Why is my personal info available online?

They don’t just use online records. They use phone books, voter registrations (which are available through the Freedom of Information Act), and whatever other public records they can access. If your information is listed in any publicly available document, they can find it.

How do I go about removing that? Is that even possible?

Just for the record. If you are listed in someones address book on their phone and they install the Facebook application on the phone it will send all their contact info to Facebook unless they tell it not to. And I bet 99% of people just click on Okay.

So even if you don’t use Facebook they most likely already have all your info.

Cool, reason 1 million why facebook is a piece of shit.
reminds me of this

You can get yourself removed from the phone book by calling your phone service provider. They’ll either do it for you or tell you what you have to do. There may be a fee involved. It varies from company to company. As far as I know, there’s nothing you can do about the voter registration form except not register to vote. Not worth it.

@SavoirFaire I already know I’m not in the phone book. I’ve removed myself from that a while ago in an effort to stop telemarketers.

who knew this issue ran so deep lol Thanks George for the Freedom of Information Act, way to stop terrorism -_ -.

So much for the “Privacy terms” on social sites then, uh?!!!!!!!

@uberbatman Then you might want to try removing yourself from the Google phonebook and check if you are on any of the other sites they mention. Like I said, though, there’s not much to do about the voter registration forms (at least, not as far as I know).

@SavoirFaire I keep gettin a 404 whenever I try and use that >_< . I’m going to give the site a call in the morning and try and figure out how they got my info. I’ll let you guys know what I figured out.

@uberbatman Looks like you won’t be able to win this battle, for the time being, prepare for internet fame :P

I mean for me all the site has is where I live now and my full name. But my Dad for instance it has the last 3 places he lived, his full name and it has everything but the last 4 digits of his phone number. Some other people it has even more such as whole they married how old they are etc. Pretty scary stuff IMO.

It seems that it’s no longer possible to keep one’s identity off the internet.

Even if you have an unlisted telephone number, the various “search” companies will find your address through deed recordings, property tax records, etc. Anyone can look up your name, find your address, and view pictures of your house—both from satellites and at street level. Then, there are also school records, birth, marriage, and divorce recordings, etc.

Some of the things that I read about myself make me feel very vulnerable and exposed. A search for my married name revealed the grammar school that I attended from the 1st through 6th grades. I’ve also been traced back to the address where my family lived when I was in high school.

Just to update you guys, I just got off the phone with Mylife.com they said they got my information from voter registration. I asked them to remove it from the site and they did instantly with no head ache on my part which was nice. If any of you guys are listed on there I suggest giving them a call as well.