You *MAY* not want your personal info listed here

[windeyaho]

It has me there in two different states with correct addresses. In one state I had to use my work address because there was no home delivery where I lived. In another state I use a PO Box because the Post Office REFUSES to deliver to where I am located - they're scared of the driveway down to the river.....lol. Doesn't bother me if people know the PO Box number (that's for any of you that can find me), I can always rent another one. You see, I stopped using a home address a long time ago because of meddling with the mail at the street box - it's too vulnerable.

Wanna bet the Post Office is trafficking in addresses?

Spokeo has got me listed as two different nationalities - WRONG. They have my Zodiac sign wrong in one listing and correct in another. They have my income totally wrong - darn it. They profess to have pics but there are none. AND, if you want to go further than just what info is offered up front (you know all that gossipy stuff they use to lure you in) you have to PAY for it.....what a crock!

[biblegirl]

*removed*

[infinite_consciousness]

I'm on there... does anyone know who I could delete that info?

[biblegirl]

Originally Posted by infinite_consciousness

I'm on there... does anyone know who I could delete that info?

Go to Spokeo: http://www.spokeo.com.

Enter your name in the SEARCH box. If you go by several names, check them too. Also, check for the names of your spouse and kids. Every single entry must be individually removed.

Hit Search.

When your name comes up, click on the location that matches. (Prepare to fume!)

This brings up your profile for all to see. ** COPY the URL where your information appears. **


REMOVAL FROM DATABASE

At the bottom of the page is the word PRIVACY. http://www.spokeo.com/privacy.

Once there, paste in the saved URL, your email and the code provided.

Hit Remove Listing.

By return email, they will send you a URL that you must click or paste into your browser to complete the removal process.

[infinite_consciousness]

EDIT: Ok it worked!!! I'm happy now!

[biblegirl]

Originally Posted by willnotbesilenced

Also SEARCH using your EMAIL ADDRESS.

Trouble is, it WONT REMOVE you from email address listings.
Ive found I`m on there through my EMAIL address.
Not on via my name.

ugh this is terrible

i searched for my email and sure enough a picture of me popped up with my age and location

thank you for starting this thread

[bluefeather]

If the media gets their way, all we write on the net could soon be there for all to see; I wouldn't be able to post anything any more; if my empoyers knew what I posted I could be accused of all sorts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/te...2comments.html

News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments

'From the start, Internet users have taken for granted that the territory was both a free-for-all and a digital disguise, allowing them to revel in their power to address the world while keeping their identities concealed.

A New Yorker cartoon from 1993, during the Web’s infancy, with one mutt saying to another, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” became an emblem of that freedom. For years, it was the magazine’s most reproduced cartoon.

When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.

The Washington Post plans to revise its comments policy over the next several months, and one of the ideas under consideration is to give greater prominence to commenters using real names.

The New York Times, The Post and many other papers have moved in stages toward requiring that people register before posting comments, providing some information about themselves that is not shown onscreen.

The Huffington Post soon will announce changes, including ranking commenters based in part on how well other readers know and trust their writing.

“Anonymity is just the way things are done. It’s an accepted part of the Internet, but there’s no question that people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “I feel that this is almost like an education process. As the rules of the road are changing and the Internet is growing up, the trend is away from anonymity.”

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland recently discovered that anonymous comments on its site, disparaging a local lawyer, were made using the e-mail address of a judge who was presiding over some of that lawyer’s cases.

That kind of proxy has been documented before; what was more unusual was that The Plain Dealer exposed the connection in an article. The judge, Shirley Strickland Saffold, denied sending the messages — her daughter took responsibility for some of them. And last week, the judge sued The Plain Dealer, claiming it had violated her privacy.

The paper acknowledged that it had broken with the tradition of allowing commenters to hide behind screen names, but it served notice that anonymity was a habit, not a guarantee. Susan Goldberg, The Plain Dealer’s editor, declined to comment for this article. But in an interview she gave to her own newspaper, she said that perhaps the paper should not have investigated the identity of the person who posted the comments, “but once we did, I don’t know how you can pretend you don’t know that information.”

