I Love Spock's dashboard

I'm not sure what Spock's issue is with providing its users with a simple delete button but, I agree with you ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. It's beyond annoying to come upon that rare, rare, rarest of sites which will not permit its members from deleting an email address from their own accounts. Further to that, let's say that I wanted to delete me Spock account and start over with a fresh one - one where I can completely control all email addresses associated with my name: there is no way that I can see where I can delete my account. I may be wrong but, something is fishy here... And I don't like that type of feeling... I would have happily referred my network to Spock but, now, that's IMPOSSIBLE... – Vincent Wright, on August 08, 2008 15:15

Instead of using tortured logic, just put a delete button by the email addresses.

I'm a web developer, trust me, it's not difficult.

I Love Spock: Don't you get tired of defending this? Wouldn't a real job be better?

I've been trying to have data removed for about a month now. This is data that was pulled from closed LinkedIn and mySpace accounts (closed in February too). In other words, I removed personal data from the web before I even read about it in your oh so helpful FAQ.

Wink.com removed my data inside 48 hours...

are you joking, or did you really not understand? – LetsSueSpock, on August 08, 2008 04:28

Very good, detailed response. I appreciate it. However, let me be more specific about my issue; Let's say that I was a marketing consultant for a small company and that small company provided me an email address for marketing campaigns. I add that email address to my Spock account. My professional relationship with that client company ends. I can not remove from my account the email address I once used for my former client. ****IF*** the client still has that email address and ***IF*** the client knows that I added that email address to my Spock account THEN that former client has the same MEANS OF ACCESS to my Spock account as I do. Is the above scenario correct? If so, then my data isn't safe. My Spock account is no longer safe for me to use, correct?

Keep STRONG!
Vincent – Vincent Wright, on August 07, 2008 05:50

When I say "private" I also include publicly available info that is not associated with the identity of the individual it's about. For example, if you didn't reveal your identity on your blog, but you did reveal a bunch of non-identifying facts about yourself that were available other places on the web where those facts were associated with your identity, Spock could form the probable conclusion that the two individuals were the same individual. Then Spock could include further facts you reveal about yourself on the anonymous blog on your Spock page. I'm not saying Spock does this, but it's possible and would explain how they got info about me from my myspace page which, as far as I know, has never been associated with my name. Make sense?

This should be a source of concern for Spock, since while California law protects companies like Spock from libel suits when the false info they present is only pulled from elsewhere online, the law doesn't protect them if they compile false info on an individual from some places where that false info is not presented as being about the individual. If they do this, they've gone beyond merely showing what's elsewhere on the web. – LetsSueSpock, on August 05, 2008 00:28

Email with link sent. Thanks

LetsSueSpock: What I'm asking is, how would Spock take information from private sites? They're private -- it's not like Spock has an all-access pass to the Internet. When it crawls the Internet, it's just like you surfing it, but faster. One scenario that could reflect what you're talking about is if a public profile has been recently privatized. Say I had a MySpace profile that was public, and now I make that page private. Spock will have it there until it crawls MySpace again and sees that the profile has become private. There are two actions I can take at this point: if the profile is mine, I can request that it be taken down. If not, I can rest assured that Spock is working hard to refresh its index and take care of the problem. If you have an actual example of what you mentioned that you don't think falls into this scenario, I'd be interested to see it. – catgofire, on August 04, 2008 19:18

Hi SBR and Mo,

Please e-mail info@corp.spock.com with a link to your search result.

Don'tlikespock. If you would like to be removed from Spock please the question thread - Remove me from Spock! With regards to your other comments, as noted above, Spock is a search engine that works similar to Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc in that we crawl and index publish publicly available information. One of the many advantages of Spock is that we enable people to take control of their search result and remove any irrelevant tags, web links, pictures, etc. We are well aware that people don't necessarily display everything about themselves, which is why we enable people to claim their search result. Still, at the end of the day it's really up to a person to be aware of their web presence and what is made available about them (if you don't want information shown than you shouldn't display or post it- or at least make sure it's private) – I Love Spock, on August 04, 2008 17:21

(2nd try. Couldn't tell if first posted. They didn't ask for validation, etc.)

