38 ms·

so absurd. why is it $129/year to remove myself from lists that I didn't consent to be added to in the first place?

by plants 6y ago

derwiki 6y ago
Same reason you pay for trash removal of physical junk mail that’s delivered to your house
- bluntfang 6y ago
  technically you could try putting RETURN TO SENDER on all your junk mail and put them back in a blue collection box. https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regarding-Unwanted-Unsolicited-Mail https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regard...
  - qppo 6y ago
    It's crossed my mind before to start a service that collects junk mail and sends it to the home address of the executives at the junk mail aggregates (there's only a handful of them last I tried to stop receiving junk). On the one hand it's definitely harassment to find out someone's address just to send them things they don't want for the purposes of changing their behavior. On the other hand, that's their business model.
    - horlux 6y ago
      brilliant
    - paledot 6y ago
      Now that I would pay $129/year for.
- leipert 6y ago
  In Germany you can put a „no ads“ sticker on your mailbox and it works. In case someone puts ads into your mailbox anyhow, you can report them to the consumer protection agency and they risk a fine. This actually works.
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    When I lived in Austria, I had ads hanging on my doorknob almost every day. I was amazed at how many I got when I would leave for a week. US should do same. Make spammers deliver their junk mail themselves, lightens the load on the USPS and creates direct jobs.
    - Rebelgecko 6y ago
      Junk mail is responsible for a good chunk of USPS revenue
  - Ingosla 6y ago
    Well, I lived in Germany for a long time and had that sticker on my mailbox, but still got them. Though less than anywhere else, so it does scare some, but not all of them.
kube-system 6y ago
How else should they monetize their service? Remove you from data brokers lists and then sell your data right back to them?
logicalmonster 6y ago
It’s all about how proactive you want to be. Generally you can do it for free if you know where to remove data from. The people search engines make it intentionally complicated to find their removal links and they make it like an 18-step process unnecessarily. See https://www.removemyphone.com/learn/intelius-removal-guide https://www.removemyphone.com/learn/intelius-removal-guide for instance. That said, I wish some (not all, but some) European style personal data protection laws were on the table for discussion in the US. I’m not sure if the US can manage good privacy laws without benefiting big corporations over smaller social media upstarts, so I think we’re mostly stuck with this state of affairs here.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  > 7. Periodically repeat the previous steps. As their data sources and crawlers can find your data again, there's always a possibility that your data will show up again in the future. Monitoring it for the long-haul is super important. Oh I laughed so hard on that 7.!!! Why can't they just sinkhole your name/number/data so that anyone trying to add you it will be auto-deleted?? Nice scummy behaviour, but I guess they simple call this "business/operating model".
lobster45 6y ago
How much is your time worth? Doing it manually is a pain in the ass and takes a lot of time. Deleteme is not perfect, but they do a pretty good job. Customer since 2010

so absurd. why is it $129/year to remove myself from lists that I didn't consent to be added to in the first place?

by plants 6y ago

so absurd. why is it $129/year to remove myself from lists that I didn't consent to be added to in the first place?

derwiki 6y ago

Same reason you pay for trash removal of physical junk mail that’s delivered to your house

bluntfang 6y ago
technically you could try putting RETURN TO SENDER on all your junk mail and put them back in a blue collection box. https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regarding-Unwanted-Unsolicited-Mail https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regard...
- qppo 6y ago
  It's crossed my mind before to start a service that collects junk mail and sends it to the home address of the executives at the junk mail aggregates (there's only a handful of them last I tried to stop receiving junk). On the one hand it's definitely harassment to find out someone's address just to send them things they don't want for the purposes of changing their behavior. On the other hand, that's their business model.
  - horlux 6y ago
    brilliant
  - paledot 6y ago
    Now that I would pay $129/year for.
leipert 6y ago
In Germany you can put a „no ads“ sticker on your mailbox and it works. In case someone puts ads into your mailbox anyhow, you can report them to the consumer protection agency and they risk a fine. This actually works.
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  When I lived in Austria, I had ads hanging on my doorknob almost every day. I was amazed at how many I got when I would leave for a week. US should do same. Make spammers deliver their junk mail themselves, lightens the load on the USPS and creates direct jobs.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Junk mail is responsible for a good chunk of USPS revenue
- Ingosla 6y ago
  Well, I lived in Germany for a long time and had that sticker on my mailbox, but still got them. Though less than anywhere else, so it does scare some, but not all of them.

kube-system 6y ago

How else should they monetize their service? Remove you from data brokers lists and then sell your data right back to them?

logicalmonster 6y ago

It’s all about how proactive you want to be. Generally you can do it for free if you know where to remove data from. The people search engines make it intentionally complicated to find their removal links and they make it like an 18-step process unnecessarily. See https://www.removemyphone.com/learn/intelius-removal-guide https://www.removemyphone.com/learn/intelius-removal-guide for instance. That said, I wish some (not all, but some) European style personal data protection laws were on the table for discussion in the US. I’m not sure if the US can manage good privacy laws without benefiting big corporations over smaller social media upstarts, so I think we’re mostly stuck with this state of affairs here.

HenryBemis 6y ago
> 7. Periodically repeat the previous steps. As their data sources and crawlers can find your data again, there's always a possibility that your data will show up again in the future. Monitoring it for the long-haul is super important. Oh I laughed so hard on that 7.!!! Why can't they just sinkhole your name/number/data so that anyone trying to add you it will be auto-deleted?? Nice scummy behaviour, but I guess they simple call this "business/operating model".

lobster45 6y ago

How much is your time worth? Doing it manually is a pain in the ass and takes a lot of time. Deleteme is not perfect, but they do a pretty good job. Customer since 2010