Some prominent journalists weighed in on the episode, calling it evidence that news sites should do away with anonymous comments. Leonard Pitts Jr., a Miami Herald columnist, wrote recently that anonymity has made comment streams “havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety.”

No one doubts that there is a legitimate value in letting people express opinions that may get them in trouble at work, or may even offend their neighbors, without having to give their names, said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s journalism school.

“But a lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher,” he said. “People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown.”

He said news organizations were willing to reconsider anonymity in part because comment pages brought in little revenue; advertisers generally do not like to buy space next to opinions, especially incendiary ones.

The debate over anonymity is entwined with the question of giving more weight to comments from some readers than others, based in part on how highly other readers regard them. Some sites already use a version of this approach; Wikipedia users can earn increasing editing rights by gaining the trust of other editors, and when reviews are posted on Amazon.com, those displayed most prominently are those that readers have voted “most helpful” — and they are often written under real names.

Hal Straus, interactivity editor of The Washington Post, said, “We want to be able to establish user tiers, and display variations based on those tiers.” The system is still being planned, but he says it is likely that readers will be asked to rate comments, and that people’s comments will be ranked in part based on the trust those users have earned from other readers — an approach much like the one The Huffington Post is set to adopt. Another criterion could be whether they use their real names.

But experience has shown that when users help rank things online, sites may have to guard against a concerted campaign by a small group of people voting one way and skewing the results.

A popular feature on The Wall Street Journal’s site lets readers decide whether they want to see only those comments posted by subscribers, on the theory that the most dedicated readers might make for a more serious conversation.

A few news organizations, including The Times, have someone review every comment before it goes online, to weed out personal attacks and bigoted comments. Some sites and prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, simply do not allow comments.

Some news sites review comments after they are posted, but most say they do not have the resources to do routine policing. Many sites allow readers to flag objectionable comments for removal, and make some effort to block comments from people who have repeatedly violated the site’s standards.

If commenters were asked to provide their real names for display online, some would no doubt give false identities, and verifying them would be too labor-intensive to be realistic. But news executives say that merely making the demand for a name and an e-mail address would weed out much of the most offensive commentary.

Several industry executives cited a more fundamental force working in favor of identifying commenters. Through blogging and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, millions of people have grown accustomed to posting their opinions — to say nothing of personal details — with their names attached, for all to see. Adapting the Facebook model, some news sites allow readers to post a picture along with a comment, another step away from anonymity.

“There is a younger generation that doesn’t feel the same need for privacy,” Ms. Huffington said. “Many people, when you give them other choices, they choose not to be anonymous.” '

[dude111]

Originally Posted by bluefeather

The Washington Post plans to revise its comments policy over the next several months, and one of the ideas under consideration is to give greater prominence to commenters using real names.

Fine..... People will just enter a bogus name thats all!!!

[krakhead]

I think this is very important so have stickied it for now. Pass this info on to as many people as you can. To me, this could be a really good way to 'awaken' those who continue to deny there's a problem with putting your info online.

[o_rourke]

I'm really peed off about this. I'm from UK and entered my email address and apparently it has a username that I use on another forum (not this one) and details of my job, gender, age, etc.

When I went into the privacy settings, it said that it can't remove email addresses (why the hell not???)

My question is that after entering the URL, email etc and then clicking on remove listing, will this remove everything except for my email? I.e. my username, company I work for etc, even though I haven't paid for a subscription to check it out?

[lauren_almighty]

I did name searches in the past but nothing came up.

I've just done a search for my email address and my full name, age, loacation and photo have shown up. It looks like it's from my facebook though so I'm not that bothered because I chose for that information to be up.

