Friday, June 11, 2010

Privacy Issues

Dear Friends and Family;

I was on whitepages.com today, and I was totally shocked to find that they have a new feature that links your name, address and phone number to your personal profile page, like Face Book and Linkedin! Even if your name is not listed in the phone book, it still links to it. So I had to sign up to whitepages to edit my account. Originally I just wanted to take off the link to FB, but it would not allow me to. So, I ended up having to remove my name and # completely, but the FB link still remains. I sent them an email requesting that they remove that link, but I am not sure if they will, and who knows what other phone listing sites are doing the same, but I feel that this should be completely illegal!

Anyway, since our family has an uncommon last name I am a little more careful about not using my last name on public sites...I DID (past tense) use my last name on FB, but that is because it was a private account where only my friends could see it...but now that phone book listing sites are linking to it, it's not so private anymore. Anyway, I really would like to keep this blog public so that people do not have to sign in to read it, and I think I will still keep it public for now, I just ask that if anyone wants to link to it to please not use my last name. I am really flattered and honored if you do link to it, or would like to but please just use first names, or the name of my blog 4fayz...I guess I'm just a little more paranoid about it now since finding that information on the white pages site. Thanks!

4 comments:

Erica P. said...

Hey April, Just so you know, all the pics you upload to your blog are also public, unless you go to Picasa and change your privacy settings. My cousin found pics of her little boy on some guys website in India, so that is why I decided to be private, but if you don't know to change the Picasa default settings, then people can still get your pics.

Angie Stewart Black said...

I've been trying to decide to go private as well. You really have no idea who is seeing what and if you have any bit of concern then you should go private. People can still view your blog, but it's your decision on who gets too. Don't be suprised if you see me post something about going private. There are just too many weirdos out there!

Unknown said...

This is really all worrying me! Do you know how to do the Picasa thing? Also, what white pages were you on? What's the site?

4fayz said...

Julie,
It is whitepages.com. If you search for a persons name, it has a list of possible facebook links. And since our last name is so uncommon, only five show up...might be different for you though...we searched my mom and she has a common name, but they did link the most likely one based on location, so she was not hard to find either...I can't believe they can do that...I have also not heard back from them about my request to have it removed.

As far as pictures go, I am not sure how I feel @ it. I don't put last names, so to a stranger its just another picture...and I post so many places, it would be hard to share, and be private too. I just don't want my name linked to where I live!