11 ms·

Show HN: Optery – See the private info data brokers are posting about you online

111 points by beyondd 5y ago

beyondd 5y ago
Hi HN, After many years working at data brokers such as BlueKai, Lusha, and Oracle Data Cloud, we've spent the last few months building a tool that provides granular visibility into the private information posted about you online by people search sites like TruthFinder, MyLife, Radaris, CellRevealer, Spokeo, WhitePages, etc. After sign up, we provide deep links to your profile at over 100 of these sites, as well as an Exposure Report with screenshots so you can see exactly what these sites are posting about you. There are typically 40 - 60 matches for each user that signs up. The top comment in another data privacy Show HN shared recently illustrates the gap our tool fills: "Does it take into account whether or not a given data broker currently has my data? Since the deletion requests contain my personal info (for some, a fair amount of it), I'd rather not have that sent to 500 brokers if only 10 or 20 of them actually have me in their database." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828) Full disclosure, signing up is free and provides the visibility into what data brokers are posting about you described above, but we also have paid subscription tiers where we submit and manage the opt outs and removals. If you want to skip the overview content, you can go straight to the signup here: https://app.optery.com/signup https://app.optery.com/signup (We only support U.S. residents at this time.)
curtisblaine 5y ago
US only. Please make it clear before asking for email / pwd to sign up.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Sorry about that. We just updated our sign up page to make this more clear.
tylerscott 5y ago
It's incredible how many companies exist solely to collect (and sell?) personal data. I was ignorant to just how wide spread bits of my data were until I fired up Optery. It was sorta shocking to see all the results.
orf 5y ago
USA only. Not particularly clear. Seems cool though.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Sorry about that. We just updated our sign up page to make this more clear.
bberenberg 5y ago
I don't understand why I need to upgrade from Core to Extended to find out if Ultimate is right for me?
- beyondd 5y ago
  That's a great question. This is our first time sharing publicly, and this is great feedback that we might we need to change that. The intention is to tier the paid version of the product in terms of price and value, but that may not be the best place to do it. That said, as soon as you receive your Exposure Report by email (typically within ~24 hours), it will include screen shots for the data brokers covered by the Ultimate plan, so you will have some visibility there for help deciding.
qqw 5y ago
Doesn't supplying all this info about myself just confirm that it is correct, thus further putting my privacy at risk? > For each user, we typically turn up 2X – 5X more profile match results than Google, or any of our competitors How? Is it different than manually looking up my info at each site listed under "which data brokers are covered by each plan?" Not a bad idea for a business, you sell them my data then charge me to have them delete it. I didn't know you had competitors though, now I'm comparing your features to theirs.
- beyondd 5y ago
  We do not sell data. We are not a data broker. People sign up with us to see what information data brokers are posting about them online, and then are provided with free and paid options to opt out and have themselves removed. Yes - you could manually look up your info at each site listed under "which data brokers are covered by each plan?" - which would take you many, many hours, or you could create an account with Optery and have us do it for you automatically. The data brokers most likely already have info on you. There is a catch22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are. Other services use your own private email address to submit the opt outs. We do not share your private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.
  - cdstyh 5y ago
    Can I know your name, address, and phone number please?
- mtnGoat 5y ago
  Yup, and then they take it down, but re-buy it from a partner next month. And that’s why this service is recurring. They all working together.
gigel82 5y ago
Be very careful with any tool like this; you'll need to prove who you are by verifying an email address and / or phone number to your real name, which in turn will most likely "confirm" your data with all the upstream brokers (if you pay for some extra service you're twice a sucker with them most likely getting paid by brokers for proving your identity and by you as well for using the "service"). Note: this could be totally legit but in my personal experience, 100% of the tools that promise to do this were in fact shady as fuck and working with the brokers to enrich their data.
- johnrob 5y ago
  Sadly, I doubt the brokers have much concern about their data being inaccurate!
