PSA: Breach of Online Privacy

[eumelia]

There's a new social network search engine in the neighbourhood and it is creepy!
It harvests your data, your ip addresses, everything and doesn't even bother to ask you if you want to be a part of it's database.

I don't relish advertising it, but people should know who is harvesting their data and how it's left completely breached.

It's called Spokeo and trust me when I say I did not expect to see my Amazon payment list there.
You can remove yourself easily though, which is what I did with all my verified email and will probably do with other searchable qualifiers.

Opt out here.

How you do is this:
1. search for email address or name
2. copy the url of the profile (from the top of the search window)
3. paste the profile url into the box in the privacy page linked above (the email address comes up automatically)
4. type the captcha
5. an email is then sent to that address and you click the link to finish the removal

h/t nixwilliams

Edited to Add: http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp

Comments

[yasaman]

Thanks for the heads up! I'd checked my real name on that site, and hadn't found anything close to accurate, but most of the stuff linked to my email was. I have no problem with finding my individual social networking/internet accounts, but having it all aggregated is definitely creepy, and I'm concerned about what other information they could collect.

[majoline]

When I checked my email, I found out that the subjects of my emails were on there.

Creepy. I opted out.

[ohsweetcrepes]

Oman, thank you so much for telling me this. This is one of the creepiest things ever. :|

[allchildren]

Ughhh. Thanks for this. DNW searchable email info.

[brewsternorth]

ARGH. Thanks for the headsup. There were only two accurate details on the results page for my two email addresses, but they were both pretty damn personal. (Geolocation and IP address, and if you've got both of those then you can track me down *very* easily.)

[defenestrated]

Oh wow, this is so creepy, thanks for this! (I wish I could get it to work on my end though, it keeps giving me a 'Email search removal verification may only be sent to the address being removed. Email must be [xxx]' message. :/)

[amikara]

It seems something is blocking a proper view, because I got the same error message when I tried to opt out (when I used FF with adblock and noscript), but there is an extra line between the url and the code where you have to put in your email adress.

[despedia]

... how creepy. Thanks, I removed myself from there!

[sarasvati]

Thank you for this. I think it's disgusting that a site will do this sort of thing without a person's permission. Granted, your average search engine can do much the same thing, but a search engine =/= a social network site. I wonder if it ever crossed their minds that people might want to, say, have a blog that they don't want connected to their name but still used the same old email address for.

Ugh, I opted out. And am very tempted to send them an angry letter, too!

[sarasvati]

Aaand it looks like they also have the ability to view complete information on a person's profile so long as you pay Spokeo. They're giving you a teaser and then demanding you pay them for greater details about a person who probably never signed up for the site in the first place. Absolutely disgusting!

[moonbathe_skin]

Thanks for this.

This is one of the things I dislike about the internet.

I never use my real name!

[freezepop]

Got this through people posting the link around on plurk. Thanks so much for posting about this. This is the only site I've seen that has ever come close to having this much information from just my email address.

I deleted my profile and changed my flickr account to a dummy email to hopefully detach it from my fandom activities. Thank you again for the heads up!

[zidane]

That is supremely creepy! Thankfully I came across a link to this entry on my LJ flist.

Thank you muchly for the heads-up and opt-out instructions.

[antimony]

Note that Snopes is saying there may be risks to opting out -- they may be using the opt-out as an email harvester.

See: http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp

[dancesontrains]

Ick, I thought that might be the case :\

[comixologist]

Well, I did the opt-out thing and I'm no longer in their records, so they are successfully removing things.

[damanique]

Wow, that's some scary stuff. Fortunately, nothing accurate turned up - funny, because it's not even that hard to connect my nickname to my real name. Instead, my name is apparently "Damanique Damanique". Nevertheless, I removed the listing to be sure.

And I'm pretty sure http://www.123people.nl is a similar service.

[ironed_orchid]

Thanks. My real name had no hits but my primary email linked to flickr and a few other sites, so it was good to get rid of that.

[idreamofcairo]

Here via a link on twitter. I searched both my e-mail and my real name. The stuff that showed up on my real name was scarily accurate, so thanks for the directions on getting it deleted. (How the hell is this site not a breach of privacy???)

[lunarwolfik]

That Spokeo thing is freaking creepy. I really really did not want all that information in such an easily accessible place, but clearly they thought otherwise. (it had my icons! and knew things about me that I didn't even know!)

Thanks for the heads up and the removal link! I now feel a bit more protected from crazy stalkers.

[eustacia-vye28.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I got linked here by a friend, and I'm opting out. I'm spreading the word over at my flist, too.

[dtn]

Was linked by a friend on LJ and spread the word a bit with my friends. Thanks for the heads up on this, I was not just shocked to find myself but my parents as well.

[astraldream]

"Email harvester" was the first reaction I had to that 'opt-in' feature. Seems like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Thanks Spokeo et al for exposing women, children and other victimized individuals to their abusers easier than ever!

It seems to be U.S.A. only - hits for "Jane Doe" (and my own name) return no results outside the U.S. I'm guessing because the EU and other countries with actual privacy protections would come down on them like a ton of bricks for violating all sorts of laws. Although that could be wishful thinking, considering that no one's been able to shut down the spam coming out of the U.S., which I understand is one of, if not the, major source of e-mail spam.