I first learned about Spokeo from David Horowitz consumer column in the Costco Connection magazine this weekend.
Horowitz, whose website fightback you should check out even though he charges for his personal advice while I give it for free, thinks that the personal information aggregator site Spokeo is spooky and frequently contains erroneous information about you and your family.
Of course I had to check it out this morning to see what it had on me.
I found that Horowitz is right:
It had my right cell number, that I am a Virgo, right street, some of the email addresses I use, right age but had all kinds of other things wrong:
It said I live in Springfield, was single (my wife would be surprised to see that, but since she is so busy with school and work she won’t be reading this), had my son living with me, had my wrong house number, picture of the wrong yard, shows I have an advanced degree (love it since I flunked out of college more than once), and says we have no central heating or central air. Doesn’t mention if we have a bathroom or outside facilities.
Now that was the free information. I decided not to waste my money for the extra paid info, but if anyone did, would love to know what you found out.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by George Gombossy, Kristina Zack. Kristina Zack said: Spokeo: Check Out Spokeo.com To See What The Internet Thinks It Knows About You http://bit.ly/aOf3Fw ..scary! [...]
I don’t think consumer columns are the best sources to learn information from. They’re always so one-sided and feel the need to include some sort of scare factor to reach the mainstream. I heard about Spokeo a few weeks ago and I don’t get why people are freaking out about it. Yes, there is inaccurate information for some of the listings, but all they’re doing is aggregating public information that already exists. They’re a search engine.
Tommy, thanks for taking the time to write a comment. I am curious, what did I write that was one-sided or inaccurate? George
I have a subscription, and I actually really like Spokeo. I use it for both personal needs and for work. They’re only compiling information that’s already out there, which may not always be correct, and they state several times that they can’t guarantee results. Spokeo is great as just an extra tool for researching phone numbers and email addresses, managing your contacts and all of their social networks, and I honestly like the name searches just for fun.