightens me a little. It's a site that gathers info on you from the phone book, social sites, etc and makes a profile of you without your knowledge. I ran into it last Friday when someone searched my name on it and sent me the link. It had a lot of stuff about me right, but it had a lot wrong as well. I'm sure at some point that someone will sue them for putting up personal information without their permission or putting up false info about them. Go search your self. I know some of you guys (the ones who are OK with foursquare and Gowalla) are OK with this, but I find it a bit scary since I have kids. I'd rather everyone not know haow many kids I have and where I am. Anyway I've removed myself and my wife. You can do this under the privacy tab at the bottom.

Here is some of the about us section from their web site:

About Spokeo
Spokeo is a search engine specialized in organizing people-related information from phone books, social networks, marketing lists, business sites, and other public sources. Most of this data is publicly available on the Web. For example, you can find people’s name, phone, and address on Whitepages.com, and you can get home values from Zillow.com. That said, only Spokeo’s algorithm can piece together the scattered data into coherent people profiles, giving you the most comprehensive intelligence about anyone you want to find.

Spokeo’s innovative technology has received numerous accolades and reviews from Newsweek, WSJ, PCWorld, and more. Millions of people have already used Spokeo to connect with their family members, old friends, and business contacts. Try and see what Spokeo can find about you today!

Spokeo is located in Pasadena, CA. Contact us for any questions.

The whole thing is a little big brotherish (without the government) if you ask me.

I searched myself, and it said:

1. I have kids (which I DON'T);
2. My home is valued at $1 million (which it's NOT).

My wife showed that to me a couple of weeks ago. It says my favorite music is country. Where could it have possibly gotten that idea from? It was wrong about a lot of things.

It said that about my house too, but it had a ton of stuff right.

Cider Jim wrote:I searched myself, and it said:

1. I have kids (which I DON'T);
2. My home is valued at $1 million (which it's NOT).

Obviously, there are a lot of information that you are not sharing with your FF family.

its got that i'm a male and have 4 people living in my house. other than that i'm a janitor who loves gardening, enjoys quilting, and owns a home that is worth over 1 million dollars with no central air or heating in a below average neighborhood.

that website is fail

however i will be printing this off and stapling it to my census form.

Maybe I'm the only one they got right

all it is is published information that you published (facebook/myspace) or allowed someone else to publish (phone book). i don't see what so scary that it puts it together. if its scary to you, then dont' publish or give permission to publish your information.

i dont' see anything correct in my profile that isn't info i've readily made available anyway.

I'm African/American

RubberMallet wrote:all it is is published information that you published (facebook/myspace) or allowed someone else to publish (phone book). i don't see what so scary that it puts it together. if its scary to you, then dont' publish or give permission to publish your information.

i dont' see anything correct in my profile that isn't info i've readily made available anyway.

I have not publised any of the info that i'm worried about.

Rooster Cogburn wrote:

RubberMallet wrote:all it is is published information that you published (facebook/myspace) or allowed someone else to publish (phone book). i don't see what so scary that it puts it together. if its scary to you, then dont' publish or give permission to publish your information.

i dont' see anything correct in my profile that isn't info i've readily made available anyway.

I have not publised any of the info that i'm worried about.

you probably have.

Even though there privacy filters in place, I never post the names of my kids anywhere online including Facebook or Twitter. If you need to know their names, you already do.

I haven't checked that site lately but there only a half dozen or so people with my first & last name in North America and they had me confused with several of the other guys including one who works for Federal Reserve Bank. I wouldn't sweat the aggregator as much as the fact that we have as much intel about ourselves out there as we do,

All that said, I am seriously down with Foursquare & Gowalla. Nothing on there is something I would have a problem letting anyone know.

just about everything on there about me is wrong. apaprently i collect dolls now hahaha. it even knows when my house was built and what type of air conditioning it has. i wish the house was as worth as much as it says, its worth more like 1/4 of what spokeo says

I'm not even on there.

flamesbball84 wrote:apaprently i collect dolls now hahaha.

aka, Action Figures

They have a lot more wrong about me then correct which is ok with me. Age, marital status, income, home value, etc

Is this something that "Reputation Defender" can help fix?


What a waste of money that service is....

I'm 50.

Meanwhile, I have a kid named after my HS nickname.

I searched for the name everyone calls me, my middle name, and i wasn't in there. I then searched for my first and last name and i was on there. It had my address correct and even my parents names correct, however everything else was wrong. Said i was 50, living with my parents and a child. Man i hope this thing isnt a fortune teller.

It merged me with some poor sap who now lives in a town where I used to live (complete with my Twitter profile pic with his life). But I actually was no longer listed on there.

It was somewhat accurate for me, but even if it hadn't been, I decide to remove myself before they could improve their software.

You can do the same:

http://www.spokeo.com/privacy