I searched for my mum's email and it has the same details for her only it lists her as a few years younger haha. But it seems to have every photo she has ever put online! It's the same for my family too!

I checked the Spokeo.com site and it seems to scan every networking site such as facebook, twitter, bebo and even photobucket and deviantart.

[yass]

It pinpoints the location of the computer accessing information also. When I went there, I checked a few addresses, then deleted cookies including flash cookies. Of the variety of email addresses I put in at each session, some showed the location of the person (where they should be) but for many I searched, it said they were in my city... but I know better than that, and I gather it must read my location through my IP address the second I am connected to the site.

[reader698]

I had another think about this.I remembered that a few years back,people were incensed to learn that Yahoo was dropping "permanent" cookies on users computers to track their online activities.You had to opt out of this from Yahoo's website.
I did a quick search and it may be related to this:

http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yah...s/details.html

When opening an e-mail account with Yahoo,the TOS basically says you agree to let them collect personal data.
So,you use that disposable Yahoo address to join Youtube or Stalinesquebook - bam,it's collated by spokeo.
I'm betting all our disposable e-mail address providers are the same.

[dude111]

Those cookies have NO AFFECT if you clean them AFTER EVERY SESSION!!

[petercookie]

Yeah, well i searched with my email address, the pictures and info are up, the only thing is the name is totally wrong Which is one good thing...... I have tryed to delete them but so far nothing seems to have worked, but i read this on there site -

3. How do I make my content private?

Our email search reflects only what is found in public profiles across dozens of social networks. If your name or picture shows up on the search page, this would mean that your full name is recorded in one of the networks, such as MySpace or Facebook. Please remove your name off of all the social networks you may be on, or set them to private, if you do not wish for this to be so. Please be informed that the updated information may not reflect right away, as our servers only update periodically due to the abundance of new information and updates made on the web each day.

You may block your name and phone number search results from the following link: http://spokeo.com/privacy Please note that this will not remove your information from its original sources. Read our Privacy Policy for additional information. Please follow the instructions carefully, and email our Customer Service if you have any questions.

http://www.spokeo.com/blog/?page_id=130#3

I hope they dont get info from this site <<<<< Eeekkkk lol, oh well, too late..........

[quetzalcoatl]

Tis times like these I'm glad I'm a sock-puppet!?!?!

[yass]

Here's the link for deleting flash cookies (which should be done regularly as possible).

http://www.macromedia.com/support/do...manager07.html

You can delete regular cookies through tools/options/privacy/show cookies, either one at a time or the whole lot of them. Sometimes it's best to do one at a time skipping over the places (forums, email, photohosts, etc.) you want to remain signed-in to, and sometimes it's best to delete the whole lot (especially if you've got a lot to go through from traveling a lot, or over time have accumulated). You may have to sign-in to your current accounts again, but it all comes down to math; which is less trouble, to rag through and delete one at a time or to sign-in to group sites and email again.

The super cookies (flash cookies) are scary. If you have a super cookie, you might delete the regular cookie, but the super cookie will turn around and add the regular cookie again right behind you. These can also read other cookies and share information I read about them extensively when the news broke about them at a forum.

Banks, forums like Godlike Productions, and other media install these super cookies on your computer and they should be wiped out as regularly as your regular cookies.

You should bookmark the Adobe Flash page that wipes out the flash cookies and use it regularly.

[biblegirl]

wish i knew what cookies were and why they are significant

[zero1]

Originally Posted by biblegirl

wish i knew what cookies were and why they are significant

A http internet cookie is a text file stored on your computer by a web browser, sent from the server you're using to access a particular site. It can be used for authentication, for monitoring your internet session and for other things, like spyware. You can turn off cookies on your browser, but that can make some sites unusable.

[ibaster]

Originally Posted by biblegirl

wish i knew what cookies were and why they are significant

Cookies are what Americans call Biscuits and Biscuits over here are like rolls or something. I think England had a better selection of cookies/biscuits. They are important trust me.