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Spokeo Fined $800K By FTC For Marketing Its Services To Employers
nonprofiteer writes "Spokeo was one of the first public-facing person-profiling companies to attract the ire of those profiled. Taglined 'not your grandmother's phonebook,' it offers up profiles pulled from public records, social networking sites, etc, including your address, worth of your home, who's in your family, your estimated wealth, your hobbies and interests, and more. People freaked out when they first discovered it. Apparently, the company was selling reports to employers, but not following principles set forth by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Federal Trade Commission is fining them $800,000. FTC also chastises them for writing fake positive reviews around the Web."
I typed in my own name. They had nothing on me. They found a few other people of the same name, but they were clearly not me.
Whew.
$800,000 and a "don't do that again, or at least don't get caught" is a slap on the wrist in this type of market.
every job gets flooded with a billion resumes, the employer can search your whole life story in a second...
It's fine like these that makes me sick. With the amount of money these guys make there probably laughing.
I can't imagine anyone using spokeo for anything important, as their info is not even close to being correct. When I checked my profile a year or 2 ago (When you could see it all without paying), it had me living in a million dollar home (off by more than an order of magnitude), with a several hobbies which weren't even the slightest bit correct (knitting, and horses I think), and had someone the same age as my mother living in the house, despite the fact that she never lived there, had any mail delivered there, or anything. I don't remember the rest, but category after category I was reading it thinking "wow, I barely even know myself".
The site actually offers much less than it used to even as recent as three months ago. It was obvious that either data used to be pulled from credit card purchases very recently. However, my last few visits to the site (over the last two or so months) do not show that section; it is instead replaced with a generic looking UI that leads to a pay wall.
About invasive species hitching a ride on the wake of a tsunami.
Well, in metaphorical terms, I guess. At least the dupes are getting more sophisticated.
It found me. But then again, I'm retired and my name and address is all over the internet having been doing web sites since 1995. Personally I couldn't care less what information it collects on me, but I'm sure a younger person would. I didn't pay the US$14.95 (or what ever it was) to see "everything", but I can see it has the wrong phone number but the right address for me. Then again, this isn't anything new. I remember in the mid- to late- 1990's there were several companies on the internet that did court record searches and the whole sha-bang and were very good. As always, a fair amount of misinformation, but that's typical in information gathering like this. I get a free credit record report from the "big three" in the US every year just because they have to provide it once a year free and there are errors in each one. I've never tried to get a correction because I don't care (having a FICA score of 815 and no need for credit to begin with). My bet is as many people use this to "spy" on their neighbors as do companies to "check out" prospective employees.
A company like this should be shut down. If someone voluntarily gives their data to a social networking site like Facebook, shouldn't that data remain private to Facebook? You opted on your own to give Facebook that data. So Facebook can store it as you want it. You didn't put your contact information on FB so that Spokeo can poach that data and use it to sell your information.
Isn't that data technically property of Facebook/Myspace/etc. anyways? Sure you can chose to give out your data elsewhere and anywhere. But it's your choice. If you only want your data available from Facebook, or YouTube, or the Yellow Pages, then shouldn't that be an option?
When did it become acceptable to post information about people without their permission? As bad as Facebook is at least you have to sign up before giving up your privacy. An $800,000 fine for privacy violations on a mass scale? And not even a fine but a warning for being caught astroturfing and posting false information about their business? Pathetic.
Because currently it costs money. Posting this story might drive people to buy their product, even.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Apparently, the company was selling reports to employers, but not following principles set forth by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Call me cynical, but it sounds like their real crime was not being one of the Big Three credit agencies, probably do worse stuff, more often.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
What is the point of a fine so miniscule that it has no hope of deterring future actions?
Looking at the site, there is a 'remove' option in the privacy link.
http://www.spokeo.com/privacy
I wonder if it actually removes you or if they just add your ip to the list of info. i.e. "Likes using Firefox"
I'd opt for cypherpunks / cypherpunks ;)
Numskulls on every side. The company selling information that has a good chance of being not just wrong, but very wrong, and likely destroying a number of otherwise perfect hiring prospects. Weasel clients that would actually pay for that sh*t. An FTC that, as usual, gives a slap on the wrist fine to that company for violating consumer rights and deceitful marketing.
