Is WhitePages.Com Violating Your Privacy?
Online Website Shows Phone Number, Address and Relatives
Imagine my surprise when I came home to find a letter from someone in prison who I didn't know. When I opened the letter, the first page was a warning to me about using my full name on Letters to the Editor in magazines. As a journalist and reviewer, I'm used to using my full name for branding purposes. However, why someone in prison would research a stranger's name from a random kudos letter for an article and then look up a mailing address was beyond me. He told me I was listed and with a unique name like mine, adding my last name to a unique first name made me too easy to find.
Fortunately the letter was friendly and about the Ebony article I wrote the editors about, and I respected him for letting me know to beware that my information was published. However, that respect turned into concern when I went online to look up my own mailing address. WhitePages.com not only publishes full addresses and phone numbers, but the site takes it two steps further by publishing your age range and possible family members.
Some people pay to have their numbers unlisted, but I've found that to be a waste of money. Too many people I know have done so and still gotten calls from telemarketers. I choose to use the Do Not Call Registry to be legally removed from these lists, and while my address may be published for anyone who looks it up in local yellow or white pages, what bothered me more was the prison was in New York. That means one of two things--the person contacted someone who is from my city to look me up in a phone directory or that person has access to online sites like WhitePages.com that has my information listed. Either way, the information is out there.
Do I mind my name being published? No. It's a little too late for that with over 700 articles online. Do I mind my phone number being published? As long as I don't get telemarketing calls, I couldn't care less. I can always change my phone number or just not answer the phone if it gets ridiculous. Do I mind my age being listed? No, I've never thought telling my age was a big deal nor will I ever. But I do mind my full mailing address being available online to anybody who wants to look for it, and more importantly I mind the fact that anybody can go in and edit it.
I went to WhitePages.com and edited the listing. I didn't have to activate an account or even explain why I wanted a change. Making changes on sites like this is like making a change on Wikipedia. Anybody can go in and edit your records. How they come up with who may be related to me bothers me more, and I'm assuming the connection is from people with the same old address or current address. Finding my own very unique name is to be expected, but unless I want to introduce someone to family members, it's nobody's business who I'm related to.
If you didn't know about the online public listings, I'd strongly suggest you update your information and contact WhitePages.com to have this information removed. There's a difference between reference material and too much information (TMI).
The worst part is that in order to have your information removed, sites like ReputationDefender.com want you to pay $4.95 to $9.95 per month to have your information removed. Is it fair to pay $118.80 for two years of information that should've never made it online in the first place? That's up to you to decide.
Published by Shamontiel
Shamontiel is the author of Round Trip and Change for a Twenty, and in mid-October became the Chicago Tribune s Digital News Editor. She works on National Travel, Health and occasionally Breaking News, and w... View profile
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12 Comments
Post a CommentHi Lynn, this wasn't from a website. I wrote a Letter to the Editor for a print magazine, and someone who read the magazine in prison wrote me this four-page letter about a paragraph-long message. I know they get magazines in prison, and I thoroughly understand that people make mistakes. I just don't want prison mail from folks I don't know coming to the place I sleep in. (Sorry that happened to you, too.) I wrote a letter to "Essence" magazine last month after I got the letter asking them NOT to use my last name in another Letter to the Editor if they printed it. I opened that magazine today, and they used my last name anyway. I went online and immediately unsubscribed from their magazine. If they can't follow my small request, I can't support that publication!
Received one of those random (yet seemingly personal) prisoner letters about 12 yrs ago, likely from the same website. It was more than unsettling.
...much information! One reader sent me a PM and said it's unrealistic to think we'd have privacy and be public online. While I understand why he said it, I just don't agree. When you just bow down to what's become the norm and have all of your information published right down to buying a Social Security number, that's ridiculous. I don't want it to be the norm. What I don't put online SHOULDN'T BE PUT ONLINE. I remember reading about Maxwell (the singer) contacting all these websites to take his last name down. At first I didn't get the big deal, but I do now. If he goes by Maxwell and only wants us to know Maxwell and not his family or family name, I can respect that. Abby, you don't have a phone number at all or a phone number listed?
...including pseudonyms can help employers track your content, but from my own experience, readers thought "Montie" and "Shamontiel" were two different people, never mind my Twitter alias that I've been using for 11 years. Shamontiel got great visits. Montie got okay visits. The other alias was only known on Twitter. For another example, I can't remember what happened with Stephen King, but I know he uses a pseudonym for some books he writes. My mother was a hardcore reader of his stuff, but she never picked up his books under an alias because she didn't know it was him. Even when she found out, she still only bought Stephen King books. Sometimes people just get hung up on what's comfortable to them. Saul and Lyn, what really threw me though (outside of possible relatives) was the listing tracked me way back to my college apartment days. Unless someone is doing a background check on me for work, NOBODY should know all of the states or dorms or houses or apartments I've lived in. Too mu
Saul, I personally feel like it's a scam that you have to pay to NOT have your information listed. Too many people I know have done so and the first solicitor who calls, the phone company goes, "I dunno. They didn't get it from us." In high school, I was a phone surveyor and did a brief stint as a small business solicitor so I already know they sell those numbers. When Do Not Call Registry came around, I signed up a.s.a.p. and haven't gotten a soliciting call in years. I've also changed my phone number a bunch of times so that probably worked, too. Lyn, I'm with you there on just asking me. If I didn't invite you, I don't want you to show up on my doorstep. As far as using pseudonyms, again, it's so much easier to do as a freelancer than in corporate. However, I remember AC turning down an article I wrote until I changed my username from "Shamontiel" to my full name to "look more professional." So even on freelancing sites, it depends on the client. Applying for the new position and in
I've looked up phone numbers online and was surprised to see full name, address, and number available. I don't want anyone to know where I live. I don't have a home phone tho- maybe that helps
Totally agree, Saul. If someone wants my address, they can ask me for it. If I didn't give it to you, don't use it. :) I stopped using Momie Tullottes because I wanted something more professional and something closer to my actual name. Whenever I apply for new positions, I use my birth name, but note the pseudonyms I write/wrote under. That way, if people want to research my writing history, they can.
I agree that the relatives name-dropping is a bit much. Name, number, period. That should end it. The address should be eliminated unless the person named has no problem with it. That is personal information that even businesses do not give out about their employees. You want the address, call the person and ask for it.
Lyn, you make a good point, but what I meant by that is if I used a pseudonym for journalism jobs and my real name for my employer, using a pseudonym means less people will be able to find me from previous stuff. I had a couple blogs called "Message from Montie" for two different sites, and people didn't connect that Shamontiel = Montie, and I lost pageviews because of that. When I use my real name and stopped working for a previous employer, readers still continued to look for my entries under my legal name because that's what they recognized. In the corporate world, I'd have to request to do everything under a pen name. And just being honest, who ELSE is going to use my name? I like it. I cringed when a lady on my block asked my mother if she could name her daughter after me. No, thank you. It's mine, mine, mine! :-) But I definitely get what you're saying. I was surprised when you stopped with Momie Tulottes.
I don't mind the number thing either. I have a phone number listed under my pen name that forwards to my phone for that reason. As for branding, I have branded the pseudonym and do all my business with it. I wouldn't mind getting business-related mail. But a letter from a prisoner would be unnerving to me as well.