Launch HN: Optery (YC W22) – Remove your personal info from the internet
149 comments
Hi there,
just signed up for your free service, and wow, it's creepy to see my childhood home phone number just sitting there next to my name and current address so many times. Three things:
First, I'm looking at your paid plans, and what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of, and then I can repeat the process any time I happen to think about it. I know that's not what you want as a business, and I'm sure it's not what your backers want, but I can't see why a monthly subscription service is the right model from a user's POV. All I really want is to periodically wipe the slate clean.
Second, I see that you have the most expensive plan labeled as "MOST POPULAR," and I'm afraid I just don't believe that that's true; and given how much your business relies on trust, something about the breeziness/sleaziness of this tactic seems out of place.
And third, a general comment -- this seems like a cool idea for a company, But I'm surprised YC was interested in it. I personally can't see any way that this becomes a billion dollar business, or 100 billion, or whatever returns VCs are looking for. But heck, if I was able to guess that kind of thing, I'd be out there doing it.
Good luck y'all
just signed up for your free service, and wow, it's creepy to see my childhood home phone number just sitting there next to my name and current address so many times. Three things:
First, I'm looking at your paid plans, and what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of, and then I can repeat the process any time I happen to think about it. I know that's not what you want as a business, and I'm sure it's not what your backers want, but I can't see why a monthly subscription service is the right model from a user's POV. All I really want is to periodically wipe the slate clean.
Second, I see that you have the most expensive plan labeled as "MOST POPULAR," and I'm afraid I just don't believe that that's true; and given how much your business relies on trust, something about the breeziness/sleaziness of this tactic seems out of place.
And third, a general comment -- this seems like a cool idea for a company, But I'm surprised YC was interested in it. I personally can't see any way that this becomes a billion dollar business, or 100 billion, or whatever returns VCs are looking for. But heck, if I was able to guess that kind of thing, I'd be out there doing it.
Good luck y'all
Unfortunately, your second point is just the tip of the sleaze-burg. All those sites they showed as having your information also seem to have info on "Notareal Personxxx": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610432
Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. We made a few quick cosmetic updates to mitigate until we can re-work our dashboard more meaningfully. For example:
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
This is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. Several comments have cried “foul” on this one and we hear it loud and clear. We apologize this has persisted in the product, and can definitely see how this can be misleading.
To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found.
What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through.
The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception.
I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you!
We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found.
What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through.
The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception.
I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you!
We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
Sorry I might come across as harsh, but you indicate this is a 'defect', at the same time your comment makes clear that this is a known issue and you choose to keep it that way.
> The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work.
You can't have it both ways - either admit its intentional or change if you know its deceptive.
The whole thread here convinces me that this is neither a product that should exist, nor does this startup have the users' interests in mind.
> The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work.
You can't have it both ways - either admit its intentional or change if you know its deceptive.
The whole thread here convinces me that this is neither a product that should exist, nor does this startup have the users' interests in mind.
It's funny I parsed the dummy name "Notareal Personxxx" as 'Notary-something' and thought maybe this was some type of legal proxy account.
it's deceptive at step 1, and you're selling trust.
That might just be a UX issue. If the Exposure Risk Scan were instantaneous rather than ~1hr I think (optimistically) that the result page wouldn't be misleading as a whole.
That said, I did confirm your observed behavior with securely random identifiers (in the off-chance that "Notareal Personxxx" is _actually_ sufficiently commonly used for testing that it was slurped up by data brokers).
That said, I did confirm your observed behavior with securely random identifiers (in the off-chance that "Notareal Personxxx" is _actually_ sufficiently commonly used for testing that it was slurped up by data brokers).
Thanks for trying out Optery! It sounds like you got the same “Wow” moment most new Optery users describe. Glad to hear!
1) We do see some people activate their subscription for a few months, and then cancel their plan to downgrade back down to the Free Basic tier. The Free Basic tier sends ongoing Exposure Reports (currently every 3 months), so if they start to see more profiles pop back up, they re-activate. There are significant benefits to keeping the subscription running on an ongoing basis though. For example, we are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers automatically as we add them to your plan. Sometimes we struggle with a data broker for many months, and then get a breakthrough and are able to get a waterfall of profiles removed at that data broker. We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up, so they are removed immediately.
2) The Ultimate plan is our most popular plan by far. It’s not even close. Second most popular is our Core plan. And Extended is our third most popular plan. PCMag recently did a deep dive into our space and named Optery their coveted “Editors’ Choice” as the most outstanding product on the market. Here was their summary quote “Optery’s handling of the core data removal task outshines the rest, and its free tier brings privacy protection to those who can’t afford expensive subscriptions. In the realm of personal data removal, Optery is our Editors’ Choice.”
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery
Optery is the premium product in the space, so it’s natural that our customers would gravitate to the highest tier plan.
3) Thank you!
1) We do see some people activate their subscription for a few months, and then cancel their plan to downgrade back down to the Free Basic tier. The Free Basic tier sends ongoing Exposure Reports (currently every 3 months), so if they start to see more profiles pop back up, they re-activate. There are significant benefits to keeping the subscription running on an ongoing basis though. For example, we are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers automatically as we add them to your plan. Sometimes we struggle with a data broker for many months, and then get a breakthrough and are able to get a waterfall of profiles removed at that data broker. We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up, so they are removed immediately.
2) The Ultimate plan is our most popular plan by far. It’s not even close. Second most popular is our Core plan. And Extended is our third most popular plan. PCMag recently did a deep dive into our space and named Optery their coveted “Editors’ Choice” as the most outstanding product on the market. Here was their summary quote “Optery’s handling of the core data removal task outshines the rest, and its free tier brings privacy protection to those who can’t afford expensive subscriptions. In the realm of personal data removal, Optery is our Editors’ Choice.”
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery
Optery is the premium product in the space, so it’s natural that our customers would gravitate to the highest tier plan.
3) Thank you!
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> what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of
easyoptouts is the closest thing I know of to what you're after. It's still a subscription at $20 p.a., not $10, but you can sign up and then cancel after initial opt outs.
easyoptouts is the closest thing I know of to what you're after. It's still a subscription at $20 p.a., not $10, but you can sign up and then cancel after initial opt outs.
At this price I believe Optery still provides more value than easyoptouts. For $9.99, half the price of easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 100+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. For $24.99, about the same price as easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 200+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due.
By cancelling the plan, you wouldn’t benefit from the ongoing scanning, monitoring, and removals from companies that take longer than 30 days, or the coverage for the new data brokers continually being added to the plans. But Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what the reports are saying.
By cancelling the plan, you wouldn’t benefit from the ongoing scanning, monitoring, and removals from companies that take longer than 30 days, or the coverage for the new data brokers continually being added to the plans. But Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what the reports are saying.
Wait until you find out that as a kid your phone number and address where in a yellow pages in every household around your community!
I don't see how this can work at a fundamental level.
You're telling me that to remove my info I have to essentially give (through your service) all these companies & data brokers my info so they can opt me out, and actually trust them that they'll do so? If anything, opting out is a signal that you may actually be of more interest to them than not doing anything. If these companies can also infer that the request is coming from your service (and they will, unless you use random proxies and browser automation), the flag becomes "this person has enough disposable money to pay for such a service" which suddenly increases the value of your profile by orders of magnitude.
How are you going to make money to justify the VC funding? VCs rarely fund boring, sustainable businesses that sell a service and make a slim profit; for them it's all about hypergrowth, but I don't see the potential here - unless of course you start doing the very thing you're currently protecting against. The simple fact that it's VC-funded tells me to steer well clear.
The only proper way to deal with this is with GDPR-like regulation and actually enforcing it - the latter has been lacking in Europe, but thankfully seems like it's somewhat picked up recently.
You're telling me that to remove my info I have to essentially give (through your service) all these companies & data brokers my info so they can opt me out, and actually trust them that they'll do so? If anything, opting out is a signal that you may actually be of more interest to them than not doing anything. If these companies can also infer that the request is coming from your service (and they will, unless you use random proxies and browser automation), the flag becomes "this person has enough disposable money to pay for such a service" which suddenly increases the value of your profile by orders of magnitude.
How are you going to make money to justify the VC funding? VCs rarely fund boring, sustainable businesses that sell a service and make a slim profit; for them it's all about hypergrowth, but I don't see the potential here - unless of course you start doing the very thing you're currently protecting against. The simple fact that it's VC-funded tells me to steer well clear.
The only proper way to deal with this is with GDPR-like regulation and actually enforcing it - the latter has been lacking in Europe, but thankfully seems like it's somewhat picked up recently.
Anyone can submit opt outs, with, or without, a service like ours. The vast majority of data brokers do remove the information after an opt out request is submitted. Unfortunately, over time, many data brokers start adding it back. The CCPA (California's Privacy Law) permits a data broker to stop honoring an opt out after 12 months.
To answer your question though, yes, in order to get these companies to remove your info, you have to submit an opt out that identifies who you are. There is a catch-22, otherwise, they would not know who to opt out.
There are a multitude of reasons why people submit opt outs beyond whether or not the person can pay, e.g. victims of domestic violence, police officers, public figures, government officials, members of the military, etc. The data brokers are aware of this and generally have processes to accommodate the requests.
Millions of people use some form of identity protection to protect themselves from identity theft, email spam, phishing, scams, hacking, etc. It is a multi-billion dollar market across the consumer, business, and government levels.
I do agree that we need stronger privacy laws in the U.S. ASAP!
To answer your question though, yes, in order to get these companies to remove your info, you have to submit an opt out that identifies who you are. There is a catch-22, otherwise, they would not know who to opt out.
There are a multitude of reasons why people submit opt outs beyond whether or not the person can pay, e.g. victims of domestic violence, police officers, public figures, government officials, members of the military, etc. The data brokers are aware of this and generally have processes to accommodate the requests.
Millions of people use some form of identity protection to protect themselves from identity theft, email spam, phishing, scams, hacking, etc. It is a multi-billion dollar market across the consumer, business, and government levels.
I do agree that we need stronger privacy laws in the U.S. ASAP!
The CCPA (California's Privacy Law) permits a data broker to stop honoring an opt out after 12 months.
Does this mean users have to keep opting out every 12 months? If yes, that sounds...dumb, isn't it? Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, is there a reason behind this 12 month period? Even if they wanted to let data brokers add the data back, 12 months seems too short a time. What am I missing?
Why is every bad thing opt out instead of opt in? This is so backwards...
Does this mean users have to keep opting out every 12 months? If yes, that sounds...dumb, isn't it? Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, is there a reason behind this 12 month period? Even if they wanted to let data brokers add the data back, 12 months seems too short a time. What am I missing?
Why is every bad thing opt out instead of opt in? This is so backwards...
Here's the exact text from Section 1798.135(a)(5) of the CCPA: "For a consumer who has opted-out of the sale of the consumer’s personal information, respect the consumer’s decision to opt-out for at least 12 months before requesting that the consumer authorize the sale of the consumer’s personal information."
Data brokers can often have a very liberal interpretation of what it means for the consumer to "authorize" the sale of their personal information. I would guess 99% of data sales were never actually “authorized” by the consumer to begin with, and are usually done through some backdoor implicit authorization that the consumer has no knowledge of whatsoever.
> Does this mean users have to keep opting out every 12 months? If yes, that sounds...dumb, isn't it? Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, is there a reason behind this 12 month period? Even if they wanted to let data brokers add the data back, 12 months seems too short a time. What am I missing?
Although it often causes harm and is often considered evil, there is a lot of economic value that results from the free flow of data. U.S. lawmakers recognize this and its partly why they’re so reluctant to pass strict privacy laws like they have in Europe. The other reason is that lobbyists for deep pocketed tech companies water down privacy laws significantly before they can pass. Even with the 12 month expiration, the CCPA is the strictest privacy law in the U.S., and most U.S. citizens have basically no data privacy rights whatsoever.
How long a data broker honors an opt out is highly variable by the data broker. But yes, in general, you have to continue monitoring these companies and re-submitting opt out requests over time, that's what Optery does with its ongoing scanning and removal technology. We have a little more info on this topic here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/when-my-data-is-removed-f...
Data brokers can often have a very liberal interpretation of what it means for the consumer to "authorize" the sale of their personal information. I would guess 99% of data sales were never actually “authorized” by the consumer to begin with, and are usually done through some backdoor implicit authorization that the consumer has no knowledge of whatsoever.
> Does this mean users have to keep opting out every 12 months? If yes, that sounds...dumb, isn't it? Maybe I am not understanding this correctly, is there a reason behind this 12 month period? Even if they wanted to let data brokers add the data back, 12 months seems too short a time. What am I missing?
Although it often causes harm and is often considered evil, there is a lot of economic value that results from the free flow of data. U.S. lawmakers recognize this and its partly why they’re so reluctant to pass strict privacy laws like they have in Europe. The other reason is that lobbyists for deep pocketed tech companies water down privacy laws significantly before they can pass. Even with the 12 month expiration, the CCPA is the strictest privacy law in the U.S., and most U.S. citizens have basically no data privacy rights whatsoever.
