Odds are, your photos, personal info are on Spokeo.com

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Imagine a Web site that publishes personal information about you, including address, spouse, credit score, phone numbers, photos -- all without your knowledge.

About a week ago, a friend sent a warning on Facebook about such a site, called Spokeo (www.spokeo.com). A flurry of responses followed with a bunch of comments, simply stating, "scary."

How concerned should consumers really be?

I checked out the site myself and found some of the information to be correct, some not (It listed my African-American mother as Caucasian). Enough of it was accurate that it, indeed, registered on the "scary" meter.

Spokeo calls itself the "Person Search/White Pages ... Not your grandma's phonebook." It offers telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, members of your household, social network information, and "wealth" data such as credit scores, photos and videos.

Much of the information is free to the public but some of the data requires monthly subscription fees that range from $2.95 to $4.95.

So how does Spokeo do it?

The company says it uses "people-related information from phone books, social networks, marketing lists, business sites, and other public sources."

Spokeo follows other sites such as Zabasearch, which also aggregates personal data.

Deborah Berry, of the Pinellas County (Fla.) Department of Justice and Consumer Services, says the days of private information are all but gone.

"I think to a certain extent it's too late to hide," Berry said.

"Any e-mail address that you give to a public entity is public record," she said. "For example, the attorney general's office, that's public. With the social networks, we're volunteering the information."

Snopes.com says even if you block Spokeo, you won't be able to stop the flow of your information from the sources that provided Spokeo with the data in the first place. Snopes says removing your personal data from these sites is "never a one-time deal, but rather more like a neverending game of Whack-a-Mole."

So here's the edge:

- Opt out. Although Spokeo is just one aggregator and you will likely have to play the never-ending game of "Whack-a-Mole" it's worth it if you want some protection for your information.

- Don't give information unnecessarily to retailers. Some retailers ask for a telephone number, e-mail address or other personal data at the cashier. You don't have to provide it. The retailer often wants to track your purchasing habits and then has information it could make available to other parties.

- Provide only the information required. Omitting simple details such as middle names or initials can be a protection online. If the site does not require a telephone number, don't type one.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)

Must credit St. Petersburg Times.