AboutUs.org Invades Your Privacy
This morning while doing a whois lookup on my domain, neupix.com, I discovered that there is a new website in town that creates entire Wiki articles about domain names. AboutUs.org feels it's appropriate to gather both personal and website information of domain names and put them all into one place. My personal information (including email address, mailing address and telephone number) were all included on this page, as well as the neupix.com logo and the contents of my about page.
I know that my personal information is publicly available -- I own multiple domain names, and a simple whois search of them will return this information. But thats not what bothers me. By simply displaying ALL of this information publicly (with some pages even containing a google map to people's houses) AboutUs.org is running a haven for spammers and identity thiefs to collect personal information of unsuspecting people quickly and easily.
Because this site is a Wiki it is suggested that you edit and remove any information you don't want public, however due to the nature of the beast, this information will still remain in the wiki's history and can be reinstated by AboutUs.org.
I urge anyone who has any concerns about this site to take action. All my domains will be removed from AboutUs.org, and I suggest you do the same. All future websites you create should have a robots.txt file that excludes the AboutUsBot, to prevent your information and details from being stolen.
A site like AboutUs.org could be a great resource for descriptions and reviews of websites, however such a site should be voluntary, and should not automatically add information without permission.
January 28th, 2007 at 2:06 am
That’s really interesting, and highlights the problem with any wiki or website - anyone can post your contact details online or email address, and once they do it’s impossible to undo.
I’m happy for my site ( http://bla.st/ ) to be listed on aboutus.org but I agree I don’t want my personal contact details on it. I guess if you want your details private it’s a good idea never to publish them online at all.
Domain name whois info is a real pain in the ass. In New Zealand all the domain whois information is totally public, even email addresses. As a result it’s the source of most of my spam
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:36 am
Wikis are editable and as such nothing is “impossible to undo.” And if you ask nicely an administrator can remove a page’s edit history after you, say, delete information that you do not wish to be listed on the site. Wikis go to great lengths to combat spam, and it is simple to reverse and/or prevent it.
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Be aware that when using AboutUs, you have very limited recourse if there’s something on your domain page that you’d like removed. “Yes, you have a right to object but we don’t have to listen” - right from one of their admins.
You can see my review here: http://nathanr.ca/opinion/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-aboutus/
August 5th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
The whole of aboutus.org is a giant spam index. Whats more, they don’t give ANYTHING value back to website owners in terms of link value - all links are set to NOFOLLOW.
I just requested our domain be removed permenantly.
Do the world a favour and request yours be removed as well.