How long a data broker honors an opt out is highly variable by the data broker. But yes, in general, you have to continue monitoring these companies and re-submitting opt out requests over time, that's what Optery does with its ongoing scanning and removal technology. We have a little more info on this topic here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/when-my-data-is-removed-f...
Lobbying. That's the reason. There is no rational reason why a user's explicitly expressed preference would become irrelevant after a year.
The organ donor database won't ask you every month to verify that you still want to do it - there is nil legitimate reason why this would be 'needed' in this case.
The organ donor database won't ask you every month to verify that you still want to do it - there is nil legitimate reason why this would be 'needed' in this case.
Not in California, but spent some time several years ago working on the tech for a sales arm.
My impression there was that people where pretty conscious of opt-outs and wanting to manage them carefully, if only because the consequences of not doing so could be costly. We spent a lot of time talking about opt-outs and trying to honor them across different tools they used.
Many prospects came from purchased lists. Some were contracts where some other firm was specifically handling a marketing campaign for us, but others were clearly just purchased from a data broker who, presumably, filtered their data for people who indicated an interest in us.
When we asked how to handle these, the decision was that if you showed up on one of these lists, you had opted in. After all, that is what the broker told us.
This presents the first problem: If you buy data from a broker who you have not specifically engaged to campaign on your behalf, its a little gray what that data actually represents. This may be resolved by probing into to broker's collection and segmentation more, but as far as I can tell there's not a lot of incentive for the decision makers to care.
Anyways, I was not particularly thrilled with this approach, especially after working with some lists we purchased several times a year that always had a significant number of duplicates time after time. So I wrote that particular import to check for duplicates and filter them out.
Well, this worked great until the prospects, having no recent activity, grew stale and were cleaned from the system. Then when they showed up in the list again wouldn't match and get a fresh new subscription.
Which presents the second problem: If you don't hold on to their identifiable information, you cannot determine if they have previously requested to be removed from your offerings. So it may be dumb to have to opt out again, bit the alternative is to trust them not to use your information in the mean time.
My impression there was that people where pretty conscious of opt-outs and wanting to manage them carefully, if only because the consequences of not doing so could be costly. We spent a lot of time talking about opt-outs and trying to honor them across different tools they used.
Many prospects came from purchased lists. Some were contracts where some other firm was specifically handling a marketing campaign for us, but others were clearly just purchased from a data broker who, presumably, filtered their data for people who indicated an interest in us.
When we asked how to handle these, the decision was that if you showed up on one of these lists, you had opted in. After all, that is what the broker told us.
This presents the first problem: If you buy data from a broker who you have not specifically engaged to campaign on your behalf, its a little gray what that data actually represents. This may be resolved by probing into to broker's collection and segmentation more, but as far as I can tell there's not a lot of incentive for the decision makers to care.
Anyways, I was not particularly thrilled with this approach, especially after working with some lists we purchased several times a year that always had a significant number of duplicates time after time. So I wrote that particular import to check for duplicates and filter them out.
Well, this worked great until the prospects, having no recent activity, grew stale and were cleaned from the system. Then when they showed up in the list again wouldn't match and get a fresh new subscription.
Which presents the second problem: If you don't hold on to their identifiable information, you cannot determine if they have previously requested to be removed from your offerings. So it may be dumb to have to opt out again, bit the alternative is to trust them not to use your information in the mean time.
> Which presents the second problem: If you don't hold on to their identifiable information, you cannot determine if they have previously requested to be removed from your offerings. So it may be dumb to have to opt out again, bit the alternative is to trust them not to use your information in the mean time.
This is just false. You can opt to keep e.g. a hash to check against future additions. Else you also would not be able to comply with the 12 month requirement.
This is just false. You can opt to keep e.g. a hash to check against future additions. Else you also would not be able to comply with the 12 month requirement.
I'm not familiar with the rules for data brokers or if Optery is able to compel anyone to actually delete things, especially if they claim not to not have a way to prevent reentry. The platforms I worked with all handled opt-outs with a "Has Opted Out" indicator that could be filtered, in particular on distribution, and deleting profiles was a separate concern with the only crossover that they must be kept long enough to honor opt-out requirements.
Personal profiles are messy. People have different names, addresses, email, phone numbers, and different people sharing any of the aforementioned details. This is complicated enough with the raw data and unless you have a very simple profiles or opt-out rules, such as treating the entire household as one, you're going to need more than a simple hash to figure out if there is existing opt-out history.
Profiles may also need to be kept for transactional purposes. Presumably, data brokers and people who have only heard of you through brokers wouldn't have any transactional activity. But everyone else likely needs to deal with opt-outs on the distribution side, making opt-outs a solved problem that doesn't need to happen on intake.
So...sure, you can.
But I wouldn't hold your breath that this will be seen as a reasonable expectation for most developers or businesses to implement.
Personal profiles are messy. People have different names, addresses, email, phone numbers, and different people sharing any of the aforementioned details. This is complicated enough with the raw data and unless you have a very simple profiles or opt-out rules, such as treating the entire household as one, you're going to need more than a simple hash to figure out if there is existing opt-out history.
Profiles may also need to be kept for transactional purposes. Presumably, data brokers and people who have only heard of you through brokers wouldn't have any transactional activity. But everyone else likely needs to deal with opt-outs on the distribution side, making opt-outs a solved problem that doesn't need to happen on intake.
So...sure, you can.
But I wouldn't hold your breath that this will be seen as a reasonable expectation for most developers or businesses to implement.
I think it can be a great service but have the same question as above.
Why did you opt-out for VC? This seems to be a perfect candidate for a profitable and sustainable business because you don't really need a complicated infra or another 2 years to build an enterprise grade product. (unless I am missing something).
Thank you!
Why did you opt-out for VC? This seems to be a perfect candidate for a profitable and sustainable business because you don't really need a complicated infra or another 2 years to build an enterprise grade product. (unless I am missing something).
Thank you!
> in order to get these companies to remove your info, you have to submit an opt out that identifies who you are.
I wonder if you could build an opt-out service or protocol where you share a hash of your personal information instead of the info itself. With the hash you can identify matching records but you cannot create a record from the hash.
If Optery bought full datasets from databrokers, it could use a hash to identify matching records and submit those back to the brokers for opt-out (this wouldn't work for querying their public APIs...)
Probably not a feasible solution, but it's a fun possibility to think about!
I wonder if you could build an opt-out service or protocol where you share a hash of your personal information instead of the info itself. With the hash you can identify matching records but you cannot create a record from the hash.
If Optery bought full datasets from databrokers, it could use a hash to identify matching records and submit those back to the brokers for opt-out (this wouldn't work for querying their public APIs...)
Probably not a feasible solution, but it's a fun possibility to think about!
> With the hash you can identify matching records but you cannot create a record from the hash.
I always chuckle when I see someone saying this. A buddy of mine (email marketer) tried to convince me that his 50 million large email database is "well protected" because they are using "industry standard md5 encryption". Of course its not encryption but rather hashing. He was so sure of his, erm, encryption, that he send me the whole database and said "here, crack it".
I found a large hacked Facebook email database online, run few python scripts to weed us most combinations of usernames (name+numbers, numbers+name, numbers+some random chars, etc) and some 1000 generic email domains names (like gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc). It took my regular i9 five days to go thru the whole 50M of md5s and compare each combination of usernames + domains names. Oh boy his shock when I returned some 70% "unencrypted" plain text emails back to him :)
Bottom line is, if there is some "industry standard" of hashing data, then there are ways to unhash it. Yes in many cases it may be in millions of years to circle thru all possibilities, but if your standard is first name + last name + email address (and all caps), then you can easily plug database of names and download millions of email records online and narrow down your hashing search greatly.
I always chuckle when I see someone saying this. A buddy of mine (email marketer) tried to convince me that his 50 million large email database is "well protected" because they are using "industry standard md5 encryption". Of course its not encryption but rather hashing. He was so sure of his, erm, encryption, that he send me the whole database and said "here, crack it".
I found a large hacked Facebook email database online, run few python scripts to weed us most combinations of usernames (name+numbers, numbers+name, numbers+some random chars, etc) and some 1000 generic email domains names (like gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc). It took my regular i9 five days to go thru the whole 50M of md5s and compare each combination of usernames + domains names. Oh boy his shock when I returned some 70% "unencrypted" plain text emails back to him :)
Bottom line is, if there is some "industry standard" of hashing data, then there are ways to unhash it. Yes in many cases it may be in millions of years to circle thru all possibilities, but if your standard is first name + last name + email address (and all caps), then you can easily plug database of names and download millions of email records online and narrow down your hashing search greatly.
What's the point? The company a you are asking to remove data will anyway know which dataset you asked to delete.
What would work would be a mandatory self block list (e.g. most EU countries have a 'do not call' opt-in list against telemarketers) and then the brokers have to check any new days against the hash of data points in this block list. But that requires government intervention, not startups that bandaid the problem.
What would work would be a mandatory self block list (e.g. most EU countries have a 'do not call' opt-in list against telemarketers) and then the brokers have to check any new days against the hash of data points in this block list. But that requires government intervention, not startups that bandaid the problem.
> You're telling me that to remove my info I have to essentially give (through your service) all these companies & data brokers my info so they can opt me out, and actually trust them that they'll do so?
Other people raised that concern when this appeared on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=27668140), and at the time, that’s indeed what the service did.
Even if one ignores intentional misuse, simple incompetence by a data broker seems like enough to cause a problem. It only takes one data broker to commingle fields from opt-out requests with existing data (and then share/sell/trade that existing data) for the opt-out fields to spread.
Other people raised that concern when this appeared on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=27668140), and at the time, that’s indeed what the service did.
Even if one ignores intentional misuse, simple incompetence by a data broker seems like enough to cause a problem. It only takes one data broker to commingle fields from opt-out requests with existing data (and then share/sell/trade that existing data) for the opt-out fields to spread.
That's certainly one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that if you do nothing, you information will continue to persist, multiply, and propagate unchecked. Those that take the time (or money) to remove the profiles, have dramatically reduced online footprints, which is why these types of services are becoming more and more popular. Many companies are starting to mandate their employees use services like ours to strengthen their security posture to reduce exposure to phishing, hacking, email spam, etc.
> you[sic] information will continue to persist, multiply, and propagate unchecked
Based on how the underlying problem is presented in your own business model, it seems like this will happen regardless of whether a customers uses this service or not. Like conscripting a recruit into a losing battle (and arguably an unwinnable war) at cost to oneself with little specificity as to what qualifies as success.
Based on how the underlying problem is presented in your own business model, it seems like this will happen regardless of whether a customers uses this service or not. Like conscripting a recruit into a losing battle (and arguably an unwinnable war) at cost to oneself with little specificity as to what qualifies as success.
I’m all for spending the time or money to remove my profile. I’d rather also spend a little extra time to see where I’m listed and evaluate that organization, though.
Can you give an example of a company that mandates this?
> I have to essentially give (through your service) all these companies & data brokers my info
Happy user of Optery here: you don't have to give Optery a whole lot of info. No SSNs or anything, just things they would search by to help you remove them. Are there fields for past addresses or people you lived with or past names you may have had? Sure. Do you have to fill them out? No. Are they provided in bulk to the data brokers? No.
Happy user of Optery here: you don't have to give Optery a whole lot of info. No SSNs or anything, just things they would search by to help you remove them. Are there fields for past addresses or people you lived with or past names you may have had? Sure. Do you have to fill them out? No. Are they provided in bulk to the data brokers? No.
So they will enter all this data on the websites of the brokers which sell such data....this reminds me of the website that promises it contains all/most bitcoin private keys - just enter yours to find out if its there!
In the vast majority of cases Optery only submits the opt out (a) if we’ve already located your profile at the data broker, meaning they already have your information to begin with and (b) with the minimum information necessary to complete the out, generally First Name, Last Name, Age, Current City, and Current State, no more information than what’s already publicly available online.
The same feeling I get when I click unsubscribe from spam emails - Am I actually signaling them that I exist and reading their spam ?
> You're telling me that to remove my info I have to essentially give (through your service) all these companies & data brokers my info
How can you index into a hashmap, an array, or a DB table without a key? Answer: you cannot.
There's no way for data-broker opt-outs to work without uniquely identifying the individual who wishes to be removed.
Sure, I agree that "GDPR-like regulation and actually enforcing it" is the proper solution - but how long will that take? Five years? Ten?
What if I want my personal data removed from these brokers now?
Edit: now that I think about it - you could build some scheme where you give the data-brokers a cryptographic hash of some personally-identifying information, so if they don't already have you in their database, then they can't get your information. But, in order to do that, you'd need regulation equivalent to the GDPR (otherwise they'd never do it), in which case the above argument still applied.
How can you index into a hashmap, an array, or a DB table without a key? Answer: you cannot.
There's no way for data-broker opt-outs to work without uniquely identifying the individual who wishes to be removed.
Sure, I agree that "GDPR-like regulation and actually enforcing it" is the proper solution - but how long will that take? Five years? Ten?
