Posted on 01/17/2019 5:41:25 AM PST by sodpoodle
I looked my name up in google and this website "mylife.com" came up.
It had my full name, my myspace link, my age, and a list of all the cities I've lived in. Even a picture of me. But I NEVER joined this website.
(Excerpt) Read more at answers.yahoo.com ...
As a senior, I have no accounts with MyLife, Facebook etc., and it scares me that my personal finances etc., are out there for scammers and con artists.
Google your own name and see if your personal details are listed.
This is very disturbing.
They buy public databases and start correlating data.
They cross-reference publicly available data.
I’ve been able to figure out who lives at an address, or where someone lives, when and to who they got married, when and where they were born, etc. for years. Just takes a little patience.
Per the other poster above me, all this data is public. People have figured out they can charge for this public data because other people are too stupid or lazy to do the work themselves.
Sites like that state it’s publicly available information. Some even go as far as showing relatives. I found one that connected my parents, sister, ex-husband, his wife #2 at one point and his current. I have requested many of them to remove my info.
Yes, public databases.
I think they’re also making inferences from the data, that may not be (and sometimes flat out are not) correct, e.g. estimated annual income and marital status. I looked up my profile and laughed at how out-of-date and inaccurate it was.
I understand the commerce of sharing data, but there is no lawful reason for someone’s name, dob, phone #, finances, relatives etc., should be available to anyone/everyone.
If I was inclined to do so I could find out that 123 Maple Street has a 2019 Ferrari registered at that address and,knowing that,I could show up at 2AM knowing that I'd find it...and lots and lots of jewelry.
You’re missing the point: it is 100% lawful, and 100% publicly available. All MyLife did was aggregate the info from different sources.
In Europe it is illegal, we should adopt the same security for individuals.
A lot of information about you, me, anyone is actually part of the public record. If you know how to search for it it is readily available. Things like tax records,marriages, bankruptcies, some criminal convictions, credit history and such. It used to be you had to go down to a county records office and dig through old ledgers. Now it is all online.
Mylife.com has a bot that searches a bunch of existing databases when you put your name in the blank.
I found it useful because there is a loser in Tennessee with the same name and who is the same age. What this means is that things like credit agencies don’t always have correct information. They had me going bankrupt in Chattanooga when I actually lived in Wuhan in the PRC.
Let’s not rush to implement draconian laws a la EU.
The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals
Well, I checked them out, they made one big mistake about me, they said I was Asian/American. I’m not.
You’d be surprised what’s in your voting record. It’s a great place to start any search. Your Address, party, when you voted, good seed material.
Your personal finances are not out there. Anything they say is a guess. I wish I made what they said I made.
Why do you think all those stupid facebook questions: “Name all the states you’ve visited” are for? People are voluntarily providing all that info for the info grabbers.
One of my old taglines:
Want to be surprised? Google your own name.
Want to have fun? Google your friend’s names..................
It seems to me all these “social media sites” are into data mining, selling data and advertising.
Part of the problem is that information is available.
We often unknowingly willingly give pieces of information that may be widely disparate, but when something can string them together...well it can be startling.
A phone book was data that could be collected...you could have your name removed, but for many people that was outweighed by the advantages of having your name in it...
Same with the Internet.
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