How many websites do you have a subscription with? What kind of information do they ask for? With one simple search of your first and last name on Spokeo, you can find out how many of "you" there are in the United States. Here's the scary part; you can buy the other people's information. The cheapest package that I saw visiting this website was for $7.95 a month, you can search for and find out anyone's full name, current address, previous cities that they have lived in, relatives, their phone number, email address, age, birthday, social media profiles, personal details, and court records.

Do you know what information is out there about yourself?

Being able to access this information so easily should be a terrifying fact. This could potentially be harmful in so many situations. From a screenshot of a stream of Tumblr comments, user radianteternalsilverwolf writes about how an ex-partner of theirs possibly could have used Spokeo to find them. They then go on to state that they found their entire family and all of their information. Another user on the stream of comments, yiffparty, writes that they found their 14-year-old sister on the website.

Jeana Tahnk, the author of a Cool Mom Tech article explaining how to remove your information from Spokeo, states to "not get too paranoid" as there are a handful of other sites that have access to this information.

The horrible truth is, the internet is not the safest place for personal information. It is a vast collection of all kinds of knowledge. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States, and as many as nine million Americans have their identity stolen each year.

Check out this Blasting News article by Joseph Njoroge about how the FBI is tracking down identity thieves in accordance with the financial information.

So what are you supposed to do?

Starting with taking your information off of sites like Spokeo is a start. In the future, practicing good internet safety and being knowledgeable about what information about you is shared.

We all skip over them, but reading a sites privacy policy about your information is a good place to look. Trust your gut if anything. If you are unsure about a site, don't share any personal information. Another good thing to do is avoid clickbait articles on websites as popular as Facebook. These can upload viruses on to your device that steals your information.

If you feel uncomfortable with this information about you being out on the internet for purchase, please watch this YouTube video by Laser Beem of Truth to figure out how to remove your information.
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