What if I want my personal data removed from these brokers now?
Edit: now that I think about it - you could build some scheme where you give the data-brokers a cryptographic hash of some personally-identifying information, so if they don't already have you in their database, then they can't get your information. But, in order to do that, you'd need regulation equivalent to the GDPR (otherwise they'd never do it), in which case the above argument still applied.
I have a paid premium subscription with optery. I provided them with minimal informed and have been pleased thus far.
Good customer service. Fairly quick response time.
For years, I've performed monthly searches on my name and naturally submit opt-out requests from whatever data brokers I found.
I signed up for optery using a couple discounts from stack social (or one of those sites).
They found DOZENS of listings under my name. I was surprised+ pissed, but optery has manager to remove most of them. They send a quarterly(?) PDF update containing before and after screenshots of days brokers where my info was once displayed.
I still perform my monthly searches and report any findings to optery. They've been receptive and apologetic whenever I find my info online.
That's my review. Ask questions if you want.
Good customer service. Fairly quick response time.
For years, I've performed monthly searches on my name and naturally submit opt-out requests from whatever data brokers I found.
I signed up for optery using a couple discounts from stack social (or one of those sites).
They found DOZENS of listings under my name. I was surprised+ pissed, but optery has manager to remove most of them. They send a quarterly(?) PDF update containing before and after screenshots of days brokers where my info was once displayed.
I still perform my monthly searches and report any findings to optery. They've been receptive and apologetic whenever I find my info online.
That's my review. Ask questions if you want.
Just hijacking the top comment to point out that Optery's onboarding process is deliberately misleading in an attempt to get you to subscribe to a paid tier.
I signed up as "Notareal Personxxx." I listed my city as "Detroit, MI." I'm shown a list of 202 domains under the heading "Websites exposing your personal information." I click "More information" next to one of the listed websites. A modal appears:
>> Notareal Personxxxx, Detroit, MI,
<Yes, that's me> <No, I'm not there>
See screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/Z2M8y3d
I signed up as "Notareal Personxxx." I listed my city as "Detroit, MI." I'm shown a list of 202 domains under the heading "Websites exposing your personal information." I click "More information" next to one of the listed websites. A modal appears:
>> Notareal Personxxxx, Detroit, MI,
<Yes, that's me> <No, I'm not there>
See screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/Z2M8y3d
Pretty sure you are not the only person to ever say my name is "Notareal Personxxxx" in detroit. The internet is a very large place and has been around for a pretty long time at this point with billions of people entering "real" info into forms all over the world every day. If just one person did it before you, and that one persons info got collected and sold, you have the situation you are seeing.
No comment on if the service is real or whatever, just that your "test" is flawed.
No comment on if the service is real or whatever, just that your "test" is flawed.
Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. We made a few quick cosmetic updates to mitigate until we can re-work our dashboard more meaningfully. For example:
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
[deleted]
This is a product experience defect, and not intended to be deceptive. Several comments have cried “foul” on this one and we hear it loud and clear. We apologize this has persisted in the product, and can definitely see how this can be misleading.
To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found.
What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through.
The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception.
I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you!
We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found.
What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through.
The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception.
I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you!
We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
[deleted]
I’m signed up for this service and while I am generally satisfied, they have placed some of the most common websites in their most expensive tier. If I contact their customer service, they write back with a condescending tone.
We hate to hear that you had a bad experience with our customer support since we take it very seriously and spend a large amount of time on it. We love feedback and respond to all inquiries, so please don’t hesitate to tell us how we can improve either here or through our standard support channel, and we will definitely act on it: https://help.optery.com/
The pricing tiers have to do with how difficult it is to remove consumers from that data broker. Some of the most well-known brokers are also the most difficult to opt out, which is why they’re in the highest priced tier.
Thanks so much for your feedback and for using Optery.
The pricing tiers have to do with how difficult it is to remove consumers from that data broker. Some of the most well-known brokers are also the most difficult to opt out, which is why they’re in the highest priced tier.
Thanks so much for your feedback and for using Optery.
When you say "most difficult", what exactly does it mean? I highly doubt that you are manually conversing with any of them.
I want to see a response from Optery on this.
16 years ago, my first Bay Area engineering job was at Reputation Defender. I helped create their first product - the EXACT same thing it looks like Optery is making. Make no mistake, the company was named "reputation defender" but it was optery.
Even in 2006, the problem was the same and the solution seems roughly the same.
Reputation Defender rebranded a few times. I don't think they have this feature anymore. Might be worth asking them why they got rid of it, if that's what they did do.
Working there on the tool, I always felt like it was pointless because it's an unsolvable problem and scrubbing your info from a few hundred of the top data collection sites wouldn't SOLVE the problem... it just makes it a tiny bit less terrible but the effectiveness is not measurable. I think the TLDR is that people want solutions to things and programmatically unsubscribing only "works" in well lit neighborhoods and those too often aren't the causes of consumer pain.
Trying to solve the problem by deleting records is sort of like contract tracing coronavirus. Efforts to solve the problem by stomping it out wasn't viable and we now know we just need to learn to live with it in the endemic phase.
Even in 2006, the problem was the same and the solution seems roughly the same.
Reputation Defender rebranded a few times. I don't think they have this feature anymore. Might be worth asking them why they got rid of it, if that's what they did do.
Working there on the tool, I always felt like it was pointless because it's an unsolvable problem and scrubbing your info from a few hundred of the top data collection sites wouldn't SOLVE the problem... it just makes it a tiny bit less terrible but the effectiveness is not measurable. I think the TLDR is that people want solutions to things and programmatically unsubscribing only "works" in well lit neighborhoods and those too often aren't the causes of consumer pain.
Trying to solve the problem by deleting records is sort of like contract tracing coronavirus. Efforts to solve the problem by stomping it out wasn't viable and we now know we just need to learn to live with it in the endemic phase.
16 years ago there were no privacy laws and very little public awareness and enforcement for privacy, so it was easy for data brokers to ignore removal requests and they operated largely unchecked. But a lot has changed since 2006. Real privacy laws are being enacted, the public has become outraged, and several lawsuits have been prosecuted against data brokers successfully.
This has led data brokers to taking opt out requests much more seriously, with most of them investing in real technical infrastructure to handle and process opt outs successfully. Until the CCPA was passed, there was not even a standard requirement for a data broker to even have an opt out page.
Today, if you Google the name of someone using a data removal service like Optery, versus the name of someone that does not, you will see a night and day difference in the number of listings in Google from data brokers. Without Optery, you’ll find dozens of data broker listings with current and past home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, age, family members names, etc. With Optery, that information will be almost impossible to find making bad actors much more likely to move on to the next person who has not taken steps to protect their privacy.
This has led data brokers to taking opt out requests much more seriously, with most of them investing in real technical infrastructure to handle and process opt outs successfully. Until the CCPA was passed, there was not even a standard requirement for a data broker to even have an opt out page.
Today, if you Google the name of someone using a data removal service like Optery, versus the name of someone that does not, you will see a night and day difference in the number of listings in Google from data brokers. Without Optery, you’ll find dozens of data broker listings with current and past home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, age, family members names, etc. With Optery, that information will be almost impossible to find making bad actors much more likely to move on to the next person who has not taken steps to protect their privacy.
Then how come I know some very rich people who have managed to opt out so hard I can't even see their old messages?
I imagine having a team of layers work on this problem for a year or two could result in going on a “do not mess with” list amongst the majority of data brokers. Your information might be worth a few bucks, but I reckon a rich person’s data (who is willing to put on the pressure) is a liability.
If anyone's interested in alternatives, one of their main competitors, Removaly, openly maintains a list of all the players in the field:
https://removaly.com/category/comparisons/
Both Removaly and Optery are pretty solid, but if you want something your friends and family can actually afford, then nothing beats EasyOptOuts.
$20 a year and they're pretty good at what they do. The only catch is that while services like Removaly do daily scans (no other player in this game does it at that high of a frequency) EOO only does a removal every 4 months or so. Regardless, the vast majority of sites don't re-add people so even if you only get scanned once it'll make a huge difference
https://removaly.com/category/comparisons/
Both Removaly and Optery are pretty solid, but if you want something your friends and family can actually afford, then nothing beats EasyOptOuts.
$20 a year and they're pretty good at what they do. The only catch is that while services like Removaly do daily scans (no other player in this game does it at that high of a frequency) EOO only does a removal every 4 months or so. Regardless, the vast majority of sites don't re-add people so even if you only get scanned once it'll make a huge difference
Optery covers 200+ data brokers, whereas Removaly only covers 51 data brokers per their web site. Optery’s average scan results find 70+ profiles exposed and often top 100+ profiles exposed (scans are free by the way). Removaly is more comparable to Abine’s DeleteMe service whose “Sites We Remove From” page states they only cover 38 data brokers.
In world where Optery is finding 70 – 100 exposed profiles on a first scan, what use is a service like Removaly or DeleteMe that only officially cover 40 – 50?
Optery’s Ultimate plan also offers something called “Custom Removals”, which means if you find a profile the Ultimate plan does not cover, you can submit it and Optery will make a best effort to remove it: https://help.optery.com/en/article/ultimate-plan-offers-best...
Regarding easyoptouts, if you’re really price sensitive and looking for a super cheap option, just upgrade your Optery plan for 1 month. Let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 200+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. By cancelling the plan, you won’t benefit from the ongoing coverage and the new data brokers continually being added to the plans, but Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what your exposure reports are saying.
In world where Optery is finding 70 – 100 exposed profiles on a first scan, what use is a service like Removaly or DeleteMe that only officially cover 40 – 50?
Optery’s Ultimate plan also offers something called “Custom Removals”, which means if you find a profile the Ultimate plan does not cover, you can submit it and Optery will make a best effort to remove it: https://help.optery.com/en/article/ultimate-plan-offers-best...
Regarding easyoptouts, if you’re really price sensitive and looking for a super cheap option, just upgrade your Optery plan for 1 month. Let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 200+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. By cancelling the plan, you won’t benefit from the ongoing coverage and the new data brokers continually being added to the plans, but Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what your exposure reports are saying.
I saw this thread from the get go, but wanted to leave it alone out of courtesy to you guys. Though it seems that Removaly has been mentioned a few times (and now directly) so I'm jumping in here...
First, we at Removaly like what Optery is bringing to the table as far as data removal. We've written about this in our comparison article on our website (https://removaly.com/optery-vs-removaly/), but there are some distinct differences, and the number of sites isn't the only one so they're worth mentioning:
Optery does scan and remove from more sites, that's true. That said, at Removaly we are removing from (what we believe to be) the 50+ most popular data brokers that people find themselves on and the vast majority of them are ones that people will see when they Google for their name. We're also expanding the number of sites we cover on a regular basis so that number will continue to grow.
It's worth noting that there are sites that Optery covers that do not have records that are indexed by Google (i.e. try searching 'site:UnitedStatesPhonebook.com' on Google which shows 42 pages indexed, and that's a site Optery covers on their highest plan). So while someone might be on a site like this, this particular example isn't one that someone would easily find by Googling your name. The argument then would be "Yes, but it's still important in case someone searches that site." True, but to that I would say there are data brokers that Optery does not cover so even with an Optery plan you still run into the same issue.
Another difference, Removaly is also the only service right now with DAILY scans, which means we can find and remove things much quicker than any of the other services once it reappears (which it will) and we're 100% US-based if that's important to you.
On top of that, Removaly keeps things simple by only offering one plan. Meaning there isn't an option/upsell to 2 higher plans like you see on Optery. Some common sites like CheckPeople and others are all included in the Removaly ~$119/year plan while Optery you'd have to upgrade to the $24.99/month (~$300/year) plan in order to get that opted out. It's a good point though about how someone could upgrade momentarily and then downgrade, however, if someone has their information on 70-100 sites, does Optery guarantee removal of all of that information in the first 30 days? That may be an additional thing to consider.
Another benefit of Removaly would be that we offer a 2-person (~$179/year) and family plan (~$239/year) to cover all family members in the same household at a steep discount. Optery is now offering 20-25% off depending on how many people you add (as has been mentioned and is nice), but at $9.95-24.95/month PER PERSON that adds up quickly (I'll let you do the math on that).
Last thing I'll mention is that Removaly also offers the whole "Custom Removals" thing just like the other players do and it's included with our normal plan (Optery it appears to only be available on the highest plan).
For any company you decide to go with, there's going to be a give and take of features, functionality, support, pricing, etc. At Removaly we're trying to put out a solid product, with exceptional customer support, at a reasonable price that is going to fit the needs of "most" individuals.
Again, we at Removaly appreciate what Optery is doing and we're glad to see other providers wanting to offer transparency and a solid service in the industry that desperately needs it. Hopefully my thoughts clarify things / add some additional insight that might be helpful to people comparing our two companies.
