Have you seen this ...

[hueyfan1]

Was talking to my daughter, and she mentioned this site:

www.spokeo.com

Have any of you heard about this site?  She couldn't believe it.  After listing her name, the site listed that she had her in-laws living with her for 6-months - among other 'personal' bits of information, such as her hobbies.  This site supposedly gathers all public information on you and publishes it !??

I tried to get onto the site, however, my MSNTV shut down.

Thought I'd share it though.

L

[seanfan]

Okay, that really bugged me at first, but when they said I "enjoy retail shopping", I knew that they don't know jack about me.  Not to mention my "below average" neighborhood.  LOL   It's anything but.

[hueyfan1]

When my daughter was repeating all the information this site displayed on her, she said it felt odd reading it.

I asked her if she had placed any of that information on her Facebook or Twitter page.  And we surmised that they got the info about her mother-and father-in-law staying with them, for a few months, from postal records on mail forwarding addresses.

Creepy.

She didn't mention anything contained on the site about her as erroneous.  But since you've found something erroneous ... it sure makes it less creepy.

[Lindsey]

It has to be postal records. It was fairly accurate when I looked up my family. It's crazy though. You can actually pay for a membership on that site and get more info. Crazy!

[hueyfan1]

Oh wow, Lindsey, so yours was fairly accurate ...

... sure makes you start to think about the information you put out there in cyberspace.

[Lindsey]

You know I was thinking maybe my facebook maybe the culprit for some of the stuff it had about my family... and it's really not. I told my mother about this and she was disturbed by it. I mean some of the stuff it had on there wasn't accurate but most... was. Now I looked up a friend of mine who has been divorced for over two years now and still had him being married and the age didn't match. So I guess in some cases it's accurate and some cases not so much. It kills me you can get way more info on there by paying for a membership.

[hueyfan1]

Hmmm, sounds almost as if this site has a list of criteria and trolls/searches the web for information to fit that criteria.   Also seems like whatever information spokeo finds, it plugs the information into that list and then possibly, randomly plugs in bogus criteria to complete the list you and seanfan are describing.

 ...  very bizarre.

[Lindsey]

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/08/business/la-fiw-lazarus-20100608

[hueyfan1]

Now that's what I call the double standard!

[drensie]

LOL, ok I had to check it out.  What I found interesting is that my home value was listed as $1M+ but Neighborhood was Below Average.  While if my home were REALLY valued at over $1M it would be above average for my whole county and I would sell, sell, sell! I'd be happy to get HALF the estimated value that they are giving me.

[Michael24]

Interesting. It shows me as being married, my occupation being "Professional/Technical," my Zodiac as Sagittarius, having a Graduate Degree, and being a home owner, all of which all false. Some other stuff is accurate, though.

It even shows my brother has having all of that as well, in addition to be early-30s, which is all completely wrong for him, too.

[hueyfan1]

I had my daughter put my full name in the name field and there was one lady, with my name in CT, that popped up.  My name wasn't even on there !!!

She said there are four fields you can enter your information on.  One is the person's name, the second is the person's email address, the third is by phone and the fourth is by friends.  When she was reading it to me, she said that your photos would pop up?

Just for the fun of it ... could somebody try the other fields and see what you get?

drensie's wasn't too far off, but Michael, looks like yours was waaaay off!  LOL

[seanfan]

I'm just glad they got my age wrong!