Warning: Your Personal Info Maybe Listed Here (spokeo)

Removed my wife's and my info.

Unfortunately, the only way to remove your listing is by providing your email address -- which becomes immediately part of your record...

They don't take trashmail.net addresses either.

It sure has the information there.

Once you do it you info is no longer available. If you think that they don't have your email already, then go get another one from gmail, live, hotmail, aol, etc.

This is an outrageous abuse of people's private information. I can only imagine how potentially dangerous this will be for people.

Given the recent events in Arizona, this type of aggregate info should never be available to the general public. Stalkers, freaks, and psychos anyone?

I hope someone sues their backside off for a take-down order.

Calm down folks. This site doesn't have any "private" info. They just gather public info and consolidate it in one spot.

You can find out the same information about someone by spending 10 minutes on Google.

The worst thing you can do is go on the site and tell them who you are. Why? Because even if you use a disposable email address you are still giving them your IP address. Which they can then sell to marketers to identify you across the web.

If you're concerned about online security then stop using facebook and stuff. Or at least don't use your real name!! Common sense.

It even gets worst, above where you typed your name there are other option like user name. Take a few user names from here and see what comes up.

I don't use any SN sites at all, and this is only one of the reasons why.

Nothing there to really worry about. The pictures weren't pictures of me.

] I beg to differ with you but an IP address does not give you my name address, phone number, my children's names, the address of my lake cabin. The IP address relates to the utility that registered it. My IP address shows my location in Missouri because the utility that I use is registered there. I'm in Minnesota.

Both Wikipedia and Snopes have a good write up of the site and are worth reading for the pros and cons of opting out.

Bilson - if that site contains your "name, address, phone number, children's names, and address of your lake cabin" then all of that info is somewhere on the internet that is publicly available to anyone who wishes to search for it. Opting out of this one site isn't going to do one thing about removing all of that information from the internet.

As far as your IP address, you're correct. The IP address itself doesn't reveal any personal info. But as soon as you go to that site and opt out, you've told that site who you are. So the site can now link your personal info to your IP address. Think about it for a second.

to monitor and police personal information collected when you are online, especially if you shop, take surveys or even worse, download cursors and smiley faces. Just look at the protection you need when running any of the Windows operating systems: at the very least, you need an anti virus program, you need a spybot program, and you need an anti malware program. The only way to stop this cradle to grave data that's collected is to not use a computer, or if you want a much safer operating environment, loose Windows and go to any one of the Linux operating systems.

Thanks for the tip. This is very interesting to see; it really is a natural product -- albeit a little bit scary, too! -- of the electronic nature of public records today. Not sure I want my information so easily found!

Didn't see anything about myself. I don't use social networks either.

I hate that companies collect personal info and sell it to whoever will pay. Social networks are big offenders, specially facebook (whole family is there, except me)

Agree that the information is somewhere and it is all public info. Now it is at one location, but shutting down my listing it would take someone a lot of time to collect it. Why make it easy for someone? All I'm trying to do is let people know that it is there. What they do about it is their business. I do not understand why you had to make a negative statement and imply that the info can come from your IP address. It almost makes me feel that because you didn't post the info you then try to find fault with it. Believe me, the last thing that I would have thought was that someone could be negative about the knowledge that this site existed and that they could remove the info if they wanted to. With that said, I will not make further comments.

Interesting in that if you go to the site with a hidden IP then it doesn't work. Anonymouse.org lets you surf with a hidden IP.

hm....

I'm obviously not getting my point across to you. Let me try to explain it again.

If you go to that site and try to remove your personal info you are probably actually making things worse for yourself.

Right now when you surf the web you are anonymous. The only information the websites/marketers can see is your IP address. So they can track you across the internet via your IP address and keep track of the various websites you visit and stuff you look at. But that doesn't do the marketers much good because they don't really know who's operating the computer. The just know an IP address.

But once you go to Spokeo and try to remove your personal info you have now told them which IP address goes to your name.

I'm just trying to keep folks from making a mistake. The natural reaction is to try to remove your info from sites like Spokeo, but if you're not careful you can actually reveal more info about yourself!!

If I'm wrong then why doesn't the site work with a hidden IP address? Because mmullins98 tried it and said it doesn't work if you use a hidden IP address. Hmmm........

Not really correct. The IP address that the vast majority of users display is one provided by their ISP on a temporary basis. It is not a permanent personal identifier . . . .

. . . . unless of course you have a static IP address, or a domain name attached to the address, something very few people have (If you have a dynamic IP and domain name, they'd have to do a reverse lookup when you sign in to delete your data to figure out the domain and record the domain name (rather than the IP) for future reference - even fewer among us have that implemented).

Browsing to a shopping web site provides tracking information through cookies, not your IP. And cookies can easily be cleared.

However, as others have mentioned, the site has nothing on it that isn't available somewhere on the web (which is where they got it) and none of the data is 'private' - not your home value; not your phone number and so on, unless (for example) you have an unlisted number; And even then, if you've posted information somewhere on a board or on the Usenet your data is then exposed for the harvesting.

If Spokeo doesn't have it, then Google and the rest do.

If Spokeo agrees to stop displaying your information, why wouldn't you believe it? If you provided them with an e-mail,address and the information about the IP address that your ISP has provided at that time, then all they would now know is who your ISP is and your e-mail address, which they will have agreed not to display in any case.