All the best,
Kyle Krzeski Co-founder | Removaly
First, we at Removaly like what Optery is bringing to the table as far as data removal. We've written about this in our comparison article on our website (https://removaly.com/optery-vs-removaly/), but there are some distinct differences, and the number of sites isn't the only one so they're worth mentioning:
Optery does scan and remove from more sites, that's true. That said, at Removaly we are removing from (what we believe to be) the 50+ most popular data brokers that people find themselves on and the vast majority of them are ones that people will see when they Google for their name. We're also expanding the number of sites we cover on a regular basis so that number will continue to grow.
It's worth noting that there are sites that Optery covers that do not have records that are indexed by Google (i.e. try searching 'site:UnitedStatesPhonebook.com' on Google which shows 42 pages indexed, and that's a site Optery covers on their highest plan). So while someone might be on a site like this, this particular example isn't one that someone would easily find by Googling your name. The argument then would be "Yes, but it's still important in case someone searches that site." True, but to that I would say there are data brokers that Optery does not cover so even with an Optery plan you still run into the same issue.
Another difference, Removaly is also the only service right now with DAILY scans, which means we can find and remove things much quicker than any of the other services once it reappears (which it will) and we're 100% US-based if that's important to you.
On top of that, Removaly keeps things simple by only offering one plan. Meaning there isn't an option/upsell to 2 higher plans like you see on Optery. Some common sites like CheckPeople and others are all included in the Removaly ~$119/year plan while Optery you'd have to upgrade to the $24.99/month (~$300/year) plan in order to get that opted out. It's a good point though about how someone could upgrade momentarily and then downgrade, however, if someone has their information on 70-100 sites, does Optery guarantee removal of all of that information in the first 30 days? That may be an additional thing to consider.
Another benefit of Removaly would be that we offer a 2-person (~$179/year) and family plan (~$239/year) to cover all family members in the same household at a steep discount. Optery is now offering 20-25% off depending on how many people you add (as has been mentioned and is nice), but at $9.95-24.95/month PER PERSON that adds up quickly (I'll let you do the math on that).
Last thing I'll mention is that Removaly also offers the whole "Custom Removals" thing just like the other players do and it's included with our normal plan (Optery it appears to only be available on the highest plan).
For any company you decide to go with, there's going to be a give and take of features, functionality, support, pricing, etc. At Removaly we're trying to put out a solid product, with exceptional customer support, at a reasonable price that is going to fit the needs of "most" individuals.
Again, we at Removaly appreciate what Optery is doing and we're glad to see other providers wanting to offer transparency and a solid service in the industry that desperately needs it. Hopefully my thoughts clarify things / add some additional insight that might be helpful to people comparing our two companies.
All the best,
Kyle Krzeski Co-founder | Removaly
To compare Removaly and Optery, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of a data removal company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a winner or a let-down before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number.
Like Abine’s DeleteMe, it does not look like Removaly offers a monthly billing option. Optery offers monthly or yearly billing options. If you’re really price sensitive, you could run the Optery Ultimate plan for a few months and then cancel, and likely have much better coverage than had you purchased an annual plan from Removaly or DeleteMe.
Optery also offers the strongest 30-day no questions asked money back guarantee: https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-does-your-30-day-mone...
Like Abine’s DeleteMe, it does not look like Removaly offers a monthly billing option. Optery offers monthly or yearly billing options. If you’re really price sensitive, you could run the Optery Ultimate plan for a few months and then cancel, and likely have much better coverage than had you purchased an annual plan from Removaly or DeleteMe.
Optery also offers the strongest 30-day no questions asked money back guarantee: https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-does-your-30-day-mone...
Looks very interesting, but per HN norms I have a bit of a tangential question.
Is there a service which will remove medical debt which is beyond the statute of limitations?
This is a simple process to do manually. I have done it myself.
Look up my credit report, find old[0] medical debt, find the originating state's statute of limitations on medical debt, dispute the charge citing the appropriate statute.
Poof, medical debt gone. Credit improved.
This is so simple, unless regulations prevent this service, it must already exist, correct?
[0] Meaning of "old" varies by US State. CA=4yrs, FL=5yrs
Is there a service which will remove medical debt which is beyond the statute of limitations?
This is a simple process to do manually. I have done it myself.
Look up my credit report, find old[0] medical debt, find the originating state's statute of limitations on medical debt, dispute the charge citing the appropriate statute.
Poof, medical debt gone. Credit improved.
This is so simple, unless regulations prevent this service, it must already exist, correct?
[0] Meaning of "old" varies by US State. CA=4yrs, FL=5yrs
1) Are you getting the data brokers to entirely delete a person's information from their records or are you just trying to prevent the information from being displayed online? If the latter, then this is only half a solution because the data broker can still sell your information. If the former, is there any way to actually confirm the information has been removed.
2) How do you handle making sure that you are not 'adding' more information to a data broker who already has information about you? For example, a friend of mine once found his information publicly available on a website on the internet. To remove his information from being publicly displayed, the website required him to provide a phone number where he would receive a confirmation text code that he had to add to the removal request form. This essentially means the website now has more information (another phone #) about him.
3) Some of the information these websites display are gathered from public government databases like court records, county registrations of house sales, etc. I would assume those records can't be 'removed' or 'hidden'. Do you have a specific way of dealing with such?
2) How do you handle making sure that you are not 'adding' more information to a data broker who already has information about you? For example, a friend of mine once found his information publicly available on a website on the internet. To remove his information from being publicly displayed, the website required him to provide a phone number where he would receive a confirmation text code that he had to add to the removal request form. This essentially means the website now has more information (another phone #) about him.
3) Some of the information these websites display are gathered from public government databases like court records, county registrations of house sales, etc. I would assume those records can't be 'removed' or 'hidden'. Do you have a specific way of dealing with such?
Great questions!
1) It really depends on the data broker and the state you live in, but the majority are the latter (prevent the info from being displayed online). When possible we request full deletion, but California residents are really the only ones that have firm data deletion rights from the CCPA and are typically the only ones that data deletion is even made available as an option by the data brokers. We have some new product features in development that will increase our ability to deliver data deletions though in the future.
Regarding “If the latter, then this is only half a solution because the data broker can still sell your information”: this too is inconsistent. In most cases they will stop selling your information after the opt out, but in some cases, though they take the profile down from the public web, but may still be selling the data behind the scenes, usually to corporate buyers.
When the data is represented as deleted by the data broker, we don’t have a good way to confirm that it has actually been deleted unfortunately. We have some ideas though for how to do this in the future.
2) We recommend only submitting the minimum amount of information necessary to complete the opt out, which in most cases is the minimum amount of information required to sign up for Optery (first name, last name, year of birth, current city, current state), or sometimes also the URL where your profile was found. Many data brokers request a phone number to verify, but we recommend never providing them with your real phone number. Most of the time, demanding the data broker remove the profile and threatening legal action or reporting them to the FTC and your state attorney general's office over email will induce them to remove the profile without a phone number. If data brokers push back on this, we recommend you definitely file a complaint with the FTC and your state attorney general (we do this frequently). If you do feel you want to provide a phone number, we recommend creating a temporary, secondary, or disposable phone number. If you do opt outs on your own, we also recommend you always use a temporary or secondary email address for the submissions, and NEVER use your primary email address. We have a post on our Help Desk about this here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona...
3) Definitely there are some data sets that are inherently difficult or nearly impossible to remove, e.g. public records, voter records, etc. However, we can often get this type of data removed from the for-profit web sites that re-publish it. The best best thing you can do is submit the opt out request. Some will honor it, and some will not. It’s hit or miss. The silver lining is that most of the web sites that re-publish public records usually publish more limited information as opposed to other sites that post things like phone number, email address, ethnicity, household income, network, family members' names, etc.
1) It really depends on the data broker and the state you live in, but the majority are the latter (prevent the info from being displayed online). When possible we request full deletion, but California residents are really the only ones that have firm data deletion rights from the CCPA and are typically the only ones that data deletion is even made available as an option by the data brokers. We have some new product features in development that will increase our ability to deliver data deletions though in the future.
Regarding “If the latter, then this is only half a solution because the data broker can still sell your information”: this too is inconsistent. In most cases they will stop selling your information after the opt out, but in some cases, though they take the profile down from the public web, but may still be selling the data behind the scenes, usually to corporate buyers.
When the data is represented as deleted by the data broker, we don’t have a good way to confirm that it has actually been deleted unfortunately. We have some ideas though for how to do this in the future.
2) We recommend only submitting the minimum amount of information necessary to complete the opt out, which in most cases is the minimum amount of information required to sign up for Optery (first name, last name, year of birth, current city, current state), or sometimes also the URL where your profile was found. Many data brokers request a phone number to verify, but we recommend never providing them with your real phone number. Most of the time, demanding the data broker remove the profile and threatening legal action or reporting them to the FTC and your state attorney general's office over email will induce them to remove the profile without a phone number. If data brokers push back on this, we recommend you definitely file a complaint with the FTC and your state attorney general (we do this frequently). If you do feel you want to provide a phone number, we recommend creating a temporary, secondary, or disposable phone number. If you do opt outs on your own, we also recommend you always use a temporary or secondary email address for the submissions, and NEVER use your primary email address. We have a post on our Help Desk about this here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona...
3) Definitely there are some data sets that are inherently difficult or nearly impossible to remove, e.g. public records, voter records, etc. However, we can often get this type of data removed from the for-profit web sites that re-publish it. The best best thing you can do is submit the opt out request. Some will honor it, and some will not. It’s hit or miss. The silver lining is that most of the web sites that re-publish public records usually publish more limited information as opposed to other sites that post things like phone number, email address, ethnicity, household income, network, family members' names, etc.
I was excited to see a service like this. I hate data brokers and have tried to go to somewhat-great (good?) lengths to obfuscate my personal info, including using e-mails that expose services selling/giving out my info. I signed up and was surprised to see 202 different brokers were offering my info. However, when I looked at the "More Info" drop-down on each, I noticed the last name was incorrect. So I looked at my profile and noticed I misspelled my last name, to a last name I am almost certain does not exist.
Even if it somehow existed, to see it with the same first and middle name and location just seems way too much of a coincidence. Do any of these brokers really have my info or are you just showing this false information to help increase conversions?
Even if it somehow existed, to see it with the same first and middle name and location just seems way too much of a coincidence. Do any of these brokers really have my info or are you just showing this false information to help increase conversions?
Thanks for trying it out. One thing to clarify is that we list out each data broker we cover, regardless of whether or not your profile was found or not. We do this partly to support our Free Basic users that use the data broker links in the dashboard to QA and verify their own opt out work (or the opt out work of other services).
So just because you see a data broker in your dashboard, does not mean we are implying that your profile is there. In fact, if you click on any of the links, you’ll see we spawn a modal that says “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.”
My guess is that if you click through any of the links, it will lead to pages that say something like “profile not found” because it’s a name that does not exisit.
We also have an article on our Help Desk that explains what’s happening, and further below is a snippet that most likely explains what you are experiencing:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
“What is often confusing is that we display the “View” links for every data broker, regardless of whether we find your profile at the data broker or not. The "View" links are not intended to be perfect matches for your profile. Results will vary for each user, depending on your circumstances. Sometimes the "View" links are not perfect, and other people may be listed, or you might not be there at all, but in most cases, they allow you to quickly view a snapshot of where your personal details are exposed online.”
This question has come up before, so we really need to do a better job of ironing out the confusion in the product. Thanks so much for the feedback.
So just because you see a data broker in your dashboard, does not mean we are implying that your profile is there. In fact, if you click on any of the links, you’ll see we spawn a modal that says “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.”
My guess is that if you click through any of the links, it will lead to pages that say something like “profile not found” because it’s a name that does not exisit.
We also have an article on our Help Desk that explains what’s happening, and further below is a snippet that most likely explains what you are experiencing:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
“What is often confusing is that we display the “View” links for every data broker, regardless of whether we find your profile at the data broker or not. The "View" links are not intended to be perfect matches for your profile. Results will vary for each user, depending on your circumstances. Sometimes the "View" links are not perfect, and other people may be listed, or you might not be there at all, but in most cases, they allow you to quickly view a snapshot of where your personal details are exposed online.”
This question has come up before, so we really need to do a better job of ironing out the confusion in the product. Thanks so much for the feedback.
This is super sketchy. Even the modal you describe is misleading:
>> “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.”
That is 100% misleading when you are linking to every data broker regardless of whether or not someone is in their database.
>> “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.”
That is 100% misleading when you are linking to every data broker regardless of whether or not someone is in their database.
Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. We made a few quick cosmetic updates to mitigate until we can re-work our dashboard more meaningfully. For example:
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information"
2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..."
3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!
The modal spawns when the user has just clicked through to a data broker and is about to leave Optery. We have a lot of warnings we're trying to convey on this one modal, most critically, strongly advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to any data brokers ever.
I can definitely see how this is confusing though to see all the links for all the data brokers regardless of whether the user has been found or not, and we have a Help Desk article on the topic:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
The primary reason we have this is for our Free Basic users who use the links as a mechanism to explore where their profile might be exposed and do their self-service opt out work. This is great feedback that we need to address this and make it more clear in the product. Thank you for the feedback.
