What You Can and Can’t Do with Spokeo: Separating Fact From Fiction

If you’ve been paying attention to this blog in recent months, you’ll know that we’ve been adding cool new features to our site at a dizzying rate. (Have you tried out our Famous People search feature yet? No? Get searching!) While we pride ourselves on providing the public with a powerful tool to reconnect with old friends and classmates, find lost family members, expose fraudsters and more, with power comes responsibility. Spokeo takes federal and state privacy guidelines very seriously, and we work closely with regulators to ensure that our product continues to not only be useful, but safe.

So while there are tons of awesome things you can do with Spokeo’s people search engine, there are certain things that you should not do. As the disclaimer (found in each individual profile) reads, “Spokeo does not possess or have access to secure or private financial information. Spokeo is not a credit reporting agency and does not offer consumer reports. None of the information offered by Spokeo is to be considered for purposes of determining any entity or person’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, or for any other purposes covered under the FCRA.” In other words, you cannot use Spokeo for the purposes of tenant screening, credit checks, or employee background checks. Contrary to what the New York Times has reported, Spokeo does not market to HR recruiters.

We here at Spokeo are dedicated to providing a service that provides a benefit to society, and so we feel it’s important to make this information very clear, especially so when we’re newsworthy enough appear in the pages of major publications like the New York Times and Time magazine. Feel free to contact us anytime if you have any questions – we’d love to hear from you!

(For a more in-depth and more boring version of this blog post, please feel free to take a look at our Terms of Use.)