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co-founder of DeleteMe here. removal from myriad numbers of top data brokers is a onerous process but it can be done free. our service, DeleteMe - www.joindele

co-founder of DeleteMe here. removal from myriad numbers of top data brokers is a onerous process but it can be done free. our service, DeleteMe - www.joindeleteme.com (NOT sadly the obvious url) has both a FREE option which guides you through each removal OR our paid annual "we do it all for you" service. some of the data brokers make it pretty easy, others display criminal-esque behaviors. it is a shady business, and privacy laws are going to be important in controlling it better. @PangurBan is right to use separate emails when possible (Abine has a freemium product for this called Blur). also, Onerep is a competitor to DeleteMe - it is newer, cheaper and the team is in Eastern Europe but we believe they're a legit service. Happy to answer any other questions from HN.

TheBlerch 6y ago
Great to see you here and thank you for offering free guidance and services. Looking forward to reading your site. I agree we need real data privacy laws with enforcement. Unfortunately most people don't understand how their data is being abused and don't understand that the regulation tech companies are asking for isn’t the answer - they'll just water it down with well-funded lobbyists. A few questions: 1) Why can’t DeleteMe remove info from more services and why is OneRep able to remove from many more? For example, DeleteMe will tell you there are a number of services they can’t remove from, and that any data left on those sites will just be scraped again by the other sites DeleteMe already removed from. 2) Given your expertise, which data privacy practices do you recommend? When using another email to sign up for all services and ecommerce, do you recommend that email not be a Gmail? 3) How does DeleteMe’s Blur product help guard your identity and privacy beyond using a separate email?
- slvrspoon 6y ago
  thanks for the questions. 1. DeleteMe's been focused on the biggest and most cumbersome to remove sites. We pride ourselves on doing a thorough job and we use real people to make sure searches are comprehensive and removals complete. we're careful about the quality as we add new data brokers. that said, we should - and are adding more and more. our experts also help with custom requests. what we call "repopulation of data" is also a systemic hard-to-control problem. this is why DeleteMe's a subscription service that keeps checking and removing for a single price all year. 2. best practices are things most HN concerned people are doing... pass manager, tracker blocker, not everything in a single cloud, vpn, etc. the most interesting thing our Blur product does is let you "compartmentalize" key credentials for each 3rd party you exchange data with. meaning: Blur gives you unique emails, phone, and credit cards as well as passwords, stores them locally, and has a proxy server to route between your private credentials, and the new ones you generate. you can use gmail as your "private mail" lastly, i'd stress: these things help a bunch to make it harder to correlate your identity cross-domain. that said, anonymity is - and has long been - very difficult to attain and expensive to maintain. don't kid yourself on the difference :)
knight2020 6y ago
DeleteMe has been around a long time and I have used their service for several years. They get excellent reviews. If you are looking for a truly tested, legit service I would recommend them.
- TheBlerch 6y ago
  Hard to believe you're a legit customer of theirs considering your account was created less than an hour ago.

TheBlerch 6y ago

Great to see you here and thank you for offering free guidance and services. Looking forward to reading your site. I agree we need real data privacy laws with enforcement. Unfortunately most people don't understand how their data is being abused and don't understand that the regulation tech companies are asking for isn’t the answer - they'll just water it down with well-funded lobbyists. A few questions: 1) Why can’t DeleteMe remove info from more services and why is OneRep able to remove from many more? For example, DeleteMe will tell you there are a number of services they can’t remove from, and that any data left on those sites will just be scraped again by the other sites DeleteMe already removed from. 2) Given your expertise, which data privacy practices do you recommend? When using another email to sign up for all services and ecommerce, do you recommend that email not be a Gmail? 3) How does DeleteMe’s Blur product help guard your identity and privacy beyond using a separate email?

slvrspoon 6y ago
thanks for the questions. 1. DeleteMe's been focused on the biggest and most cumbersome to remove sites. We pride ourselves on doing a thorough job and we use real people to make sure searches are comprehensive and removals complete. we're careful about the quality as we add new data brokers. that said, we should - and are adding more and more. our experts also help with custom requests. what we call "repopulation of data" is also a systemic hard-to-control problem. this is why DeleteMe's a subscription service that keeps checking and removing for a single price all year. 2. best practices are things most HN concerned people are doing... pass manager, tracker blocker, not everything in a single cloud, vpn, etc. the most interesting thing our Blur product does is let you "compartmentalize" key credentials for each 3rd party you exchange data with. meaning: Blur gives you unique emails, phone, and credit cards as well as passwords, stores them locally, and has a proxy server to route between your private credentials, and the new ones you generate. you can use gmail as your "private mail" lastly, i'd stress: these things help a bunch to make it harder to correlate your identity cross-domain. that said, anonymity is - and has long been - very difficult to attain and expensive to maintain. don't kid yourself on the difference :)

knight2020 6y ago

DeleteMe has been around a long time and I have used their service for several years. They get excellent reviews. If you are looking for a truly tested, legit service I would recommend them.

TheBlerch 6y ago
Hard to believe you're a legit customer of theirs considering your account was created less than an hour ago.