  - gigel82 5y ago
    I used a tool like this posted to HackerNews a couple years back (against my better judgement, eh), and the information on a few of the data brokers afterwards was not only not removed but actually showed a green checkmark ("verified"). It's entirely possible the data brokers are simply using the "opt out" requests as a way to validate the data, but it's just as likely that the tool works with the brokers to confirm information instead of actually removing it.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. We do not sell data. We are not a data broker. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. We are privacy enthusiasts who believe consumers should be in full control of their data. You can learn more about our mission, background and values here: https://www.optery.com/about-us/ https://www.optery.com/about-us/ There are some bad actors out there unfortunately. The most well-known is OneRep, which has an opt out and removals business, but are owned by an ownership group that simultaneously runs the People Search Site data broker Nuwber. It's almost certain that they run off the same data spine, meaning your data is co-mingled. Another one is BrandYourself, which includes data brokers as part of its affiliate program. So if you pay them for removals, you are indirectly paying the data brokers. There are others that I have a strong suspicion of, but don't know for certain, so I won't risk sharing their names. But please don’t lump the rest of us working hard to protect people from data brokers into that same bucket. Along with us, DeleteMe, PrivacyDuck, and Kanary and a few others are above-board with no affiliation or financial relationship with any data broker (to the best of my knowledge). Just working hard for consumer data rights. The data brokers most likely already have info on you. There is a catch22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are. Other services use your own private email address to submit the opt outs. We do not share your private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.
myself248 5y ago
The pricing page doesn't make it clear why it's charged monthly, when it seems like this should be a one-time thing. What happens if I pay for a month, get all the opt-outs, and stop paying? My cynicism says that an unethical service in your position could hold my identity hostage and immediately re-publish anything as soon as I stop paying. I'm sure you're not doing that, but forgive me for thinking it; we're talking about an entire industry that rests on ethics that many of us would consider stalking and should be profoundly illegal, so the possibility of such behavior is palpable! So, it would be good to explain or clarify _that_ you're not holding me hostage, and lay out the value proposition for an ongoing subscription to what feels like a one-time event.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. Regarding our pricing. It is true that most of the opt out submissions and removals happen up front. If someone wanted to go this route, I'd recommend keeping the subscription active for a minimum of 3 months, and then cancelling the subscription. Some data brokers process opt out removals within 24 hours, but others take several weeks to comply. Also, the majority of data brokers honor opt out requests on the first try, but others require retries or follow ups over several weeks. In our experience, it can take up to 2 - 3 months of effort for the longtail to disappear. The other consideration is that data brokers are inconsistent in how long they will honor an opt out. The California Consumer Privacy Act (the most strict privacy law in the U.S.) actually permits data brokers to stop honoring an opt out request after 1 year. Some data brokers honor opt outs indefinitely, but others require annual effort to ensure your name and personal info stays removed. Like antivirus, the landscape is very dynamic. New data brokers come online regularly, data broker databases are constantly being updated and refreshed (sometimes overwriting prior opt out request flags), and we (Optery) are continually expanding our list of data brokers we cover for each paid subscription plan tier. So if you want a service that's continually scanning for your profiles and opting you out on an ongoing basis when new results turn up, that would be a good reason to keep a subscription active on an ongoing basis. But you are free to cancel, or delete your account entirely at any time! Regarding your second point. We are not a data broker. We do not sell data. We do not publish data. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. There are some opt out services out there that have financial partnerships and affiliations with data brokers – Optery is not one of them. We only submit to data brokers the minimum amount of information necessary for them to locate your profile, and then remove it, which, in the majority of cases is: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, City, State, and an email address. Note that we never share our customers private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.
dgeiser13 5y ago
I signed up for an account and all I see on the dashboard is... "Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (developer guidance)."
- beyondd 5y ago
  There are two steps in the signup process. Step 1 is for basic email and password. Step 2 is for the bare minimum information necessary to find your profiles at data brokers. We found when people skipped step 2 and then logged in, they would get this error. We fixed the bug and have made step 2 required. Here's more info: https://help.optery.com/en/article/why-does-optery-need-so-much-of-my-information-ry0lom/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/why-does-optery-need-so-m...
bythreads 5y ago
US only because you're scared of gdpr?
