Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - For $3 a month anyone, anywhere in the world may be able to find your name, address, hobbies, even photos of you online through a website called
spokeo.com.
CEO Harrison Tang says the "people-search" site launched about a month ago. It compiles data from phone directories, social networking sites, marketing surveys, mailing lists, government censuses, real estate listings, and business websites to create a profile. "When we aggregated this information we didn't realize that a lot of people are actually not aware that this information is public."
The information on the site is far from dead-on, however. Only about half of the information on other names we checked was accurate. "Basically right now we just find it and display it as is," said Tang. "It's a hard problem and we're trying to actually improve the accuracy and the freshness of data."
Perfect or not, some people are just not comfortable with their information being out there. If that's the case, you can opt-out of Spokeo with one click. But keep in mind, if Spokeo can find and compile all this public information, pretty much anyone can.
Spokeo is working on a feature for their site that would show users exactly which sites and directories they gather their information from.
A very basic profile is free but if you want more detailed information it'll cost you between $2 and $5 a month.
