Dear Queenscrapper,
I recently came across a website called Blockshopper.com. What this website does is pull public records from home sales and lists those information on their website. Unlike other real estate sites Blockshopper lists the owner's full name. If you have a unique name, one Google search will often reveal your EXACT ADDRESS, courtesy of Blockshopper.com. Blockshopper will also write ARTICLES about your home transaction. They will phish for pictures and info about you from a work bio, resume sites (ex linked.com), even a wedding site (if you happen to have one) and use all that information to concoct an article (all without a person's permission). If you are buying or selling a home Blockshopper will write an article about you by phishing for your information all over the internet. Your home sale is now public news!!! Countless people are victims of this with no where to turn.
This site also makes stalking very easy as a Google search can turn up your exact address!
Here are some complaints from people all over this country:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/blockshopper.html
http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/2010/01/blockshopper_an.php
I just wanted to spread the word.
Sincerely,
Stressed Out Homeowner
10 comments:
Well unfortunately blockshopper is not the culprit here. It just found a way to mine it all into a format they can make money with. All home information in NYC and probably other places as well is public information. I know exactly where to get this particular data and wouldn't need blockshopper and it's free as well. I can actually look up and see when grandma and grandpa bought their house, when they took an equity loan and when the mortgage was paid off. And see the actual documents with signatures and all that were scanned. This is where the problem lies.
As far as the other websites my advice is not to post your information if you don't want people to find it. You don't put up a billboard about yourself if you don't want people to see it.
Don't expect other people to take your privacy seriously if you don't do it yourself!
"The first rule in keeping secrets is nothing on paper: paper can be lost or stolen or simply inherited by the wrong people; if you really want to keep something secret, don't write it down."
- Thomas Powers
Just my opinion...
"The first rule in keeping secrets is nothing on paper: paper can be lost or stolen or simply inherited by the wrong people; if you really want to keep something secret, don't write it down."
Once one other person knows what you know, it's no longer a secret. Remember that next time you tell your best friend that you cheated on your wife. There are no secrets other than what we take to our graves. BTW - OJ did it.
In Europe, they're pissed off about the Google Street View Camera. Have you noticed on Street View already the erasing of parked cars' license plates?
Warhol was right. Everybody'll be famous for 15 minutes.
Avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague.
I use facebook, but i keep my profile as minimalistic as possible. not bikini shot of me.
Everything is public already. I just joined Facebook the other day. The very first friend suggestion for me was my nephew's wife in Arkansas. I have never met her, emailed her, or spoke to her on the phone. I did send a check when they married several years ago. I don't have her email address nor do I have my nephew's email address. So how does Facebook know we are related? Nothing is sacred!
As usual faster340 is correct. In NYC you can get all this info online.
Yes the information is public. But you need to know which city the person lives in first before you can access that info on public record. Blockshopper makes it accessible with one google search.
The really bad thing about it is they write articles about you without consent. And will grab any info on the web to put into their article, even when and where you graduated. That's some deep phishing!!!!
Take this for example: http://westchester.blockshopper.com/news/story/2200031640-Estate_of_account_executive_sells_4BD_in_Somers
This company is sick.
Blockshopper is a big scam. They take peoples names, and combine it with other keywords to spam google.
300 million people in America, 57% have googled themselves... Blockshopper just wraps themselves in a real estate website saying they provide neighborhood information.
It's ironic, they want to make a community website for neighborhoods yet, they could care less about the complaints they get.
I blog about them all the time, and have received emails from Brian Timpone offering to explain why they steal your information. If only they had their own blog to let us know, of course if they did they would really find out how people feel about them profiting off our information
I'm extremly angry about this blockshopper site, I ask them to remove my information but they said no. I can't believe there's nothing we can to about this. This site needs to be banned!!!
I noticed that not all people are on blockshopper. Is there "public information" not public? If so, how do I make my public information not public? Thoughts?
Create your own shell corporation and put everything in that name...
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