PARENTS BEWARE: SPOKEO.COM SOCIAL AGGREGATOR CHALLENGES FAMILY PRIVACY
Spokeo has been one of the top searched websites recently...it may be good for some but I believe PARENTS SHOULD CONSIDER OPTING OUT THEIR PRIVATE INFO to protect children.
SPOKEO.COM AGGREGATOR COLLECTS YOUR PRIVATE INFO
THE SPOKEO.COM WEBSITE BASICALLY COLLECTS DATA FROM ACROSS THE WEB INTO ONE SITE MAKING IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO DISCOVER DETAILS ABOUT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY...including pictures (for an extra fee), your home address, length of residency, children names, spouse info, neighborhood data, ages, occupation, credit rating,income and so on...
No, I am not naive enough to believe that we live in a bubble in this day and age but when Spokeo.com makes it easy and could potentially pull pictures you post on fb and elsewhere, I am concerned.
There are many parents out there who NEED their whereabouts to be as obscure as possible.
Website aggregators like Spokeo make it easy for the average joe to "research you" quickly including your children's names....
WHAT IS SPOKEO.COM???
There are proposed good uses for spokeo.com listed in this review of spokeo.com as a social networking tool that congregates data for people all in one place. Making it easier for people to keep up with others... AppAppeal's review
In AppAppeal's review in the comments section...readers discuss accuracy issues of the site. Since it is a collection of data about the person from across the internet, it has many "guesses" about your interests, education, home information and so on. Readers say that their personal profiles were inaccurate.
There are parents and others concerned about Spokeo and the website is facing alot of public scrutiny:
YOU CAN REMOVE YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION: HERE'S HOW
Spokeo's website claims you CAN opt out your private information . Here is a quote from http://spokeo.com:
"Spokeo respects your privacy, and we want to make it easy for you to opt-out of Spokeo search results at any time. If you don’t feel comfortable about your information on Spokeo, you can go to our Privacy page to opt-out right away."
At the time of this post....I could not access the spokeo.com website AT ALL.
But to be sure the opt out link is:
www.spokeo.com/privacy
Posted by Parenting Twins and More at 3/31/2010 11:07 PM 
Categories: websites, spokeo.com
Tags: spokeo review spokeo.com SPOKEO
Categories: websites, spokeo.com
Tags: spokeo review spokeo.com SPOKEO
Trackbacks
-
4/1/2010 2:49 PM
uberVU - social comments wrote:
This post was mentioned on Twitter by _ParentingTwins: RT @_ParentingTwins PARENTS BEWARE - Spokeo.com Discloses Info On Kids - OPT OUT http://bit.ly/bGDQeT #moms #parents
Unfortunately, you *can't* remove your private information. See the wikipedia entry (before Spokeo edits it again): "searches based on email addresses will not be removed by the company, and will continue to display results including one's name, phone number, and pictures, along with an invitation to buy access to a more complete report. The Spokeo website suggests that one remove such information from the originating websites. [8] However, because Spokeo caches information in its database, these strategies do not succeed in promptly removing personal information.[9] Whether the information will eventually be removed is unclear.[10]"
The only thing that's going to get our data -- and our childrens' pictures -- out of this database is a bully bigger than Spokeo. There's a "NO MORE SPOKEO" group on facebook now, with posts on how to file complaints with facebook, with Spokeo's DNS provider, with the Federal Trade Commission, and with the California Office of Privacy Protection, and there's also a link to a civil litigation boutique preparing to file a class action lawsuit against the company.
You can join the group at http://www.facebook.com/pages/NO-MORE-SPOKEO/113159098694287
Reply to this
Very interesting, I have not heard of this site or what they do. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe there are many more watching than what we think.
Thanks for the information.
Reply to this
Thanks to site's like this I recently gained a 25 year old daughter.
Reply to this
That is awesome...I think like facebook...spokeo can have real merits...
I do take issue with it however when a family has children and their names and other private info concerning them is displayed...
Thanks for sharing!
Reply to this
Hello, is the proposed class-action lawsuit against Spokeo you speak of in regards to a link on Facebook for
www.biklaw.com?
Thank you!
Reply to this
Hi there...I am not familiar with the Biklaw suit...
I'm sorry
Reply to this
Hi again,
What I meant was there is a statement on the post regarding facebook that states you can find a link to a class-action lawsuit there. I reviewed the links but did not see anything except what I spoke of. So if that is not the link that was being referred to can you please let us know what link so we can research it? Thank so much for your time - sorry for the confusion.
Reply to this
Oh my goodness...
Now that I am awake...one link refered to some grievances they had in the AppsAppeal review.
Then for a while they said their servers are down when I used the Privacy link. They are now up to remove private info.
The examiner post concerning facebook was written by someone else and I do not see the lawsuit info. There is no link posted that has that info....so sorry for any confusion!
Reply to this
some how I missed the earlier post. what is the link to the archives?
Reply to this
Trying to view this pic. Your formating is not viewing right with safari web browser on pc.
Reply to this