Catgofire, you are a wise-ass. Nobody likes a wise-ass. And unfortunately for you, you are not wise, which just makes you an ass.

Catgofire says:

"If it's not public, how did Spock get it? It's not like Spock broke into your house and stole your information"

How could Spock get info that's not public? By taking it from private sites, you idiot. No one here should be presuming that what Spock is doing is ethical. Here's one way Spock could obtain private info about individuals. They code algorithms that correlate info publicly associated with someone with similar info associated with someone whose identity is private. If the correlation between the two sets of info matches to a sufficiently high degree, they can make a probabilistic assumption that the private someone is the same person as the other public someone. Easy as pie. What do you think they employ all their scientists for?

Catgofire also said:

"... Everything on Spock is from somewhere else (public) on the Internet."

This is of course false, and easy to demonstrate as such. To test whether info on Spock is public, just copy a statistically improbable phrase from the suspected private info on a Spock page and Google it. If Google ONLY shows that phrase on the Spock page you copied it from, then obviously Spock is getting the info from someplace that you, a member of the public, can't get it from. Such info then is clearly not public info.

Somebody needs to file a class-action lawsuit and shut these MFs down. – LetsSueSpock, on August 04, 2008 16:52

and its kind of odd how none of the employees here don't have their birth dates and where exactly they live like the rest of us do. I guess you guys like your privacy too! take me off your website IMMEDIATELY

you have a horrible website you are advertising information that you have no right to! someone should report you to the cops and i think the media should do a story about how horrible you are!

Hi,

During an Address Book Import, the following message is displayed:



"No emails were sent, but if you like Spock, we would love it if you told your friends about us.

* They don't have to sign-up to use Spock, we just want them to do a few searches.
* Select the people from the below list you want to invite to Spock.
* We'll send them an email with the text you see on the right side of this page."

We've attempted to be very clear in what is sent out and who it is sent to when importing your address book.

With regards to some other e-mail that would have been sent out, Spock does not sell or display e-mails.

I can't find any sensible advice to how I could add information to a person's profile. Does one have to sign up? I searched for a person and would have some additional material. How can I do this? – Kith, on July 19, 2008 08:45

Tess and Emma,

Please see the thread entitled "Remove Me From Spock" on how to remove your search result.

Spock understands that not everyone wants to have a search result on Spock. These are the steps you need to take to remove yourself.

1) CLAIM your search result – after clicking on your name you should see an extended view with your name, location, tags, web links, etc. The claim button is found on the far right above the ads and next to the RSS button. The reason why you must claim your search result is that it’s the quickest way to remove yourself from Spock and helps us ensure it’s your search result you’d like removed.

When claiming your Spock Result, we may ask you for your login credentials to your Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. This helps us confirm that the search result you’re trying to claim is yours by enabling the Spock Robot to quickly check that the login credentials are correct. WE DO NOT STORE/KEEP/SELL THIS INFORMATION (please see our HELP page if you’d like more information about this).

2) REMOVE the ORIGINAL SOURCE of information from which Spock crawled and indexed the data from. To prevent yourself from being reindexed you must ensure that the original source has been made private or deleted (certain services such as Myspace will always display public information). If you are unsure whether or not your information is private, try searching yourself on the specific site using several different means.

3) FLAG your search result- located in the same location as the claim button, the flag button is located on the far right of your search result above the ads and next to the RSS feed. Once you select the flag button please note “Source Removed” in the comments section.

Because flagging does not immediately go into effect, please remove any irrelevant or unnecessary tags or web links by voting down the information. The voting key is found after selecting “SEE ALL” on the tags, pictures or web links on your search result. Once this is done please click on the blue triangle, or select “Vote on these Tags” (you may want to refresh the page after voting). To edit your blurb, name, age or location, select the “EDIT” button located on the top of your search result next to the “Settings” and “Logout” buttons.

If for some reason you are having difficulty claiming or flagging your search result, please e-mail Info@corp.spock.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Make sure to include your name, e-mail and your specific search result.

To flag your search result on Spock you must first "CLAIM" your search result- see the image below for the location



Once claimed you can flag your search result located in the same location as the claim button. Once flagged, please note "SOURCE REMOVED" in the comments field.