Posts Tagged ‘ Online Privacy ’

Stop Spokeo.com in its Tracks and Protect Your Privacy – NOW

May 5th, 2010. By AbiK

If you hadn’t been aware of a newer site in town called Spokeo.com, it’s time you gave them a visit.

As you can see from the image here, you can “Uncover personal photos, videos, and secrets…GUARANTEED”. Tantalizing and titillating, yes. Acting with a shred of integrity or a nod to Internet privacy and online protection? No.

As they say, “It’s not your grandma’s phonebook.”

No, it sure isn’t. For a mere $2.95 a month (one year subscription) you and just about the entire webosphere can access quite a bit of info about you. What types of info? Take a little look-see…

Your address

Photos of you

Your online profiles

Credit rating information

The demographics of where you live

How many people (and children) are in your household

Your zodiac sign

Your interests and hobbies

Your home’s worth

Your marital status

Your ethnicity

Your education level

And more!

Now, yes, one can argue that all of this information is generally available online in various places—some free, some not. But, Spokeo.com comes along and aggregates all that info for anyone to see and puts it in a neat little package—a package of YOU—for a mere $2.95. It reminds me of actuarial work where values are placed on a life, or a limb—and they always seem a tad bit low given what a life or limb truly represent to those who own the life or limb. I’m thinking $2.95 is a pretty low value being placed on our personal details and online privacy.

GET YOURSELF OFF SPOKEO.COM NOW.

Here’s how:

Visit www.Spokeo.com. Enter your name and location in the search box. You’ll see a bunch of info come up. Some of it will be accurate, some not.

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page…to the teeny gray-colored type at the bottom and look for the word “Privacy”. Click on it.

A pop up window will appear. This is the screen where you can remove yourself, your information, your life from Spokeo.com.

Toggle back to the original page you were on. Go to the URL bar at the top and copy that URL.

Return to the privacy page. Paste the URL you just copied into the first box where they ask for your URL.

Enter your email—you need to do this so they can bounce back an email to you to verify that you’re removing your information.

Finally, in the last box, type in the squiggly characters you see. And click “Submit”.

You’ll receive a confirmation email in your inbox. Click the link in the email to verify, and double check (search your name again on Spokeo.com) to ensure you’ve been removed.

Do it now.

Tags: Internet Privacy, Online Privacy, spokeo.com
Posted in Internet/E-commerce | 9 Comments »

Big Brother Goes to School

February 22nd, 2010. By LucyC

As webcams become an increasingly common tool used for public safety and crime prevention, the irony appears to be that those doing the watching are the ones that need to be watched most, as a class action lawsuit filed last week so clearly illustrates. 

The federal lawsuit was filed by the parents of a fifteen-year old boy who was told by an assistant principal at the school he attends that he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district,” Courthouse news reported last week. How on earth did this assistant principal know that? And who is he to decide what is improper behavior in the youth’s home? 

What happened? The answer is pretty creepy. The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania issued laptops with webcams to 1800 high school students as part of an initiative to “enhance opportunities for ongoing collaboration, and ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school based resources and the ability to seamlessly work on projects and research at school and at home.” What’s that expression—never look a gift horse in the mouth? Read on. 

As it turns out, it wasn’t just the students that had 24/7 access to the laptops and ‘interconnectivity’. The webcams could be remotely activated by the school authorities at any time they chose, enabling them to “view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer,” the lawsuit reportedly states. 

Wait—there’s more. “Additionally, by virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Online Privacy, Privacy Protection, Webcam
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | 2 Comments »