Have you figured out this whole Spokeo thing is a scam by now? It’s brilliant marketing, for sure. In case you have actual friends that live real lives free of their iPhones and PCs, here’s the deal. Over the last few days, word and outrage arose over the most vaunted and respectable of places; Facebook. Within milliseconds, my FB page was plastered with status updates advising me of the evil that is Spokeo.
Spokeo is a website that contains personal information. Say there’s someone you 
want to track down; an old college roomie, an ex, that hot movie star who is in love with you and sadly doesn’t even know it yet. You put in their name and location, and eventually pinpoint the exact person down. From there, you are privy to a whole host of personal information; income, spouse, value of house, personal fetishes, etc. Surely, the availability of such info is invasive and shocking. How they get a hold of and release such info is another matter. A matter that will require something called ‘research’, and that is something your dear Klogger is not willing to fucking do on a Saturday afternoon. Let some other hack deal with that whole bee’s nest. However, I will contend of their description of my house as ‘ramshachkle lean-to’, but have no qualm with my job title of ‘unemployed naredewell’.
Spokeo hatched a brilliant marketing plan, and the gullible lunkheads on FB all fell for it. Again, forgoing this ‘research’ thing, here is my take on how this hatched. However Spokeo is created, it’s created. An employee who works for Spokeo puts that infamous status on their page, and, voila, it spreads like Nazi Chicks for Jesse James. Now, let’s be honest here. As soon as you saw that status pop up, what was the first thing you did? Did you rush to said site and get your info off of there? No.
You went to the site and entered all your friends info to get the dirt on them.
Don’t even tell me you didn’t, I know you did. And so Spokeo used FB to generate millions of cheap hits. You all fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Think I’m wrong about their marketing plan? Consider this; before all this hoopla, did you even know of the site? No, no one did. So if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If there’s a site and no one knows about it, does anyone really care? No and no. But, now, everyone knows.
Of course I ran my own info through it (don’t tell me you didn’t run yourself either, egomaniac). And here’s the kicker; my info is wrong! Not only is it wrong, but it’s wrong in a good way. Spokeo has my house drastically over valued. It has my Lifestyles and Interests comically wrong. According to them, I read comic books. I also read children’s books. Huh? I enjoy cruises, even though I’ve never been on one. I research stocks, bonds and investments. Quite frankly, I look far more adult and happening on Spokeo than in real life. Hell if I’m gonna take that info off. Let all my legions of ex-girlfriends look me up and see that shit. Now who made the mistake, Pam? Fuck you, I enjoy wine, food and gardening now.
So don’t be so hasty. I am sure the more literate among you can figure out ways to make yourself look better, wealthier and smarter on the site, so have at it. Next thing you’re gonna tell me is Wikipedia is made up.
3 comments:
Nice post. Love the line about Jesse James.
I agree that Spokeo's results if you search by name are such a weird blend of fact and fiction that it ought to be a drinking game. But there's still enough there to make it a stalker's wet dream. Want Sarah Palin's home address and phone number in Wasilla? It's on there. The same thing's true for the chairman of the federal trade commission. And even if your cell phone isn't listed in the phonebook, if it's public on facebook, it's on Spokeo. (And, coming soon, if it's on foursquare, it's on Spokeo, since foursquare doesn't have a way to block searches by cell phone number.)
And the older you are, the scarier Spokeo gets, because it blends in data from all those social networks you joined in 2003 but can't remember. I'm pretty sure Spokeo's the only thing out there that reads friendster now, but it's pulling your photos off it. And you know that anonymous myspace account you started when you were 15? Yeah, Spokeo's got those photos you uploaded.
And lots of people haven't visited friendster or myspace in so long that the privacy settings have changed on them, so Spokeo's really got a gold mine there.
For most people, if you search for yourself by name, Spokeo has a hard time figuring out which "John Smith" you are, which is why the results are so messed up. But if you search for yourself by e-mail, Spokeo reveals a different set of results, usually with more pictures.
And if you put both sets of search results together, which is probably what a paying stalker -- I mean Spokeo subscriber -- sees, you're probably going to want to put somebody in jail.
And that's not just because there's a lot of data. It's because Spokeo's putting results together in ways that blatantly violate people's privacy expectations.
Even if you've never used your real name on a particular social network (common enough on myspace or flickr), Spokeo will use your e-mail address to find your real name on other networks, and then tie your real name to the data that used to be anonymous.
And to your Amazon wishlist.
And to your fan pages on facebook.
And to your photos on myspace and flickr and photobucket (including photos of your children).
And to weird random crap that actually isn't yours.
And it will not be subject to any of the "block user" options on the social networks that the data is being pulled from.
This is a cyberstalker's fantasy. And there's no way to get off the site. (If you try to get them to remove your name, they'll actually harvest your e-mail, making the problem worse.)
And at a time when kids are committing suicide over cyberbullying, Spokeo's behavior isn't just rude, it's reckless.
So, personally, I lean toward doing terrible, terrible things to the CEO, while a Google Street View camera films the proceedings for posterity. But I'd probably go to jail for that, so I'll just call my congressman. His home phone number's probably on Spokeo.
Nice post. I agree the data is inaccurate. For example, when I researched myself, my e-mail address was 11 years old.
Bones
Great post, thanks for sharing.
Although Spokeo claims their mission is to "help people find and connect with others" it seems like their goal is to allow you to peek into the private lives of others- which can only be done by paying them for the info. Even more interesting is the original home page of Spokeo.com, which clearly displays the twisted ulterior motives behind the site:
http://blog.hudsonhorizons.com/Article/Is-Spokeo-a-Scam-How-to-Delete-your-Personal-Info-from-Spokeocom.htm
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