Costco Connection - July 2010

CONSUMERconnection
Spokeo is spooky

Ask David
Horowitz
An online source of your personal information

HAVE YOU EVER TYPED your own name into www.google.com and seen what comes up? It seems innocent enough. There might be a link to your Facebook profile or information about where you went to high school—nothing all that surprising. However, a new social search site called Spokeo has begun gathering and posting all information about individuals, including, but not limited to, name, age, marital status, interests and (perhaps the most scary) home address and phone number.

Think this affects you only if you are on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site? Think again! According to research, this information is gathered from public sites or sources where it is already posted. Spokeo merely aggregates it. But that doesn’t mean it’s reliable. When employees of Fightback.com entered their own names, they were surprised to learn that a lot of the information was incorrect.

How it works. When you visit www.spokeo.com you are prompted to start a search for a name, an e-mail address, a phone number or friends. (You need to enter your e-mail address and e-mail password for this last one—probably not a good idea.) Once you click “Search,” you are shown if a person is in the Spokeo database. If the person is in the database, a page with a “Basic Profile” is shown. You can click one of the prompts on the page to see additional information, such as photos and videos. Once you click on any of these prompts, if you are not already a member, you will be asked to purchase a membership to see “full results.”

What is Spokeo? According to Wikipedia.org, it is “a social network aggregator website that aggregates data from many online and offline sources (such as phone directories, social networks, government censuses, real estate listings, and business websites).… All data collected by Spokeo is publicly accessible from its original sources.... Spokeo does not originate data and information available is only as good as its source.” (Additional info is available from Snopes.com at www.snopes. com/computer/internet/ spokeo.asp, including info about the difficulty of trying to remove oneself from the site.)

“Spokeo indexes third-party data in ways similar to Google or Bing,” its site states. “Spokeo does not control or maintain any aggregated third-party data, and therefore cannot guarantee its accuracy or currentness. Spokeo does not publish directory listings for children under 18.…”

I BOOKED A ;ight and rooms on Hotwire.com. They used US Airways and Embassy Suites. This trip is to see our son as he is deploying to Afghanistan. Six days before we were to leave to see him, his orders were changed to deploy four days early.

I contacted Hotwire for help. They got me new (but lesser) rooms at a higher price and a new ;ight (but with penalties). The total extra cost so far is $400 plus. I do understand they need to make money, but under the circumstances I thought they could be a little patriotic.

I have sent each company
an e-mail through their site.
I have received no response.
At the very least, I want to
get the word out about these
business practices toward
those serving in the
military.

Since Spokeo is getting so much attention, it begs the question, is this the first website like this? The answer is that it is not. Sites like this have existed for a long time. So, why are people so upset?

People are upset mostly because they didn’t know that this information is already online. This discovery feels much like a violation.

Opt-out options. Spokeo does give you the option to opt out of having your name listed on their site, but you must enter your e-mail address for “verification” purposes. Unfortunately, your e-mail address could then be sold to a third-party advertiser. So, is opting out a good idea?

Sadly, very little is available to do apart from that option. You have to give your billing information to sites such as Amazon. com or Overstock.com if you purchase anything, so that’s not exactly deletable information. Also, you can’t erase your presence online completely unless you plan on never ordering anything online again.

The best you can hope for is better legislation when it comes to the sharing of information online among sites where you are required to enter personal information. We recommend writing your congressperson (https://writerep.house. gov/writerep/welcome. shtml) and requesting that such laws be enacted now.

While it is always risky to enter your information as it pertains to purchasing online, that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to ensure that secure sites actually keep your info secure. C

Joe El Paso, Texas

For now, stick
with the alterna-
tive flight and
hotel that Hot-
wire booked for
you. Afterward,
call the Embassy
Suites and US Airways
public-relations repre-
sentatives and ask them
to take care of some of
the extra cost. Do not
go through Hotwire, as
they are not the policy
makers. Also, keep all
documents and write
down the names of those
with whom you speak.

AMY CANTRELL

David Horowitz is a leading consumer advocate ( www.fightback.com). He is a frequent guest on radio and television stations. Consult your local listings for dates and times.

More in archives On Costco.com, enter “Connection.” At ***Online Edition*, search “David Horowitz.”**

Just log on to www.fightback.com and “Ask David.” He will personally respond to your problem if you follow the instructions printed on his Web site. (Costco members receive a rebate off the normal fee.) Questions and answers of the greatest interest to Costco members will be used in this column (with the permission of the contributor) and will be posted on www.fightback.com.