Spokeo is the New Creepy People Search Engine | Smarterware

Spokeo is the new people search engine that's freaking users out, because when you "spokeo" yourself there's a good chance you'll find your home address, phone number, interests, gender, occupation, wealth level, marital status, photos, and more. The search engine compiles information from public records and public social media network pages to put together a pretty complete profile of individuals. My local news station ran a piece on Spokeo and profiled a user, and the lower third of the screen described her as "weirded out by web site" (which amused me enough to take a screenshot).

My Spokeo search results were mixed in the accuracy department. It listed a few old home addresses of mine, but not my current one; it also missed the mark on a few other details, like saying my occupation is "retired" and misidentifying my spouse's ethnicity.

Creepy people search engines aren't new. Back in 2005, ZabaSearch was the tool of choice for stalkers. There's also Pipl, Wink, ZoomInfo, and hell, Facebook and Google. But if you don't like the idea of people finding out how much your house is worth on Spokeo, just click on the Privacy link at the bottom of a page of Spokeo search results to request that the engine remove your listing. You will have to enter an email address to do so. How accurate are Spokeo results for your name?

Posted via web from AndyWergedal