Upon launching the Spokeo website, they cleverly remind you that “it’s not your grandma’s phonebook,” which is not only a hacky reference but also literally true: the old meatspace phonebooks didn’t automatically expose all of your private information like age, income, home value, credit score, relationship status and map to your house. Who the Eff are these freaks? How did they get ALL of your info? I don’t know, but all of mine was there. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to remove yourself from the database of these privacy rapists currently thriving in Zuckerberg’s America.
1. Goto Spokeo.com
2.Enter your name and city in the search field
3. Suppress your shout of “Holy CRAPSTAINS!!!” when you see how much of your info is displayed
4. Copy the URL
5. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see “Privacy” in the footer links. Click it.
6. Paste the URL in the field underneath “To remove a listing from Spokeo…”
7. You’ll have to enter an email (sucky, I know) but do what I do and use a secondary one that you only give out to list managers; unfortunately, they limit the number of listings you can remove to two per email to “prevent abuse”. Really? Could that be any more abusive than displaying all of someone’s personal info??
8. Click “Remove Listing”
9. Check your email; the removal confirmation from Spokeo should come immediately
10. Click after “To complete the removal process…”
11. Celebrate that you have pulled your info off yet another service that took it from you, and rest until the next such battle with some other similar site, likely in an hour or so
if privacy rights are your thing- then heed this advice lest you lose some major privacy!!