So I suggest you relax and delete it if you wish - but realise that anyone who really wants to know this stuff can find it anyway. And if it is their business to find data, then they can find it (and a whole lot more) very quickly.

hehehehehe

My home is worth $600k? Give me half of that and it is yours. Picture of the wrong house, I won't say which is ours but it isn't shown in the pix. In short, it isn't anything for me to be worried about and all of the info they show is available on the county auditor's web site. Except the auditor has the correct info.

i am afraid.... when you provide an e-mail address to them for taking out of your list, how much info can be obtained from inside of this e-mail account?
But, seems there is no choice if we care about "privacy" which is only honored by gentlemen (and lady).

Google had the same thing back several year ago that you could google your name and all the info came up.You had the same option to have your name removed.

I looked at the site. The information about me is incorrect. I have search the internet from google search and the same information comes up that the site has. Name correct, address correct, husband correct but the child listed is incorrect and my children are not listed.

This site has nothing on it that I can't get from a phone book, printed or on the internet.

As long as this is all they have on me it should be ok.

PS: I have googled my name and my birth record comes up with my parents names and my date and place of birth. Everything is out there without this website.

So I appear to be on the website, but the information seems incomplete and rather old. I haven't lived at the address listed since June 2007 and the phone number is just as outdated. Also appears to claim that my parents (both unknown) live in the same residence, which they don't - they aren't even in the same State.

Thanks for the heads up, in my case it was good for a laugh.

I did a search for me, and I'm not even on there. There were a couple others with my name, but had a different middle initial and none were anywhere I've lived. Kinda surprising, since I don't make too much of an effort to hide myself. Just use common sense.

Read the article like this quote suggest there are other sites with the same info,and to get the information it has to be paid for,much to do about nothing.

lots of bad info there:

Lists my friend, deceased since 2006, that still lives in this house with a wife and child -- and he was divorced years before and the wife and child never lived there at all.

It's sad to think that someone would waste their money to pay this site for the extra information that is more than likely bogus.

Oh well, tis the nature of the internet --

and remember, beware the Streisand effect!

If you cast a very big net, you will get something. May also have lots of junk as well. you just have to sort it out yourself what is true, what is useful. And, that's the hard part.

at a house I moved out of 7 years ago, the photo of the house is wrong (even the wrong street), a phone number I no longer have, it says 3 people live there (2 adults & 1 child) but my son never lived there.

What a bunch of useless, outdated garbage.

So it's another people search engine. What's the big deal? Most of the search hits on spokeo are outdated info (places that we've moved out of years ago). Mylife.com has been around longer than spokeo and it has more accurate info about me.

If you seriously worry about spokeo, you'd have to worry about other people search websites. Ultimately you'll have to delete the internets to get rid of your publicly available info.

Not a big deal. I use social networking sites, but I don't use my real info on any social networking site.

If you're smart, and just take a little care, sites like Spokeo are of very little concern.

on our household - but agree with the comments - no way I would give them an email address or any other accurate information.

Thanks for the warning. The opt-out process worked instantly. I have a special gmail account used only for purposes like this (e.g. opting out of online databases). I haven't been getting any spam on it so far. Lucky maybe.

Always having a junk email address is a handy tool, yahoo gmail hotmail, all work just fine for signing up for or unsubscribing to services and product databases.
I use one to do all, never read any mail unless the need a confirmation, then I do a delete all and leave. I now get little or no spam in my real accounts.

A lot of sites like that have been around for years and probably much better. 2 are http://www.intelius.com/ & http://www.standard.netdetective.net/login.php

Thanks for the information. I found myself listed 3 times. I requested removal using two "throw-away" Hotmail email addresses. I had to use two because their site would only allow me to use the first one twice.

thx a bunch...

Just went and removed my info. Thanks for the heads-up.

Not quite true. Even if you never use a computer they will still be able to gather data on you through a very large number of ways. Some of these are credit reports, credit card purchases, public records such as deeds, driver licensing, auto registration, insurance, tax records, etc.

How true. "You" may not use a computer, but "they" do...

And Obama says that with his plan our medical record will be available to all medical organization. SURE!!!

This just proves to me that they will be open to anyone who pays.

I doubt there is anything anyone can do to keep their information private; short of never doing anything in their life that would generate any kind of trail.

Even if someone were able to do that, there would probably be a birth record on file somewhere for that person. In addition, if the parents took him or her to a doctor for any checkups or immunizations while he or she were a child there would be records for that.

The parents would also need to get a Social Security number for the child in order to claim said child on their tax return. That would be another record.

Hey, Republicans are just as guilty of this. Hello, Florida?! Jeb Bush didn't seem to have any problems with this at all. And, many others as well.

This is not a Dem thing in the least.

You're right it's not a Dem thing and I applaud what you've posted. Unfortunately there are some who would blame the Democrats for all of the problems in the world, no matter when they happened.

To find the main source of this problem, you have to look behind the scenes. Or, as they say, follow the money. Who stands to gain from this info?

It's time the world stops being so partisan to political affiliations, and starts looking at who will truly represent them for the greater good.

This is not just a North American problem. It's a world problem. People need to stand together, and stand up for what is right for everyone.

It has been reported that world food prices are at an all time high. Why? We can produce food more easily and quicker than ever before. How can this be? It's simple, follow the money.

Corporations are the new mafia. They dictate Gov policy.

Truer words have never been said.

That, my friend, will never happen until people get away from their selfish belief that only their side is right and all other sides are wrong.

You are so correct!

And they will continue to dictate the policy until the people smarten up.

We're doomed.

But the info is about 15 years old.