Also, from TFA: "In the settlement announcement on its website, the FTC notes that it’s the first time the agency has addressed the “sale of Internet and social media data in the employment screening context.”" So much fail in that one sentence. People have been using the Internet to look up information on potential hires several years. Social media compounded the problem but certainly was not the cause. FTC, like nearly every government entity, moves slower than molasses going uphill.
I don't think there is a wall thick enough in my house to withstand the amount of headbanging I want to engage in.
A lot apparently.
This company is not unique, in fact it has been quite the cottage industry for years. Now with the advent of the "Lets put our records ONLINE!" push, there is a wealth of information to be had, just by looking on the web. Many areas put their public records online, free to search by anybody with an internet connection. Many more have electronic searching available if you pay an access fee. Fewer and fewer jurisdictions are left where you actually have to show up and ask the clerk to see the records. I've lived in areas that have unrestricted public access over the internet for most of their records, so sites like this have a LOT of information about me. They are far from perfect and only go back about 15 years from what I can tell.
It does sadden me though that folks would fork over nearly $15 for somebody else to do the work for you. If you have a name and a general location, it's usually not that hard to find out a bunch of things. For instance, before a friend of mine purchased his house, I helped him find out lots of useful information about the seller.. How much they paid for the house, how much they owed, marital status (pending divorce) who held the loan and even a little criminal history. All this took about half an hour and didn't cost a dime. Then we also looked at comp homes in the area and did the same kind of thing. Though it all, I think I helped him lower his initial offer, which the sellers accepted, and saved him a few thousand dollars.
Not to trash Spokeo, but they are WAY over priced for their data. First it is not verifiable because they don't provide sources, Second it is apparently not totally accurate at times, and Third most of what they have on me is publicly available using a Google and a little bit of understanding of how Public Records work.
Ah, good. It thinks I'm a female.
My wife has a rather unique name, yet there is a woman in California with the same one. The annoying thing is, the one in California seems to have a lot more fun than we do.
And I bet they made more in a week than that fine cost them. The marketing guys are getting a fat bonus this year (so are their friends at the FTC)
According to this company that does "Background Checks", someone named "Anonymous Coward" lives in Redmond WA, on Microsoft Way...
http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=Anonymous+Coward&s2=t24#:3517900871
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
OK I am taking this from memory , but back around 2002 there used to be a website called , I think, Eliyon (don't take my memory as infallible here) which offered up profiles of people including, I distinctly remember, very personal stuff which could only be inferences about their characters, like, oh, the fact that they might be addicted to masturbation.
Apparently this would have been gleaned, I really have no idea, from information from porn websites or chat room logs, in some sort of arrangement with them one supposes. I read a sample profile and truly just thought "wow, that's where this is all going to.... Huh." It never occurred to me that it might somehow be illegal or, you know , libelous.
Since then I then, I finished growing my brain and realized "holy shit, who WAS that? I've tried to use the Wayback machine to get to the site but it doesn't appear in the same way I saw it (how long it was up and presenting itself in that way I truly have no idea ) .
What it's lead me to wonder is this: OK so this company in this piece is going to get slapped and learn it's lesson about advertising to everyone willy nilly, but what do companies collect and pass make available to each other on "black sites" which go straight into some nameless,protected server "out there"? I can't believe they don't do this- it just stands to reason they would if they thought they could encode it and keep their hands clean via plausible deniability.
I know the police do this, or did at least.
I also know there are services which will try to bust employers talking smack about, and give you the transcript, to what they think is another employer or recruiter for instance,
http://www.references-etc.com/
They also said my home was worth one million plus. It's not. It's worth maybe $50-60K tops and that was before the real estate market went in the toilet. I doubt I could get $45K if I had to sell it today.
They also have my email address domain still listed as an ISP that went defunct and out of business more than a decade ago.
Okay. I've had Spokeo remove my data before, and assumed I'd be gone when I double checked today. Nope: they have/had multiple records for me, showing multiple addresses, and a lot of personal data. So I told them to remove the listings again. Let's see how long it lasts, this time.
Perhaps even worse, though, is that in each case they had an partial email account listed for me, ending in @aol.com. I haven't had AOL since the 80s, (QuantumLink, PC-Link, etc.) but I have had a couple of AOL IM accounts, and these days those come with @aol.com email addresses. I've never ever used or given anyone those email addresses, so AOL must have sold that private data.
Get off my launchpad!