Below is the full text of the modal:
================
You Are Leaving Optery
Optery is not affiliated with the site you’re being redirected to.
External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.
When visiting data brokers, we recommend never sharing your personal email or paying any data brokers any money.
We then link into our Help Desk article advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to data brokers: https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona...
We then give the user the option to click "Back" and return to Optery, or to "Continue".
I can definitely see how this is confusing though to see all the links for all the data brokers regardless of whether the user has been found or not, and we have a Help Desk article on the topic:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a...
The primary reason we have this is for our Free Basic users who use the links as a mechanism to explore where their profile might be exposed and do their self-service opt out work. This is great feedback that we need to address this and make it more clear in the product. Thank you for the feedback.
Below is the full text of the modal:
================
You Are Leaving Optery
Optery is not affiliated with the site you’re being redirected to.
External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.
When visiting data brokers, we recommend never sharing your personal email or paying any data brokers any money.
We then link into our Help Desk article advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to data brokers: https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona...
We then give the user the option to click "Back" and return to Optery, or to "Continue".
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Seems very useful. However, I am not a fan of a subscription-based model for this sort of thing. I would hands down sign up if it was a one-time transaction. If that were the case I would also likely be a repeat customer every year.
We do see people activate the subscription for a few months, and then cancel their plan to downgrade back down to the Free Basic tier. The Free Basic tier sends ongoing Exposure Reports, so if they start to see more profiles pop back up, they re-activate. Others activate the subscription for a few months, then cancel, and then completely delete their account, and we destroy all info we have about the user at that point.
Have you thought of a family plan for a family and kids all living at one address? Also niche organizational plans like police departments, law practices, therapists, hospitals, etc? Or ones for lawyers, therapists, etc to buy for themselves? I know a lot of those people just want their name only associated with their professional office addresses, never a home address, and their are rating and professional directories that they do want to stay on.
Also people trying it out might give fake names to start, you should let people be able to change their name in settings vs. making it uneditable after signup.
Also another things is email & email domain privacy. Some nerds & organizations have an entire domain as their email set that they don't want in directories, marketing spam lists, etc either, kind of like https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Also people trying it out might give fake names to start, you should let people be able to change their name in settings vs. making it uneditable after signup.
Also another things is email & email domain privacy. Some nerds & organizations have an entire domain as their email set that they don't want in directories, marketing spam lists, etc either, kind of like https://haveibeenpwned.com/
We haven't built family plans into our product yet, but in the interim, we have been providing 20% off discount codes for households of 2 to 3 people, and 25% off discount codes for households of 4 people or more. Similar applies for members of vulnerable groups and public servants. At this time a separate account needs to be created for each household member to ensure everyone is covered. This applies to both free and paid plans. Feel free to reach out directly, and we’ll send you the correct code: https://www.optery.com/contact-us/
We don’t cover the professional ratings sites and directories that people tend to cultivate presences on consciously. We are 100% focused on stopping the unwanted posting and selling of personal information by data brokers. The full list of sites we cover can be found here: https://www.optery.com/pricing/#data-brokers-we-cover
If someone signs up for Optery using a fake name, they almost certainly will get garbage results. The Exposure Report will most likely be empty, and the data broker links will most likely lead to “profile not found pages” or incorrect profiles (garbage in, garbage out). One thing to clarify is that we list out each data broker we cover, regardless of whether your profile was found or not. We do this partly to support our Free Basic users that use the data broker links in the dashboard to QA and verify their own opt out work (or the opt out work of other services). However, based on yours and others comments here, this is definitely confusing peoples, so we need to fix this and make it more clear. Thank you so much for this great feedback.
To prevent abuse, to change the name on your account, you’ll need to reach out to our customer support. We have more info on this on the Optery Help Desk here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-can-i-edit-my-name-1t...
You’re welcome to use any email you want when you sign up for Optery. Email is not a primary key for us when submitting opt outs. We do not use the private email address you use when you sign up with Optery to submit opt outs. Optery creates our own private emails for you that we manage behind the scenes when submitting the opt outs.
We don’t cover the professional ratings sites and directories that people tend to cultivate presences on consciously. We are 100% focused on stopping the unwanted posting and selling of personal information by data brokers. The full list of sites we cover can be found here: https://www.optery.com/pricing/#data-brokers-we-cover
If someone signs up for Optery using a fake name, they almost certainly will get garbage results. The Exposure Report will most likely be empty, and the data broker links will most likely lead to “profile not found pages” or incorrect profiles (garbage in, garbage out). One thing to clarify is that we list out each data broker we cover, regardless of whether your profile was found or not. We do this partly to support our Free Basic users that use the data broker links in the dashboard to QA and verify their own opt out work (or the opt out work of other services). However, based on yours and others comments here, this is definitely confusing peoples, so we need to fix this and make it more clear. Thank you so much for this great feedback.
To prevent abuse, to change the name on your account, you’ll need to reach out to our customer support. We have more info on this on the Optery Help Desk here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-can-i-edit-my-name-1t...
You’re welcome to use any email you want when you sign up for Optery. Email is not a primary key for us when submitting opt outs. We do not use the private email address you use when you sign up with Optery to submit opt outs. Optery creates our own private emails for you that we manage behind the scenes when submitting the opt outs.
People put in fake data to check things out and then may correct after they've seen more. What I'm saying you should let people do that correction vs having to put their actual name as an "alternative spelling". You ask for a name upfront without letting people explore the product further. It's faster and easier to just make another account with their wanted name vs. contacting customer support, I don't think actually prevents any form of abuse.
[deleted]
I'd like to take you at face value and not kind of low-key impugn your honor as seems to be happening in some of these other comments. But I still see a problem with the basic core concept here. As you state upfront, these data brokers are just scraping and aggregating from public data sources. As long as those data sources are still out there, your information is still out there. Some other aggregator can come along or a stalker/identity thief can just use primary sources. You're not going to get court records, property ownership, voter registration purged from public view because those are intended to be public by law.
The real solutions are one or both of either make privacy a broader public priority than transparency, which is unlikely to happen, or stop making facts about yourself that are part of the public record an authentication mechanism.
The real solutions are one or both of either make privacy a broader public priority than transparency, which is unlikely to happen, or stop making facts about yourself that are part of the public record an authentication mechanism.
To take your first point one further, services like ours don't do anything to remove people's info from the dark web. Indeed, no one can, that's the entire premise of the dark web.
And there are some data sets that are inherently difficult to remove, e.g. public records, voter records, etc (as you pointed out). However, we often can get this type of data removed from the for-profit web sites that re-publish it and market it online. And we do remove the vast majority of information that's out there on individuals, dramatically reducing your surface area for discovery and attack. For example, many of the web sites that re-publish public records, usually only publish very limited amount of information, and lead to other sites that have much richer and more sensitive information like phone number, email address, age, home address, family members' names, etc.
Its very difficult to get everything removed, but if you can get rid of 99% of it, you can maintain a much lower profile and make it that much more difficult for someone that's trying to act against you. If a bad actor is just looking for a victim, they're more likely to move on to the next person that has done nothing to protect themselves.
Also, having a low profile might be a signal to bad actors that you take your privacy and security seriously, you have good security hygiene, and are likely to have other security mechanisms in place to protect you, and make their task more difficult, like identity theft protection, a home security system, a VPN, or even Multi-factor Authentication.
And there are some data sets that are inherently difficult to remove, e.g. public records, voter records, etc (as you pointed out). However, we often can get this type of data removed from the for-profit web sites that re-publish it and market it online. And we do remove the vast majority of information that's out there on individuals, dramatically reducing your surface area for discovery and attack. For example, many of the web sites that re-publish public records, usually only publish very limited amount of information, and lead to other sites that have much richer and more sensitive information like phone number, email address, age, home address, family members' names, etc.
Its very difficult to get everything removed, but if you can get rid of 99% of it, you can maintain a much lower profile and make it that much more difficult for someone that's trying to act against you. If a bad actor is just looking for a victim, they're more likely to move on to the next person that has done nothing to protect themselves.
Also, having a low profile might be a signal to bad actors that you take your privacy and security seriously, you have good security hygiene, and are likely to have other security mechanisms in place to protect you, and make their task more difficult, like identity theft protection, a home security system, a VPN, or even Multi-factor Authentication.
Does your service cover websites that scrape arrest records and create pages based off that? I had a public intox arrest that was since expunged/sealed, yet the record persists on a lot of pages deep in the Google index. Would definitely pay for the removal of these listings.
Optery isn't designed for this. There are probably some "reputation management" companies out there that handle this situation. I've heard they can be in the $1,000/mo range in cost, but I don't know for sure as that's not our expertise. If you have an official government document or statement that provides evidence of the expungement / seal, I'd recommend contacting the sites directly over email and sending them the evidence, and I would expect that most of them would remove the information without too much trouble.
I dont think it will be deep in the google index, if one knows where to look
https://www.judyrecords.com/
https://www.judyrecords.com/
They disabled search on the site due to some concerns from state AGs, so it's useless at the moment.
We submit complaints to the FTC and state attorney generals offices for non-compliant data brokers all the time. They don't move very fast, but its so great when they finally take action. I highly recommend anyone experiencing pushback from data brokers to submit complaints to the FTC and your state attorney general's office immediately. It does help. We have a little more information about this on the Optery Help Desk here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/coverage-limitations-for-...
https://help.optery.com/en/article/coverage-limitations-for-...
Do you have data on the efficacy of your solution?
How many fewer spam and phishing attempts do your customers receive vs non-customers? What is the rate of successful identity theft against your users vs a similarly technical and privacy conscience control group?
I love this idea, but you’re asking me to spend more money a month than many streaming services. To command that type of price you’re going to need to show actual data on risk reduction and not hand wave some claims about spam and phishing. So I wonder who your target customer is? For a higher profile person spending $300 a year to automate some opsec is trivial. For broader consumers perhaps less so, especially without hard data on efficacy.
Can you point to quantifiable effects of your service?
How many fewer spam and phishing attempts do your customers receive vs non-customers? What is the rate of successful identity theft against your users vs a similarly technical and privacy conscience control group?
I love this idea, but you’re asking me to spend more money a month than many streaming services. To command that type of price you’re going to need to show actual data on risk reduction and not hand wave some claims about spam and phishing. So I wonder who your target customer is? For a higher profile person spending $300 a year to automate some opsec is trivial. For broader consumers perhaps less so, especially without hard data on efficacy.
Can you point to quantifiable effects of your service?
Good question - given how this is fairly easy to do yourself (although I suppose I did not have TONS of hits) I am not sure why I would pay for this monthly.
Hi!
As a EU citizen who spent weeks sending GDPR requests back and worth with several data brokers I know just what a pain it is to get some data deleted. Even if it was only "trivial" stuff like things I have shopped for online (I always requested the data they had before requesting that they delete it) it was a laborious process.
I have two questions for you guys:
1) As a EU citizen do I benefit from signing up to your site or are the data brokers you are targeting focused on US citizens?
2) Why the monthly recurring fee? I would gladly make a higher one off payment every now and then for the removal of my data. Or is it monthly because you are keeping track if any of my data shows up at some point and then immediately remove it?
As a EU citizen who spent weeks sending GDPR requests back and worth with several data brokers I know just what a pain it is to get some data deleted. Even if it was only "trivial" stuff like things I have shopped for online (I always requested the data they had before requesting that they delete it) it was a laborious process.
I have two questions for you guys:
1) As a EU citizen do I benefit from signing up to your site or are the data brokers you are targeting focused on US citizens?
2) Why the monthly recurring fee? I would gladly make a higher one off payment every now and then for the removal of my data. Or is it monthly because you are keeping track if any of my data shows up at some point and then immediately remove it?
Great to hear you are fighting the good fight to protect your data!
To answer your question - NO - there is no benefit to signing up for Optery if you do not have a presence in the U.S. The only benefit would be that we will notify you in the future when we begin offering our service in your country. This sentence is buried in the post above "Optery is only for U.S. residents for the time being, and this is one main reasons—the problem is at its worst here."
The reasons the service is charged on an ongoing recurring fee are:
1) We are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers as we add them to your plan.
2) We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up. Unfortunately, over time, many data brokers start adding it back. The CCPA (California's Privacy Law) permits a data broker to stop honoring an opt out after 12 months. After opting out, many data brokers actually display a message apologizing in advance admitting that sometimes their opt out records are over-written by accident which might cause your data to reappear.
To answer your question - NO - there is no benefit to signing up for Optery if you do not have a presence in the U.S. The only benefit would be that we will notify you in the future when we begin offering our service in your country. This sentence is buried in the post above "Optery is only for U.S. residents for the time being, and this is one main reasons—the problem is at its worst here."
The reasons the service is charged on an ongoing recurring fee are:
1) We are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers as we add them to your plan.
2) We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up. Unfortunately, over time, many data brokers start adding it back. The CCPA (California's Privacy Law) permits a data broker to stop honoring an opt out after 12 months. After opting out, many data brokers actually display a message apologizing in advance admitting that sometimes their opt out records are over-written by accident which might cause your data to reappear.
