This article is pretty alarming to me and may be part of why folks are getting so many targeted ads. Yikes!
Try running your name through sites like MyLife or search engines like Pipl. I don’t use FB and my info does not show up. People who use FB have a lot of personal info showing up including birthday, networth, salary, etc on the free side of the site. No idea about the paid side. If they use LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc even more personal info shows up.
Anyone surprised by this should talk to me about this bridge I’m selling…
I am surprised that they have financial info. I checked mine. It isn’t accurate, still, it is alarming. How did FB knew how much I make a year?
Salary information for your job area/position in your geographic area is generally available (Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc ). The personal info sites randomly use that info. Your property ownership/loan amount is also public info, and that can also be used to estimate how much you make. There is a reason big wigs do not directly hold their property.
Searched these sites for my immediate family. Lots of misinformation. My husband, who uses social media the least, had a photo on his page (my daughter and I didn’t).
They are also mining LinkedIn, they are using your public LinkedIn profile to take your job and determine a salary from that. Also, education and job titles were taken from LinkedIn.
They are also using property ownership records, listing your neighbors as “friends” on the report. Probably also using your location to guess at some of the financials.
Can you close linkedIn account? I haven’t had a salary for a while. It’s possible I made up the number at one point.
The linkedin account doesn’t list the salary - they takes your title, company, and location and match it to glassdoor to make up a salary. My husbands salary listing was a complete fabrication.
For me, they have wrong income. wrong net worth, wrong property value, and wrong religion. I have no idea who one listed associate is - not relative, friend, or previous or current neighbor. It does know where I’ve lived and variations of my name, at least. They’ve combined DS with another guy who has the same first and last name, middle initial, and birth date (I know about him because way back when, it caused complications with DS’s first driver’s license). DS keeps his own info very private so not much about him online. It thinks my MIL - gone 6 years - is still alive. It has the same wrong info for DH and also thinks he owns DS’s car.
The interwebs really should be able to figure out my religion and political leanings.
It says I have a police record. News to me. Maybe it will give me that much needed street cred 
Some things were right, a lot was wrong. Interestingly it gave my maiden name which I do not have on my Facebook profile.
Well, most of the information about me on MyLife is pretty far off, especially financial info. I guess there is just a lot of stuff out there. It does connect me to a lot of people – neighbors & relatives. It says my SisIL has a police record–news to all of us! Wow!
MyLife is a scam. Had some coworkers tell me that they will continue to lower your score and add more false information and charge you to remove it. If you drop their service after the trial period they add more false information. It is extortion. The information out there is crazy. Before I knew it was a scam I did the initial MyLife scan of information (never signed up or gave them any more information, just closed out) and they had my birthday and other information incorrect. Funny thing is that I listed a different birthday on fb- just a few weeks off but off. That is the birthdate they have for me. Ugh…
I have read some online profiles that claim I live with other relatives or that they live with me at varying addresses. They also claim my annual income if 3 figures to 6 figures (a pretty wide swath, which is actually wrong). They are also way off on our net worth and most things about me, H, and our family.
It was disturbing that they sold info about people tracking their ovulation on apps to others when the people being tracked had no idea. I guess at some level we all realize there is some tracking going on (why else do we get ads for gorgeous dresses after we’ve been helping folks look for MOG/MOB garments?)
It does make one feel they are living in a fishbowl! I guess private browsing is our friend.
Familytreenow.com is another data mining site, with addresses, phone numbers, names of supposed family members and contacts. Yikes! The miners are everywhere.
CA has a law that will be allowing people to opt out and gave their info removed in 2020. NY and others are passing similar bills. Europe has stronger protections in place.