The other day I got to thinking about an old roommate of mine. We'd lived together briefly back in 1990 and had drifted apart once we each went our separate ways. When he moved to New York in the late 90's I completely lost touch with him.
So I Googled him.
The information was sparse, but he had a listing on a site called Spokeo, which I had never heard of before, so I checked it out.
There it listed all the addresses he'd had in New York. It listed the street and apartment number, but the actual address was blank; you'd have to pay a nominal fee to get the complete address. Not that it mattered - each listing came complete with a Google map and streetview photo, where you could clearly make out the street number. It also listed his various phone numbers, minus the prefix digits - you'd have to pay for that too.
Site's like this are notoriously inaccurate, so I decided to check it out by entering my own name. And what I found was alarming.
It had every single address for me going back to that apartment in 1990, complete with a map and picture of the building. For property I owned, it showed what I paid. It also had every single phone number I'd had over the past 20 odd years, even though I've always had my number unlisted. And it was all accurate.
It listed my age (and astrological sign) and even had a little family tree showing all the members of my family. It had my cell phone number and email address. For a small fee, it promised to deliver results on my career history and income, my education, my political and religious affiliations, my relationships and my hobbies. And much, much more.
It promised to answer such burning questions such as...
Do I donate to causes?
Do I enjoy shopping?
Do I care about healthy living?
Do I research investments?
Do I like to read?
Do I enjoy music?
It helpfully offered to mine my Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
And it also promised to reveal my "economic health", which can't be good news.
The only saving grace, for me personally, was the fact that everything in Bakersfield has been put into the boyfriend's name (since my credit was trashed after the short sale of the LA house) so there's actually no evidence that I actually live here. According to the site, I still live in LA. That's a relief, but small comfort.
The whole experience left me creeped out. I guess the whole notion of "personal privacy" is a thing of the past.
