Know what is on the net about you?
5:00PM on January 20, 2011
I'm big on Privacy - Think its very important - thing is with all things put on computers and you click ok or you wont get that ap or that "freebie" or even that utility you need... you click ok... and its on the net even when you were not.
Data miners get this info and compile it...
I recently heard of this one site - Spokeo.com -
Spokeo is one of these find out all about anyone anywhere for a few $ a month sites - it's one you may want to look at to see what's out there about you... you in reality - your real name etc...and you in the cyber world - your member names... your user names... You'll find where when you only hide some info on some places - and that 1 place you "had" to give out the real info - bites ya - when all info about you is compiled on a site like this.
Now the hard part is removing the info you don't want - this is the link on Spokeo to get them to remove info about you that may have slipped out:
http://www.spokeo.com/privacy
But some things we want to link to - its advertising - so look it over if you added some info on a site - you'll see it here stick out like a sore thumb - go to that site and edit your user info - remove your real city info for example.
This way you control the message you are putting out... this type of site does us a favor, in that by compiling all the info so we can see it easy... but trust me in the future this will become a huge problem as we get even bigger faster and more storage abilities - So - the sooner you get control... & the more you act differently on the things you do in the future - the more in control you might be.... We will see if it works - but it can't hurt can it?
Now I only post this because we need to know what is out there... we need to know what is out there linked to ourselves... and we need to know how to hide what we didn't know was showing...
Only if we know these things can we make the first line of Privacy - ourselves - secure...
We can't get upset with others if our privacy is breeched - if we don't care enough to secure our own selves...
I was able to remove my own real info off of the Spokeo site - you need to have a email address to do the removal and you might consider starting a new email addy just to do this from - use any free email provider
If you were surprised by how easy it is to get & how much info about yourself is out there... only if we inform each other of these things can we start to get a handle on this.
I have become a firm believer of putting traceable info on anything that asks for my name - just like a watermark - it identifies the people who either are lax about our privacy or sell our info
Look for yourself and clean up what you can - its easy to remove from this one place and if you know of others that are doing similar mining - please post them in the comments - I do believe these site addresses do not fall into the category of spam as we are not promoting these sites to join... but to remove things that we feel threaten our privacy --- and they are not competing websites --- and it is helpful info that ever Rudie might want to look into ;-}}
Good Luck and keep as private as it makes you comfortable to be online... Have Fun Everyday ;-}}
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