Has any one of you ever heard of an online white pages service called Spokeo? I have, way before this service even launched in the interwebs. I used to work here temporarily for about a month and a half (they laid me off, but that’s another story) as a web designer back in its early baby days (2006) in a very small, pretty much almost unoccupied office in Mountain View (they moved to SoCal, more specifically in Pasadena years later). Out of frustration I simply deleted everything, all my mocks or any trace of it and after years of not wanting to do with the service, it resurfaced again, only with very uncomfortable reactions.

Originally, Spokeo was a social networking contact aggregating service that allows users to sign up an account and merge all their social networking accounts and blogs in to one place and keeping in touch with their friends via their social networking accounts and blogs at the same time. In other words, you just sign up an account, add your blog sites and social networking accounts, tell your friends to sign up also and connect and keep in touch with one another through all of your sites and accounts at one place (by going to the Spokeo site and read all of the content aggregated from all those sites and accounts that users have added in their profiles). Personally I thought it was an awesome idea which was why I applied for a web designer position to this startup. Too bad it didn’t last long¹.

Moving on, I decided to write this article, not to badmouth them; my other reason is a lot more primary than to badmouth them². I’m writing this entry as a small contribution to everyone who frequently use the interwebs (actually, just everyone in general) to give them a warning about this site. Sometime in the late 2000s, not sure exactly when, Spokeo decided to re-shift their focus in to something a whole lot bigger and broader. The company grew and decided to make a move down in Southern California rather than staying here in good ol’ Silicon Valley. Instead of sticking to being a social networking/blog content aggregating service, they decided to shift (or rather expand?) in to an online white pages-type of service. It still is a content aggregating system, except now they aggregate more than just your websites and your FB and your Twitter and the likes, but somehow the site also aggregates your home address, phone numbers (your land line, your cellphone(s), your work number even), even the names of your family members and where you work, where you or your kids go to school, your reported income, and everything else that you could think of that should remain private and very personal.

Did you think that by not providing any of these sensitive information about yourself on your FB or your Friendster or any one of your social networking accounts would keep you safe and (partly) anonymous? Better check Spokeo, search yourself (include your location too, especially if you have a common name such as John Smith) and you will be in for a major shock.

Thankfully the site has an option for any user to remove themselves from their site. I really do find it injustice for a site like them to invade your privacy and then simply gather all of your private information and display them in public. Even at this very advanced information age, there are still stalkers out there who can strike at anytime, anywhere, and like every ordinary citizen out there we should all be cautious and conscious about our private selves. Unless if you’re some kind of an attention whore seeker, please read the following instructions on how to remove yourself from Spokeo.

How to remove yourself from Spokeo:

• Go to the Spokeo website. You don’t need to have an account there to remove yourself.
• Search yourself. Don’t just stick to the name you usually go by, type in all the names and aliases that you often use regularly³. If you have a common name like John Smith or the likes, be sure to enter your location, like a zip code or even a city name.⁴
• Copy the URL(s) from the URL address field of your browser and paste them somewhere, like on your Notepad or word processor, wherever where you can copy/paste again.
• Once you’ve done all that, head over to the Spokeo Privacy section of their site.
• Enter the URL (one URL per turn) and your email address. Make sure you have more than one email address because if you have more than two entries of yourself in Spokeo you can only use the same email address twice, so do have more than one email address handy when you do this.
• The site will send you an automatic email with a confirmation link to remove yourself. Just click on the link or copy/paste the given full link if you’re unable to click the link on to the email.
• Per Spokeo, you will be removed from their directory within one business day. I was removed about 2-3 minutes later.

I don’t know how or why this service suddenly shifted their focus in to an online white pages-type of service; it would make this company look more like a scam company, pretty much calling out all the crazies and stalkers from all around the world to pick their target by using their site. I actually feel this way now because the only way that I could think of them being able to gather all your private information and make them public via their site was somehow they hacked through/passed through security of the more information-private sites, such as your account at your local bank or even online stores such as Amazon.com or eBay (they all require your phone numbers, your home address and the likes). Hacking and cracking is never a good thing, and which is why computer/online information security and safety is one of the most in-demand fields in the world today.

This is rather depressing for me. It’s really sad to say that I’ve had high hopes in seeing this start-up grow in to something positive and somewhat life-changing to all the social networking/blogging-savvy users. Now I feel that they’ve decided to stoop so low as to turn themselves in to a “people search engine” and make each individual’s information including their most private details about themselves public. And to think, they used to be one of my employers in the past and gave me a stepping stone in to the web/graphic designing field.

Sad. Very sad. Not to mention scared and disappointed at the same time.

1. They found someone else who had a better idea for a web design layout, which was why I was laid off and got replaced by this guy. Back then everything was getting converted to “Web 2.0 style that I didn’t have enough time to come up with a mock-up design that fit the qualities of a “Web 2.0″ design then. Luckless me. [↩]
2. I’ve already badmouthed them just a few days after I was laid off so I’ve pretty much gotten over them [↩]
3. If you’re a Roman Catholic like me, most likely you also have your second/baptismal name. I would also search my entire name along with my location [↩]
4. Just because Spokeo is an American company, that doesn’t mean that they only cover the U.S. (and Canada). Those who live at other countries are also in danger too. [↩]