Are you able to use the internal processes these companies made in response to gdpr? I wonder what happens if you copy a “delete/send your data on me according to your responsibilities in the EU” form letter and send it from a US address to an international company.
I'm parroting the concerns raised by istjohn. Why in the world would you make it seem like a free user's exposures are was higher than they likely actually are to increase conversion opportunities.
Why not provide stronger and better opt out guides like Removaly does if you're sincerely trying to help others instead of increasing conversion opportunities to pay back your VC funders?
Why not provide stronger and better opt out guides like Removaly does if you're sincerely trying to help others instead of increasing conversion opportunities to pay back your VC funders?
Optery provides fantastic opt out guides with more on the way here:
https://www.optery.com/opt-out-guides/
To compare Removaly and Optery, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of a data removal company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a winner or a let-down before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of Removaly or any other company coming anywhere close to that number.
https://www.optery.com/opt-out-guides/
To compare Removaly and Optery, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of a data removal company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a winner or a let-down before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of Removaly or any other company coming anywhere close to that number.
I'm just insanely glad to not reside in countries where data privacy laws are completely horrible.
The amount of OSINT available on americans is like 2-3$ to access and on each search I can see stuff in your family history even which is just incredibly crazy. Doesn't work on people from other countries.
Food for thought.
The amount of OSINT available on americans is like 2-3$ to access and on each search I can see stuff in your family history even which is just incredibly crazy. Doesn't work on people from other countries.
Food for thought.
Definitely. One of the main reasons Optery is only for U.S. residents at this time, is because the problem is at its worst here. We need a privacy law at the federal level with a strong right to opt out, and some teeth in the law for enforcement.
I just signed up and see I have a hard choice of countries. I'm a dual-citizen and have lived in both countries roughly split my whole life. It would be nice to be able to scan across multiple countries. I've just started with the US half but hoping you can accommodate.
Optery is only for U.S. residents at this time. Sorry, this statement is buried in the middle of the original post so some people did not see it.
If you go to the sign up page, after you select your country, we again warn non-U.S. residents of this before they submit their information. The only benefit to signing up if you are from a non-U.S. country is we will notify you when we begin supporting your country.
If you are a dual citizen, just select your primary city and state in the U.S. There's no functionality to support non-U.S. citizens at this time.
Thank you for trying out Optery!
If you go to the sign up page, after you select your country, we again warn non-U.S. residents of this before they submit their information. The only benefit to signing up if you are from a non-U.S. country is we will notify you when we begin supporting your country.
If you are a dual citizen, just select your primary city and state in the U.S. There's no functionality to support non-U.S. citizens at this time.
Thank you for trying out Optery!
What a nifty startup. I love the idea of using software to make it more difficult to sell my personal information. I'm not sure why I care enough to pay, but after reading this post, I do, and I signed up. (I'm awaiting my report and will probably upgrade after reading it.)
But this seems to be neither software nor does it actually make it more difficult to sell data. Its a servive that sends opt out requests for you. As far as I can see there is no legal value to this, nor is this sustainable - the next scrape and you're back in. There is (obviously) no guarantee that you data won't be sold, nor any guarantee that their opt out requests don't become basically a signal for 'this is a real person with money to spare'.
The teeth come from the laws, though. If you've submitted an opt-out request in compliance with the law, and your data reappears, the vendor now has a problem with the government. Problems with the government are super bad for your business. They have many more resources than the average individual.
I think that these laws don't have much effect when you require individuals to fill out (literally) 200 forms once a year. But software is great at filling out 200 forms once a year. It's the "missing link" for this kind of law; turning the legislature's intent into a regulation that means something.
I rarely see things that are really exciting to me on HN and that I can immediately start using. For whatever reason, this piqued my interest.
I think that these laws don't have much effect when you require individuals to fill out (literally) 200 forms once a year. But software is great at filling out 200 forms once a year. It's the "missing link" for this kind of law; turning the legislature's intent into a regulation that means something.
I rarely see things that are really exciting to me on HN and that I can immediately start using. For whatever reason, this piqued my interest.
I certainly as the reasoning but still this is fundamentally a problem that should not exist.
Here's where the service would be actually powerful: if it sends you proof if a broker added you within the 12 month period and tells you where to file a case against the broker.
Here's where the service would be actually powerful: if it sends you proof if a broker added you within the 12 month period and tells you where to file a case against the broker.
This sounds like an interesting add-on to explore.
Optery is opt out software. It uses a custom search technology to locate profiles being exposed and sold by data brokers online. It then automates the submissions and communications necessary to execute opt out requests to have the information removed. It monitors (re-scans), and re-submits and manages opt out requests as necessary on an ongoing basis when new profiles pop back up again. Optery is continually adding support for more and more data brokers.
Two recommendations for everyone:
1. Check out the IntelTechniques workbook. You can a lot of this yourself for free. https://inteltechniques.com/workbook.html
2. If you want to hire someone, there are a bunch of similar options. This list was put together by a competitor, easyoptouts, but it seems pretty neutral: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M1YXTKmfs6rVDJHQVO3V...
And a question for Optery: I tried your service but it mainly found people who aren't me. Are you working on improving identification?
1. Check out the IntelTechniques workbook. You can a lot of this yourself for free. https://inteltechniques.com/workbook.html
2. If you want to hire someone, there are a bunch of similar options. This list was put together by a competitor, easyoptouts, but it seems pretty neutral: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M1YXTKmfs6rVDJHQVO3V...
And a question for Optery: I tried your service but it mainly found people who aren't me. Are you working on improving identification?
When a user signs up for Optery, the scanning / matching technology finds 70+ matched profiles at data brokers on average with a typical range from 50 to 100. You’ll find these results in your Exposure Report after the scan completes, typically within 1 hour from sign up. False positives in the Optery Exposure Reports are rare, but do happen sometimes. The most common reasons for false positives are:
1) The user either intentionally or accidentally inputs incorrect data when they signed up. For example, today we had a customer complain about false positives, and then when we looked into it, it turned out he had accidentally input his birth year incorrectly when signing up.
2) The user has a common name and lives in a big city. Optery looks at lots of data before its confident in the match, but false positives can slip through for example when there are multiple people named John Robert Smith, age 38, living in New York City.
The best way to reduce false positives, and the accuracy of Optery’s scans in general, is to add more information to your profile beyond the minimum required to sign up (e.g. middle name, past cities and states you’ve lived in, etc). This helps with our matching algorithms.
If what you’re referring to are the "View" links to data brokers in your dashboard, as mentioned elsewhere in the comments, the “View” links have limitations. After the comments here, we made a few quick cosmetic updates to reduce the confusion (the updates are described elsewhere in the comments) and we have several changes planned to make the dashboard more intuitive. More info on what’s going on is here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
1) The user either intentionally or accidentally inputs incorrect data when they signed up. For example, today we had a customer complain about false positives, and then when we looked into it, it turned out he had accidentally input his birth year incorrectly when signing up.
2) The user has a common name and lives in a big city. Optery looks at lots of data before its confident in the match, but false positives can slip through for example when there are multiple people named John Robert Smith, age 38, living in New York City.
The best way to reduce false positives, and the accuracy of Optery’s scans in general, is to add more information to your profile beyond the minimum required to sign up (e.g. middle name, past cities and states you’ve lived in, etc). This helps with our matching algorithms.
If what you’re referring to are the "View" links to data brokers in your dashboard, as mentioned elsewhere in the comments, the “View” links have limitations. After the comments here, we made a few quick cosmetic updates to reduce the confusion (the updates are described elsewhere in the comments) and we have several changes planned to make the dashboard more intuitive. More info on what’s going on is here:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads...
"Optery only works for U.S. residents at this time". It would be good to have this clearly stated before the user starts the sign-up process. It's a dark pattern to permit account creation if you can't actually provide a service to some of those signing up.
Sorry. This was stated in the original post text above, but clearly many people did not see it. We do warn people before they submit any information. Many apologies.
If they are yet another data broker with a novel phishing pitch, giving them your info just adds it to one more list among many. If they're legit, they could lower the spam volume by a few decibels. Seems like a reasonable risk/benefit ratio.
I think this company itself is legit, at least for now, but the risk is that they'll forward this info to 200+ data brokers to "opt-out" - would you really trust them to actually opt you out, as opposed to opt you in (if you weren't already in there) and silently set a flag saying this person is of even more interest? If they can tell that the opt-out request comes from such a service, this increases the value of your profile even more as it's a signal that you might have enough disposable income to pay for such a service.
There are a lot of reasons why people submit opt outs beyond whether or not they can pay, e.g. victims of domestic violence, police officers, court order, public figures, government officials, members of the military, etc. The data brokers are aware of this and generally have processes to accommodate the requests.
If you do nothing, your information will continue to persist, multiply, and propagate unchecked. Those that take the time (or money) to remove the profiles, have dramatically reduced online footprints, which is why services like Optery are becoming more and more popular. Many companies are starting to mandate their employees use services like this to strengthen their security posture to reduce exposure to phishing, hacking, email spam, etc. Similar to being required to use a VPN or MFA at work to protect the security of the company.
If you do nothing, your information will continue to persist, multiply, and propagate unchecked. Those that take the time (or money) to remove the profiles, have dramatically reduced online footprints, which is why services like Optery are becoming more and more popular. Many companies are starting to mandate their employees use services like this to strengthen their security posture to reduce exposure to phishing, hacking, email spam, etc. Similar to being required to use a VPN or MFA at work to protect the security of the company.
I'm pretty happy with the service, and even the top tier is affordable.
Can Optery help with cleaning / opting out of Google Knowledge Panel?
Right now a search for my first and last name bring up a knowledge panel with my full date of birth.
I suppose I am lucky because it is correct DOB but still feels unsettling.
I have not claimed my Knowledge Panel because I am afraid it would show even more information.
It is such a tiny thing but if there was a way to revert to just showing my age it would be amazing.
Right now a search for my first and last name bring up a knowledge panel with my full date of birth.
I suppose I am lucky because it is correct DOB but still feels unsettling.
I have not claimed my Knowledge Panel because I am afraid it would show even more information.
It is such a tiny thing but if there was a way to revert to just showing my age it would be amazing.
So many of these providers have been bought or are already owned by the same sites they remove data from, or credit reporting businesses.
It's all a data gathering exercise - and given the lax privacy policy of this site, I wouldn't sign up with them. It's way too open and non-explicit. Particularly sharing data with third-parties, cases for using the data, analysing the data, etc.
Pass.
It's all a data gathering exercise - and given the lax privacy policy of this site, I wouldn't sign up with them. It's way too open and non-explicit. Particularly sharing data with third-parties, cases for using the data, analysing the data, etc.
Pass.
Sounds like a new competitor to DeleteMe.
Optery does compete with DeleteMe. There's some info on how Optery is different than DeleteMe here:
https://www.optery.com/introducing-optery-remove-yourself-fr...
PCMag also compared Optery and DeleteMe in their review here:
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery
https://www.optery.com/introducing-optery-remove-yourself-fr...
PCMag also compared Optery and DeleteMe in their review here:
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery
> Abine’s DeleteMe was among the first services to help users escape the clutches of online data brokers. Like Privacy Bee, it relies on human agents to keep the removals going smoothly and handle any tasks that can’t be automated.
Does Optery not rely on human agents, like Privacy Bee and Delete Me?
Does Optery not rely on human agents, like Privacy Bee and Delete Me?
I wish your company success.
Feedback from a privacy conscious person - I would not use such a service because their is nothing stopping you becoming a aggregator of data brokers. Now you have additional information such as my IP and payment information, which can connect all data into one giant profile.
Feedback from a privacy conscious person - I would not use such a service because their is nothing stopping you becoming a aggregator of data brokers. Now you have additional information such as my IP and payment information, which can connect all data into one giant profile.
I have this problem, except that my phone number is associated with my old company. So I get dozens of spam phone calls every week from sales people believing that they are calling the switchboard for the company, and asking to be connected to some random executive.
Would Optery be able to help with that?
Would Optery be able to help with that?
Yes – Optery definitely helps with this, but it’s not a silver bullet yet. If your phone number is already out there circulating, I would recommend:
(a) Start by opting out of as many of the data brokers as you can, in particular the B2B contacts data brokers that are most likely the source of these unwanted phone calls like RocketReach, ContactOut, Clearbit, Hunter.io, LeadIQ, ZoomInfo, etc. Many of these data brokers Optery already covers, but others we are still in the process of adding to coverage.
(b) You can use Optery to opt out of a large chunk of these data brokers (200+ as of today), but you might need to supplement that with your own effort until we can catch up to the rest of them. We’re constantly adding more data brokers to our list of covered every month.
(c) Update your visibility settings on LinkedIn. A lot of information gets leaked out onto the web from LinkedIn, and in particular into the B2B contacts data brokers mentioned above: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a523134/visibi...
(d) Do not include your phone number or title on your email signature – many of the B2B contacts data brokers have data co-ops where all of their millions of customers share contacts and they parse through the email signatures in your email
(e) After you have done all of the above, and have reduced the footprint and presence of your phone number in these different places, change your phone number.
