[HN Gopher] Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List
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Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List
Author : tomodachi94
Score : 130 points
Date : 2023-08-25 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| beyondd wrote:
| Optery founder here, we're a YC company (W22) that automatically
| scans and removes people from hundreds of these sites. (for U.S.
| residents only)
|
| There's a catch 22 where you have to be comfortable enough to
| submit your information to these sites' opt out pages in order
| for them to take it down. But if you do nothing, it continues to
| proliferate unchecked.
|
| Most people don't have the time or inclination to submit opt out
| requests to data brokers directly, let alone stay on top of when
| information inevitably pops back up. This is where data removal
| services like Optery come in, but there's also a similar catch 22
| where you have to trust the company you're using. Most companies
| in the data removal space are trustworthy, but some are not.
| Along the lines of trustworthiness, one of the most underrated
| attributes of a data removal service is its security credentials.
| Optery has its SOC 2, Type II security certification, whereas
| most other services do not.
|
| If you already use a different service such as DeleteMe, Kanary,
| or Incogni, you can run a free Optery scan to see what they've
| missed. The free Optery scan typically produces 50 - 100
| screenshots of places your info is published online.
|
| Optery was launched to the public on HackerNews as a Show HN
| before we got into YC, and again as a Launch HN after we got into
| YC. Lots of great insights on the topic of removing info from
| data brokers in those threads:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27662114
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010
| abdulocracy wrote:
| Incogni does something similar but not only for US customers.
| BillSaysThis wrote:
| I wish I could believe that submitting these opt outs would move
| the needle in any meaningful way but :sadblob:
| barryrandall wrote:
| It reduces the number of law-abiding parties trafficking in
| your personal data. Unfortunately, whoever publishes the
| monthly dark web data leak rollup still doesn't take opt-outs.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Set that BADBOOL to false, man
| pinko wrote:
| I would pay three figures for someone to do this for me, for all
| these brokers.
|
| (I'm well aware that outsourcing the job carries its own risks...
| nonetheless there's an opportunity here.)
| eep_social wrote:
| Kanary is here and actively posting if that helps at all:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37222672
| kanary wrote:
| hello!
| techietim wrote:
| At the bottom of the list you will find a "Paid options"
| section. The author says they personally have had a good
| experience with DeleteMe and Kanary.
| sottol wrote:
| Afaict, these are all recurring subscriptions. Is there any
| reason not to signup for a month or two and then cancel,
| maybe repeat every couple years? The sub is more of a
| continuous monitoring thing?
|
| I assume they wouldn't just "undo" their opt-outs?
|
| I'd prefer a one-time payment over that darn subscription-
| recurring-revenue-model.
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| The month or two thing will work for some exposures, but
| the bummer reality is that these sites are terrible and the
| worst of them take persistence and escalation to remove,
| which can take some time.
|
| (I've been working for one of the aforementioned--Kanary--
| for about a year now on this sort of thing.)
|
| Re: undoing opt-outs, we do not do that, but data brokers
| _will_ re-surface your information again if they find it
| elsewhere.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Adding my own personal experience with Incogni (owned by
| SurfShark); I feel like I'm getting my money's worth as far
| as data brokers contacted automatically on my behalf (100+).
| s0ss wrote:
| These services do already exist. I'm not sure how I feel about
| this.
| wavesplash wrote:
| Check out Optery (YC Alum) removes ~250 data brokers
| (continuously). https://www.optery.com
| swyx wrote:
| amazing that a random website making money from publishing your
| personal details is something you have to opt OUT of and this is
| totally okay and legal
| beardog wrote:
| Important to note that not all data brokers are equal. Some are
| merely resellers or essentially proxies of others. So you can opt
| out of a smaller number and see results trickle down over time in
| some cases.
|
| From here https://inteltechniques.com/workbook.html:
|
| > The "MOST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK" removals: Spokeo, Mylife,
| Radaris, Whitepages, Intelius, BeenVerified, Acxiom, Infotracer,
| Lexis Nexis, TruePeopleSearch
| kanary wrote:
| Yael does incredible work on this repo & we have contributed in
| the past (we'd like to more in the future too!).
|
| Doing this work is tough/timeconsuming but can be done DIY. We're
| working on automating it at scale. YC gave us a grant in 2018 for
| this work.
