4 ms·
It comes from a lot of places. Voter records is actually a big source, but also I believe some of the various breaches have made it in. And all of those sites c
by jcomis 6y ago
It comes from a lot of places. Voter records is actually a big source, but also I believe some of the various breaches have made it in. And all of those sites continuously crawl each other and trade databases as well.
I had my identity stolen and after a lot of research I determined they were able to gather the info from all of these public sources. I have been trying to scrub myself from them for 3 years now. It's like playing whack-a-mole. Some are quick to delete, only to pop right back up again months later. Some just don't respond. Some require physical mailed requests. A few are openly hostile. You need to submit forms with google to get search results cache updated for each page.
You also need to clear "associates" such as spouse, parents, children because your info appears on their profiles as well. Tedious process!
I believe the best defense is to have a common name or create a ton of spoof info to confuse them.
- quercusa 6y agoOuch. Could you say a little more about the scrubbing process: Where to start, how to do it? Thanks.
- jcomis 6y agoLots of googling your own name and email address. Finding all the hits and searching for "remove" or "opt out" links (search "sitename+opt out" etc). Repeating the process for close associates, phone number, address. Then closely monitor. Submit search results cache removal as soon as it changes (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals). I've found it's best to do one giant wave of removals to avoid propagating from one site to another.
- coffeemaniac 6y agoYou need to go to each of these sites individually and request an "opt-out". (This is superior to a complete deletion of your data which some offer, because an opt out allows them to keep your name on a "do not share" list.) You can hire services which will do this like deleteme, privacyduck, or onerep. What most people do is spend lots of time researching these services to decide which is worth the price. I'd recommend looking at the "which sites do we cover?" sections of each service, and go to each site yourself to submit the opt-out. Most of these sites have a paid tier -- don't fall for it, the opt-out process will provide you a form in most cases which will allow you to see whether or not your info is in their records. Keep a spreadsheet, and go back to them on some timeline, or alternately hire one of the aforementioned services afterwards. Focus on the major data brokers first: Acxiom, Experian, Epsilon, CoreLogic, Datalogix, Intelius, PeekYou, Exactis, and Recorded Future. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions.
- atomicfiredoll 6y agoI've seen this posted in a few places now. It lists out several of these sites with information about how to opt-out. Results may vary. https://github.com/yaelwrites/Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-List https://github.com/yaelwrites/Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-Li...
- ardy42 6y ago> It comes from a lot of places. Voter records is actually a big source, but also I believe some of the various breaches have made it in. And all of those sites continuously crawl each other and trade databases as well. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it comes from customer lists (either sold directly by the collecting company for a little extra profit or bought in bankruptcy/liquidation proceedings).
- jcomis 6y agoWouldn't be surprised. I think a lot of the original data also comes from whitepages.