There’s been some buzz on the internet about a website called Spokeo. The story is that Spokeo has all sorts of detailed information about just about everyone, including how much you paid for your house, your net worth, and your hobbies.

Is it true? Spokeo does, indeed, list a lot of information about a lot of people on their site…and they do publish the estimated value of your home and your assets…along with info about relationships, approximate age, gender, marital status, and hobbies. However, much of the information is incorrect, and it’s not unusual for them to have several different listings for the same person.

Nevertheless, it isn’t a good feeling when you learn that so much of the data you consider private is readily available to anyone with an internet connection. The uncomfortable truth is that it’s been available for a long time through many online sources. Spokeo doesn’t have any special mojo that allows them to conjure up facts and figures. It’s just a type of search engine that accesses the same sources that every other online information broker uses: government records, published real estate transactions,  phone books, and your profile on social networking sites like Facebook. The only difference is that Spokeo gathers all the information in one place and offers a rather detailed preview of the more extensive data they promise to make available for a fee.

If you don’t like what you read about yourself on Spokeo, they do provide a way to remove yourself from their database.

1. Just go to the site at http://www.spokeo.com and enter your name in the search box.
2. Find your listing and then copy the URL for that page (it’s in the address bar at the top of your browser window).
3. Click the “Privacy” link at the bottom of the page (it’s gray and in small type).
4. Paste the URL you copied in Step 2 into the blank box labeled “URL.”
5. Enter your email address in the second box.
6. Type the code that’s listed to the right of the third box.
7. Click “Remove Listing.”

You will receive an email (at the address you entered in Step 5). Click the confirmation link in that email message. Voila! Your listing should no longer be accessible to anyone searching for you on Spokeo.

Note: If you have multiple listings on Spokeo, you’ll have to follow the above procedure for each one. Keep in mind that following this procedure removes your personal information from Spokeo alone. That data will continue to be available at other places both on and off the web.