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Computer Support For Individuals And Small Business |
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4/7/11 |
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Aggravating Aggregation |
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Ever wonder how much of your personal information is out on the internet – available to anyone – anyone in the world (yes, the entire world)? Do you use Facebook? MySpace? LinkedIn? How much of your personal information is available on these or similar sites? What about the White Pages? Ever checked information on your house at Zillow.com?
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An amazing amount of information about specific individuals can be found on the internet. But, of course, someone would have to look in a lot of different places to find it. Or would they?
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Enter the aggregators! Enterprising entrepreneurs have developed software to dredge through the World Wide Web and put together information from multiple sources to develop profiles of almost everyone.
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Information collected can include name, address, phone number, email address, age, gender, marital status, photos, estimated income, satellite image of your home (maybe even a street image), house value, hobbies, and more. Though much of the information is accurate, some is not.
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As an example, try spokeo.com. A user-friendly interface guides you through entering a name, state, and location within the state. This narrows down the search to a reasonably short list from which you can locate the specific person by address. Searching by other criteria such as email address or phone number is also available.
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Clicking on the link of a specific person on the list will bring up basic information including name, address, phone number, gender, age, marital status, and other household members. It may also have information about the person’s house, including value.
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So far it’s all free. If you wish to see more, you must pay a fee. Spokeo also provides information to businesses. Some of the other aggregation sites include Pipl (www.pipl.com), ZoomInfo (www.zoominfo.com), ZabaSearch (www.zabasearch.com), Radaris (radaris.com), and Intelius (www.intelius.com).
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Where does all this information come from? With the explosion of interest in social networking sites much more personal information has been placed on the internet. There are also private databases from which information can be obtained. And, of course, some information is available online from sources such as the digitalized white pages, government records, and real estate listings. Because it is publicly available on the internet, it is available to anyone, including aggregators.
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So how do we protect ourselves from this intrusion into our privacy? Keep in mind all the information is computer generated. There is no one sitting at a desk sifting through data to assemble the information or verify its accuracy.
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First, review personal information already online and where it is located. Limit your exposure by eliminating or safeguarding as much as possible.
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Second, check all your security settings for social networking sites which you use. Tighten them down to a point where you are comfortable. Consider disabling an account, particularly if it is not being used.
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Third, be very selective about what information you share online. Anything you put out there could end up in an aggregator’s profile, or worse.
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Fourth, some of the aggregator sites allow you to opt out of their search results. Though this is not foolproof, it can reduce your exposure. It may be necessary to check back occasionally to assure your information is not available, particularly if basic data changes because of something significant such as a move. You would also have to do this for each aggregator.
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Fifth, there are sites springing up to protect you from this for a fee. Over time this could become expensive but might be worth considering depending on the circumstances.
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Above all, prudence, vigilance, and common sense can go a long way in limiting the personal information available to aggregators and others.
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