(a) Start by opting out of as many of the data brokers as you can, in particular the B2B contacts data brokers that are most likely the source of these unwanted phone calls like RocketReach, ContactOut, Clearbit, Hunter.io, LeadIQ, ZoomInfo, etc. Many of these data brokers Optery already covers, but others we are still in the process of adding to coverage.
(b) You can use Optery to opt out of a large chunk of these data brokers (200+ as of today), but you might need to supplement that with your own effort until we can catch up to the rest of them. We’re constantly adding more data brokers to our list of covered every month.
(c) Update your visibility settings on LinkedIn. A lot of information gets leaked out onto the web from LinkedIn, and in particular into the B2B contacts data brokers mentioned above: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a523134/visibi...
(d) Do not include your phone number or title on your email signature – many of the B2B contacts data brokers have data co-ops where all of their millions of customers share contacts and they parse through the email signatures in your email
(e) After you have done all of the above, and have reduced the footprint and presence of your phone number in these different places, change your phone number.
paid the full ultimate service, one thing less I have to worry about. i didnt think twice
The Ultimate plan is supposed to cover BlockShopper. From the last time I looked at this several years ago, it is basically impossible to remove information from BlockShopper. What has changed?
We have a page up on our Help Desk referencing data brokers that ignore opt out requests (the 5% mentioned in the post above). We refer to these data brokers as "Dishonorable Data Brokers". BlockShopper is one of them.
We prefer not to give Dishonorable Data Brokers a free pass, and continue to pursue multiple channels to have our customers' profiles removed from these data brokers, even if they are currently "Dishonorable" and do not honor opt outs, like BlockShopper.
We have seen cases in the past where through persistence, dishonorable data brokers eventually start honoring opt out requests. Below is the Help Desk post with more info on this topic:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/coverage-limitations-for-...
We prefer not to give Dishonorable Data Brokers a free pass, and continue to pursue multiple channels to have our customers' profiles removed from these data brokers, even if they are currently "Dishonorable" and do not honor opt outs, like BlockShopper.
We have seen cases in the past where through persistence, dishonorable data brokers eventually start honoring opt out requests. Below is the Help Desk post with more info on this topic:
https://help.optery.com/en/article/coverage-limitations-for-...
Are you using or following legal means to remove the records?
Do you provide any kind of guarantee (perhaps an optional one, at the user's request) that you will delete/scrub any & all data you gather from/about a user at any particular point in time (say, after you're finished opting out everywhere, or after they delete their account)? Or will you keep that data indefinitely?
i.e. (how) can you assure users that this isn't yet another business actually trying to collect their data? It's kind of hard to do that unless you guarantee you will lose any data related to them once you've finished performing all the opt-outs on their behalf.
i.e. (how) can you assure users that this isn't yet another business actually trying to collect their data? It's kind of hard to do that unless you guarantee you will lose any data related to them once you've finished performing all the opt-outs on their behalf.
Optery's Policy States: "To delete your personal information. If you want it to be removed from our systems, you should delete your account from the Login & Security section of your Account page and all of the information we hold about you will be destroyed. If you make this request, we will delete the personal information we hold about you as of the date of your request from our records and direct any service providers to do the same. In some cases, deletion may be accomplished through de-identification of the information."
https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/
https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/
How does this differ from Abine’s DeleteMe service?
DeleteMe covers 38 data brokers (https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/). Optery covers 200+ data brokers (https://www.optery.com/pricing/#data-brokers-we-cover)
Optery provides a free Exposure Report with screen shots of all the places your profile has been found online. If you already use another service like Abine’s DeleteMe, use Optery’s free Exposure Report to double-check their work and you’ll probably be surprised by how many profiles Optery finds (20 – 40 on average). For paying customers, Optery provides Removals Reports with before and after screenshots to prove its work. At the time of this writing, DeleteMe does not provide screen shot evidence of their removals work.
If you want to compare services, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person that can be verified visually through screen shots (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with.
Optery provides a free Exposure Report with screen shots of all the places your profile has been found online. If you already use another service like Abine’s DeleteMe, use Optery’s free Exposure Report to double-check their work and you’ll probably be surprised by how many profiles Optery finds (20 – 40 on average). For paying customers, Optery provides Removals Reports with before and after screenshots to prove its work. At the time of this writing, DeleteMe does not provide screen shot evidence of their removals work.
If you want to compare services, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person that can be verified visually through screen shots (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with.
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Love Optery!! Get my name off of everything.
How can we find out where these Data Brokers get our data from, so we can know which companies to avoid?
Looks interesting. What makes Optery different than several existing services that do the same thing?
When comparing data removal services like DeleteMe, Optery, PrivacyBee, Removaly, OneRep, LifeLock, The Kanary, and Reputation Defender, you should:
1) Sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. If the company can’t produce a free scan, they probably shouldn’t be taken seriously. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are actually very disappointing and ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with. You can learn more about the Optery Exposure Report (free scan) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVUmjbOG9vY
2) Check the number of data brokers each service covers. Optery covers 200+ data brokers. Whereas, according to their web sites, DeleteMe covers 38, Removaly covers 47, and OneRep covers 94. Some companies don’t even list the data brokers they cover (that's a bad sign). Also, check to see if the company offers “Custom Removals” for when you find a data broker that their service does not cover. Optery provides Custom Removals, and here’s the full list of data brokers covered:
https://www.optery.com/pricing/#data-brokers-we-cover
3) Check to see where the company is headquartered and primarily based, and if it is being run as a corporation, or as someone’s side-hustle. A lot of people are surprised when they find out that OneRep is headquartered in Belarus, since they maintain an LLC, mailing address and a few employees in the U.S.A. Do some background research on each company and its leadership team before you give them any money. Where are they based? Are they professional? Can you take them seriously? Do they have financial partnerships with data brokers? Many of the companies in the space do not list their leadership team on their web site. This is often because the business is being run as a side-hustle for someone with a day job, sometimes from a different country. Optery is incorporated in the state of Delaware as a C Corporation, and is headquartered in California. You can learn more about the company’s mission and leadership here:
https://www.optery.com/about-us/
4) Ensure you are not inadvertently funding the very data brokers you’re trying to be removed from. Most of the companies in the space are high integrity companies with no ties or financial arrangements with the data broker industry. But some are not. OneRep and BrandYourself (parent company of Zoro Privacy and HelloPrivacy) are known for having ties into the data broker through affiliate partnerships. For example, here’s a screenshot of the data broker ClustrMaps directing you to their affiliate partner OneRep after your opt out is complete. Avoid these companies unless you want to fund the very companies you're trying to be removed from.
https://imgur.com/a/juSC66b
5) Demand evidence in the form of screen shots or direct links. Most of these companies will tell you your profiles have been removed, and force you to take their word for it. Optery is the only company I am aware of that provides direct links to your profiles so you can verify at the source when a profile is removed, and also sends out a quarterly “Removals Report” with before and after screen shots proving the work that’s been done. You can also use Optery’s free Exposure Report and links to double-check the work of any other service to keep them honest.
6) Check to see if the service offers monthly and yearly billing options. Optery offers both, but many other services only offer yearly billing.
7) Review the company’s guarantee. Optery provides a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee.
https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-does-your-30-day-mone...
8) Don’t put too much weight in the reviews you read online. The sad reality is that a large percentage of them are bought or just written using fake accounts by the company’s employees or founders to try to influence you or game their rankings in search engines. This is why my #1 recommendation is to sign up for a free scan to start vetting the company’s product yourself.
1) Sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. If the company can’t produce a free scan, they probably shouldn’t be taken seriously. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are actually very disappointing and ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with. You can learn more about the Optery Exposure Report (free scan) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVUmjbOG9vY
2) Check the number of data brokers each service covers. Optery covers 200+ data brokers. Whereas, according to their web sites, DeleteMe covers 38, Removaly covers 47, and OneRep covers 94. Some companies don’t even list the data brokers they cover (that's a bad sign). Also, check to see if the company offers “Custom Removals” for when you find a data broker that their service does not cover. Optery provides Custom Removals, and here’s the full list of data brokers covered:
https://www.optery.com/pricing/#data-brokers-we-cover
3) Check to see where the company is headquartered and primarily based, and if it is being run as a corporation, or as someone’s side-hustle. A lot of people are surprised when they find out that OneRep is headquartered in Belarus, since they maintain an LLC, mailing address and a few employees in the U.S.A. Do some background research on each company and its leadership team before you give them any money. Where are they based? Are they professional? Can you take them seriously? Do they have financial partnerships with data brokers? Many of the companies in the space do not list their leadership team on their web site. This is often because the business is being run as a side-hustle for someone with a day job, sometimes from a different country. Optery is incorporated in the state of Delaware as a C Corporation, and is headquartered in California. You can learn more about the company’s mission and leadership here:
https://www.optery.com/about-us/
4) Ensure you are not inadvertently funding the very data brokers you’re trying to be removed from. Most of the companies in the space are high integrity companies with no ties or financial arrangements with the data broker industry. But some are not. OneRep and BrandYourself (parent company of Zoro Privacy and HelloPrivacy) are known for having ties into the data broker through affiliate partnerships. For example, here’s a screenshot of the data broker ClustrMaps directing you to their affiliate partner OneRep after your opt out is complete. Avoid these companies unless you want to fund the very companies you're trying to be removed from.
https://imgur.com/a/juSC66b
5) Demand evidence in the form of screen shots or direct links. Most of these companies will tell you your profiles have been removed, and force you to take their word for it. Optery is the only company I am aware of that provides direct links to your profiles so you can verify at the source when a profile is removed, and also sends out a quarterly “Removals Report” with before and after screen shots proving the work that’s been done. You can also use Optery’s free Exposure Report and links to double-check the work of any other service to keep them honest.
6) Check to see if the service offers monthly and yearly billing options. Optery offers both, but many other services only offer yearly billing.
7) Review the company’s guarantee. Optery provides a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee.
https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-does-your-30-day-mone...
8) Don’t put too much weight in the reviews you read online. The sad reality is that a large percentage of them are bought or just written using fake accounts by the company’s employees or founders to try to influence you or game their rankings in search engines. This is why my #1 recommendation is to sign up for a free scan to start vetting the company’s product yourself.
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For foreign born citizens, theres's is challenge to enter the minimal data.
Sorry, this statement for citizens outside of the U.S. is buried in the middle of the original post so some people did not see it:
"Optery is only for U.S. residents at this time"
If you go to the Optery sign up page, after you select your country, we again warn non-U.S. residents of this before they submit their information.
The only benefit to signing up for Optery if you are from a non-U.S. country is we will notify you when we begin supporting your country.
"Optery is only for U.S. residents at this time"
If you go to the Optery sign up page, after you select your country, we again warn non-U.S. residents of this before they submit their information.
The only benefit to signing up for Optery if you are from a non-U.S. country is we will notify you when we begin supporting your country.
How do you compare to OneRep?
OneRep covers ~100 data brokers. Optery covers ~200 data brokers.
OneRep has affiliate partnerships with data brokers (https://imgur.com/a/juSC66b). Optery does not have any affiliate partnerships with any data brokers.
OneRep is based in Belarus. Optery is based in the USA.
Optery provides a free Exposure Report with screen shots of all the places your profile has been found online. If you already use another service like OneRep, use Optery’s free Exposure Report to double-check their work and you’ll probably be surprised by how many profiles Optery finds (20 – 40 on average). For paying customers, Optery provides Removals Reports with before and after screenshots to prove its work. No other service I'm aware of provides this level of verification.
If you want to compare services, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with.
OneRep has affiliate partnerships with data brokers (https://imgur.com/a/juSC66b). Optery does not have any affiliate partnerships with any data brokers.
OneRep is based in Belarus. Optery is based in the USA.
Optery provides a free Exposure Report with screen shots of all the places your profile has been found online. If you already use another service like OneRep, use Optery’s free Exposure Report to double-check their work and you’ll probably be surprised by how many profiles Optery finds (20 – 40 on average). For paying customers, Optery provides Removals Reports with before and after screenshots to prove its work. No other service I'm aware of provides this level of verification.
If you want to compare services, the best thing to do is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results. The quality of each company’s free scan is a good indicator of the quality of its opt outs. A lot of the companies in the space have incredible marketing that creates high hopes, but their products are ineffective. The quality of the free scan is usually a tip off if the service is going to be a hero or a dud before you turn over your credit card. Optery’s free scans produce an average of 70+ results per person (sometimes over 100+ results). I’m not aware of any other company coming anywhere close to that number. Most don’t even cover that many data brokers to begin with.
Your homepage pulls something off:
facebook.net
googletagmanager.com
profitwell.com
hotjar.com
I think you're being a bit hard on them... The FB and GTM are likely to track how well their ads are converting users - it's reasonable for them to advertise to try to get this service infront of your eyeballs. Facebook doesn't sell user data, just uses it for (selling) advertising.