|
| Automating this sounds simple but gets extremely complex to
| scale. - evading cloudflare - solving captchas - managing site
| footprint (think about google's algo to crawl the web) - ux /
| product design (how should we communicate to members if a site is
| an a$$?) - identity matching...
|
| At the end of the day, we need better regulations in the US to
| help us wrangle the data broker industry. Hand in hand with more
| advanced technology for monitoring and holding this industry
| accountable... that seems the best path fwd.
| myself248 wrote:
| A lot of these have scary warnings like "If you ask us not to
| stalk you, YOU WILL NEVER QUALIFY FOR ANYTHING
| AGAIN!!!!!!11111one"
|
| That sounds like puffery. Has anyone ever suffered a documented
| consequence along those lines?
| gigel82 wrote:
| I would not trust any of these "opt out forms" with any of my
| data. All that does is confirm you're an actual person, and if
| you give them an email address or phone number they'll just
| confirm that relationship as well.
|
| Tried doing a few when something similar was posted 5 years back
| and a couple of months later my data was still showing up, but
| now with a green check-mark next to it. So learn from my mistakes
| and try to avoid interacting with these at all; maybe instead
| shoot a message to your representative asking for more legal
| privacy protections.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| This is an article someone submitted yesterday. Good original
| rsearch.
|
| https://netzpolitik.org/2023/eu-country-comparison-how-data-...
| Liquix wrote:
| "Just fill out this form with the very information you're trying
| to take down and submit it to our servers! It's not like we run a
| quasi-legal service based around monetizing this exact type of
| data!"
|
| What reason is there to trust that the more shady brokers aren't
| just updating your record with IP address + 'sent an opt-out
| request' flag, making the data even more valuable?
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| one could change small things and tie the name to the service.
| It doesn't help much if you aren't a researcher.
| gochi wrote:
| What reason is there to trust any provider when you don't have
| direct read access to their servers?
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I remember Twitter asking me to send them my photo ID to remove
| a tweet with my personal details (someone doxxed me). It's not
| like it wasn't obviously doxxing.
|
| I won't miss Twitter one bit.
| oxygen_crisis wrote:
| A lot of them let you look up the info they already have on
| you.
|
| I don't see the harm in pasting in the info I can see they
| already have, in a request to remove it.
| Raed667 wrote:
| This! Plus some forms require an ID and I'm not trusting those
| people with that kind of documents
| DistractionRect wrote:
| For those I usually just upload a picture generated by
| thispersondoesntexist, they don't actually check them. It's
| just friction to discourage users from completing the flow.
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| Which is extra annoying, because they _shouldn 't_, but it's
| somewhat vague.
|
| CCPA says: "Businesses also should not require you to verify
| your identity, though they can ask you basic questions to
| identify which personal information is associated with
| you."[0]
|
| The worst is that some of the bigger services (intelius, who
| provides data for many of these sites) have begun to require
| opt-outs come from an email address that they already have on
| file for you. Really need to legislate these companies out of
| existence.
|
| 0: https://www.oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa#sectionb
| ywain wrote:
| Out of curiosity I tried a few of the services on this list. They
| all follow the same textbook dark pattern, with fake progress
| bars, making the process of looking up someone artificially take
| several minutes, then only at the end do they ask for your email
| and payment information.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| There's a few actually free sites that give you most of the
| info that the others charge you for. All the good ones I'm
| aware of are listed here. Free, no signup, instant search
| results.
|
| The truly free ones tend to have a tab to search by just a
| phone number, and you'll never get a fake loading bar.
|
| At one point they accurately listed every address I've ever
| lived at, relations, phone numbers, email addresses, and even
| some usernames I can only assume were linked to me as part of
| some database breach. A few years ago I went through and "opted
| out" of a bunch of these services for myself and a few of my
| family members. Looks like I'm still unlisted/removed 2-3 years
| later.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Data Broker Opt-Out List_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24388803 - Sept 2020 (162
| comments)
| n0n0n4t0r wrote:
| Most sites a either down or blocked me :(
| kanary wrote:
| Yikes, yep, most of these brokers have strict cloudflare
| settings that block you if you use Tor or a VPN, are outside
| the US, or disable js.
|
| We'd like Cloudflare to be a little more helpful, but they just
| let harmful sites block people who don't want to share their
| info / location / browser fingerprint under the guise of
| 'stopping bots'.
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(page generated 2023-08-25 23:02 UTC)