Hotjar is great for providing heatmaps to see what parts of their site are working/ not I mean sure it's tracking you but only on that site AFAIK?
Now I'm not familiar with profitwell, but just seems like a basic CRM.
I think there's a pretty big difference between this basic Marketing SaaS tools / advertising conversion tracking and doing something like collecting your personal real life data and making it easy for anyone to search/dox you online.
Hotjar is great for providing heatmaps to see what parts of their site are working/ not I mean sure it's tracking you but only on that site AFAIK?
Now I'm not familiar with profitwell, but just seems like a basic CRM.
I think there's a pretty big difference between this basic Marketing SaaS tools / advertising conversion tracking and doing something like collecting your personal real life data and making it easy for anyone to search/dox you online.
You must be joking. A bit hard on them?
They sell removal of personal information off the Internet, and yet they feed tracking data on their visitors to companies directly responsible for nearly complete evisceration of personal online privacy.
They sell removal of personal information off the Internet, and yet they feed tracking data on their visitors to companies directly responsible for nearly complete evisceration of personal online privacy.
I may be in the minority, but I make a distinction between personal IRL information like searching my name reveals my phone number or address. And online tracking information like when I have this cookie or browse from this IP, show me more X. Also Facebook is a large responsible company (no major data breaches, etc.) I know they're hated on, but something like Equifax is several orders of magnitude worse in my opinion.
Facebook (and maybe Google?) buy data about me to try to match me online so they can provide ads on their own service, but they don't reveal my data to anyone else - advertisers don't get my phone number or physical address or even email from them, when they want to advertise to me.
The companies that optery seems to be fighting against are ones that post my physical address and phone number and family members and name online in one spot so anyone can find it, without me ever opting in to that.
Facebook (and maybe Google?) buy data about me to try to match me online so they can provide ads on their own service, but they don't reveal my data to anyone else - advertisers don't get my phone number or physical address or even email from them, when they want to advertise to me.
The companies that optery seems to be fighting against are ones that post my physical address and phone number and family members and name online in one spot so anyone can find it, without me ever opting in to that.
>> Also Facebook is a large responsible company (no major data breaches, etc.)
First result for: "facebook data breach"
"Data from 533 million people in 106 countries was published on a hacking forum earlier this month. Facebook said the data was old, from a previously reported leak in 2019. It has denied any wrongdoing, saying that the data was scraped from publicly available information on the site."
Dated: April 20th 2021
There was 100% phone numbers linked to real names and email addresses (at a minimum) in that breach. That may not be what you would consider to be major, however.
First result for: "facebook data breach"
"Data from 533 million people in 106 countries was published on a hacking forum earlier this month. Facebook said the data was old, from a previously reported leak in 2019. It has denied any wrongdoing, saying that the data was scraped from publicly available information on the site."
Dated: April 20th 2021
There was 100% phone numbers linked to real names and email addresses (at a minimum) in that breach. That may not be what you would consider to be major, however.
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You are right, these scrips could only be loaded after user consent.
We’ve been testing ads on Facebook, even though we don't love their privacy track record. But what Facebook and Google do with ads targeting, is very different than what the people search and data broker sites do posting and selling people’s email, phone number, IP address, home address, political party, ethnicity, etc in plain text on the web.
Profitwell helps us with revenue reporting and metrics, Hotjar helps us improve our user experience, and Google Tag Manager makes the delivery of these vendor’s tags a little easier.
We disclose the third party vendors we use here: https://www.optery.com/how-we-secure-your-data/
Profitwell helps us with revenue reporting and metrics, Hotjar helps us improve our user experience, and Google Tag Manager makes the delivery of these vendor’s tags a little easier.
We disclose the third party vendors we use here: https://www.optery.com/how-we-secure-your-data/
Would you consider not loading facebook and google for logged in users? I understand there is a difference but your selling privacy.
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Can you delete my old HN comments?
You can have your old HN comments deleted by emailing the mods. There's limits to how much they'll delete, but they definitely don't want you to get into trouble over something you posted on HN.
>There's limits to how much they'll delete
Yes it's a huge problem. Many of us (or maybe just me?) would not have been so candid on HN had we known our comments would be indelibly preserved forever with no option for deletion.
The stated reasons for this policy I've seen from 'dang amount to "we don't like the look of a bunch of comment chains with [deleted] everywhere" which I find insulting.
I have a suspicion that the real reason is that the site software conveniently doesn't have a mass-deletion function.
Yes it's a huge problem. Many of us (or maybe just me?) would not have been so candid on HN had we known our comments would be indelibly preserved forever with no option for deletion.
The stated reasons for this policy I've seen from 'dang amount to "we don't like the look of a bunch of comment chains with [deleted] everywhere" which I find insulting.
I have a suspicion that the real reason is that the site software conveniently doesn't have a mass-deletion function.
They are perfectly able to add features to the site, and would absolutely add a feature if they thought it was as important as you think this one is.
I get the feeling you've never actually attempted to engage with them in good faith, because they're willing to put in quite a lot of work to dissociate you from your comments while leaving the comment intact. In case you missed it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799 is linked from the FAQ.
I get the feeling you've never actually attempted to engage with them in good faith, because they're willing to put in quite a lot of work to dissociate you from your comments while leaving the comment intact. In case you missed it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799 is linked from the FAQ.
> They are perfectly able to add features to the site, and would absolutely add a feature if they thought it was as important as you think this one is.
I mean we're talking about the forum software that can't handle more than a few hundred comments without resorting to pagination, so I feel justified in my thesis that engineering hours going into HN are pretty limited.
I mean we're talking about the forum software that can't handle more than a few hundred comments without resorting to pagination, so I feel justified in my thesis that engineering hours going into HN are pretty limited.
Again, you're not doing much to convince me you've actually gone out of your way to have a conversation with them.
They have other fish to fry, because maintaining a community doesn't just mean maintaining a codebase. They have a bunch of existing code that is architected in a way that makes some changes (like removing the comment render limit) not so easy. Though some of the consequences are annoying, they've never stopped anyone from using HN.
My personal experience is that they are implementing features and doing experiments, and it seems to me you've just never bothered to reach out and check with them because you think you know better.
Enjoy your thesis, or whatever. They're nice people and I recommend emailing them.
They have other fish to fry, because maintaining a community doesn't just mean maintaining a codebase. They have a bunch of existing code that is architected in a way that makes some changes (like removing the comment render limit) not so easy. Though some of the consequences are annoying, they've never stopped anyone from using HN.
My personal experience is that they are implementing features and doing experiments, and it seems to me you've just never bothered to reach out and check with them because you think you know better.
Enjoy your thesis, or whatever. They're nice people and I recommend emailing them.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
After the unroll.me incident, I cannot trust any US company not to do it again.
I have no opinion on the service itself, but the very concept that such a service is 'needed' just is wild. Have we reached a peak of capitalism where I have to pay someone monthly to check x/year who is selling my data?
Seems that the law needs to be changed urgently from "right to lot out" to "automatically delete data within x months of collection".
What is the purpose and added value to society of these brokers? Why do we allow such businesses to exist at all? And with all the GDPR-bashing on HN, is the existence of optery and similar services not proof enough that it is needed?
Seems that the law needs to be changed urgently from "right to lot out" to "automatically delete data within x months of collection".
What is the purpose and added value to society of these brokers? Why do we allow such businesses to exist at all? And with all the GDPR-bashing on HN, is the existence of optery and similar services not proof enough that it is needed?
Sites like Radaris, SocialCatfish, VoterRecords.com, Persopo, PeekYou, and WhitePages.com scrape the internet for the personal information of as many people as they can find, plus buy it in bulk from other sources. Then they post it online and sell it to anyone who wants to know about you. This is legal (though there are a lot of gray areas), but the net result is that a shocking amount of personal data is available about us online. Most of these sites will remove your data if you ask—but they don’t make it easy. Plus you have to ask each of them individually, and to do that, you have to know who they are in the first place.
We automate the opt-out process on these sites, first finding your exposed profiles, and then removing your information from both the public internet and the datasets they sell. Because there are hundreds of such sites, it’s impractical to manage all this on your own. Software, however, can manage it nicely. We’ve written that software.
This helps protect you from identity theft, phishing, hacking, spamming, doxing, and more. People search sites are used not only by identity thieves, but by phishers and hackers who craft convincing emails referencing non-obvious personal details as a way to build trust and trick you or those close to you into letting your guard down.
We arrived at this problem from two opposite directions. Two of us worked in the data broker industry in the past, but as we learned more about what this data actually gets used for, and the harms it can cause, we decided to leave. We had a lot of inside knowledge about how the industry worked and decided to use that knowledge to help people learn more about the problem and address it head on.
The other thing that happened was that I was a victim of identity theft. The thieves were able to open new accounts in my name by creating a fake ID and then piecing together information to bypass verification questions like “In which of the following cities have you never lived or used in your address?” or “Which of the following streets has a current or former association with you?” I found it was nearly impossible to remove myself from the Byzantine ecosystem of data brokers posting and selling his info online. Once the dust had cleared, we began discussing approaches to automating opt out and removal requests and Optery was born.
The problem is hard to solve for two reasons. First, there are so many data brokers, each with their own nuances and distinct processes for opt outs. So far we’ve built custom opt out processes for over 200 data brokers. Second, most U.S. citizens actually still have few legal rights to data privacy. Optery is only for U.S. residents for the time being, and this is one main reasons—the problem is at its worst here.
This is changing as new privacy laws are starting to get passed at the state level (e.g. in California, Nevada, and Virginia), but as of this writing the majority of U.S. citizens don’t even have a legal right to opt out of their personal information being posted and sold online, and in our experience, about 5% of data brokers simply do not comply with opt out requests. In these cases we file formal complaints to the FTC and state AG offices, and we recommend you do the same. They are slow to act on these complaints unfortunately, but at least the wheels are in motion, and we believe this issue will eventually get taken care of as more people become aware of the problem. In the meantime, we continue to send opt out requests regardless, and are able remove personal data from the other 95%.
One nuance of the opt-out process, which existing services tend not to handle correctly, is that you should avoid sending an opt out request to a data broker unless you are reasonably sure that the provider has your data in the first place. Otherwise you’re giving them information about you, when what you want is just the opposite! Some other services just take a long list of privacy@ email addresses for every data broker they can find, and then blast out generic opt out requests containing all of your identifying information, regardless of whether or not the data broker even has your information to begin with.
But the Achilles’ heel of these sites is that they rely heavily on the open web for marketing: SEO, affiliate programs, and paid search ads. Therefore they mostly support HTTP GET requests in standardized formats to reach individual people’s profiles, e.g. https://www.data-broker.com/person? firstName=george&lastName=orwell&city=new-york&state=NY.
We take advantage of this to find out which providers have you in their database first, before invoking the formal opt-out. These HTTP requests require less information than the formal opt-out processes do, plus are buried inside of the millions of other search requests that are happening through their open web marketing channels (e.g. paid search affiliate, SEO, etc). We’ve been able to find many more exposed profiles this way than the more old-fashioned approaches other services use such as manual searches and the bulk “spray and pray” emails. Also, it lets us provide our users with a dashboard full of these links they can use to discover and verify what’s out there on them. Many people prefer to submit opt out requests on their own, or are already working with a different removal service; in those cases, our dashboard can be used to double-check and verify that work. Visibility and transparency is rarely available to consumers in the world of personal data, so when we demo the product to people who care about their data privacy, it’s often a "wow" moment.
A common question we get is “And what about you? Why should I trust you to collect my data any more than these shady outfits?” To be clear, we do not sell data. We are not a data broker, and do not have any financial relationship or any affiliation with any data broker. If you are looking at an information removal service, research the company carefully. Many other services have deep ties into the data broker industry through affiliate partnerships, data sharing arrangements, and financial relationships. We do not. More on that here: https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/. You can delete your account at any time and all information we hold about you will be destroyed.
Unfortunately, there is a catch-22 where in order to opt out of people-search sites, you must first tell them who you are (otherwise, how else would they know who to opt out!). To create an Optery account, we require only the minimum amount of information necessary for this, which is: First Name, Last Name, Year of Birth, Current City, and Current State. For most people, this is no more information than what is already publicly available online. We also offer users the option to give us more precise details (such as a full birth date rather than just birth year, past addresses, etc.) because this can increase the accuracy of locating profiles at data brokers and opt outs. This is entirely optional though. The only required info is the absolute minimum, without which there would be no point in creating an account, because we would not be able to find or remove you.
We have a freemium model. When someone creates an account, we send them a free Exposure Report with ~70 screen shots of where they’ve been found, which lets them see where their personal details are posted online and being exploited by data brokers. From there, they can decide if they’d like to use our free tools to submit opt out requests on their own self-service, or they can upgrade to a paid tier and we’ll remove the profiles for them.
We launched Optery as a Show HN last year (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27662114) and the feedback from the community was enormously helpful. We prioritized a bunch of features like adding MFA, expanding our list of data brokers, streamlining UX, and clarifying our privacy terms and practices, all based on feedback from our Show HN. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the current iteration!