- beyondd 5y ago
  I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread
photoGrant 5y ago
All you need to know: > If you purchase a paid subscription plan, as a condition to fulfilling your subscription plan, (i) you must provide your personally identifiable information(“PII”) such as full name, birth year and home address to Optery, Inc. and (ii) Optery, Inc. must send your PII to the data brokers and information aggregators included in the Removal Lists. This information is required by the data brokers and information aggregators in order to locate your record(s) and remove you from their database(s). We cannot control, guarantee or warranty how these third-parties will treat your PII or what they will do with it. By purchasing and maintaining an active paid subscription, you approve Optery, Inc. to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests. If you do not wish to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests, then you should not use Optery, Inc.’s Removal Services.
- crummy 5y ago
  how exactly would it work otherwise?
  - nickphx 5y ago
    A hash of a unique identifier? Most of the "databroker" APIs I've worked with only use hashed identifiers..
- dheera 5y ago
  > you approve Optery, Inc. to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests I've successfully removed my address from almost every data broker without giving out this information. One who had my old address initially wanted more of my info to remove my info, so instead of doing that, I sent them a cease and desist, and that worked. Can you please do that instead of sending more PII to people than what they already have?
  - sneak 5y ago
    Could you share your cease and desist template?
shubik22 5y ago
Congrats on your product. I'm curious what lead to you all creating this product, after you spent "years working at data brokers." Perhaps this is too harsh an analogy, but how is this different than someone who spends years working at a tobacco company and then launches a company which sells a smoking cessation product? As other comments here point out, even the process of opting out of these brokers via Optery requires disclosure of personal information and some level of trust. I can imagine the fact that you all previously worked at data brokers make people less likely to trust you with their personal information, rather than more.
- sethherr 5y ago
  I am also curious about this, and would like a response before signing up. You’ve established your knowledge of data brokerages, but not your motivations. Did you all have a change of heart? Just see a product opportunity?
- beyondd 5y ago
  Co-creator of Optery here. Thanks for the good vibes. The data broker industry is large, and there are hundreds of players across different sub-categories (e.g. people search, email, phone, audience targeting, geolocation, past purchases, TV content viewed, data enrichment, identity graph, etc). Personally, I worked in the audience targeting sub-category for delivering personalized online advertisements. I left the space ~5 years ago when I left Oracle Data Cloud (BlueKai). What we did was anonymized audience targeting for large consumer brand advertisers (i.e. not people search, email, phone, nor anything PII based). A lot has changed since I entered the space in 2011, and indeed, since I left the space in ~2016. Data has become more weaponized, data brokers have become more brazen in the liberties they take with our data, and the ends they’ll go to circumvent consumer preferences and even privacy laws. Fortunately, a lot of progress is being made. People are becoming more aware, stronger laws are getting passed, technology is being put to better use, and privacy tech is emerging as a more important category. We felt like we had a lot of inside knowledge of how the industry worked and felt called to put that knowledge to work helping people. This is why providing a Free Basic account that provides a lot of value for free was core to what we wanted to do. Trust is earned over time and we have a lot of work ahead of us given the distrust so many bad actors have established with people’s personal data. We are a new product and company we’re working hard to build trust with our users and customers every day.
TheFreim 5y ago
> After many years working at data brokers So you worked for years at (immoral) data harvesters but now you're a changed man who pinky swears to not use people's data they submit to you in a bad way? Sorry, I don't trust this product yet.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  The only way I'd trust such a service is if it's domain name ends in .gov (or equivalent for other countries) and is free or a nominal fee.
  - shrimpx 5y ago
    The USDS should work on stuff like this. https://www.usds.gov https://www.usds.gov
    - notJim 5y ago
      This feels like FTC territory. USDS is more about provisioning services AFAIK. However, new regulations would be required, and I don't really see that happening.
- mssundaram 5y ago
  I'd like to see beyondd (one of the co-founders on here) to address this
  - beyondd 5y ago
    I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread
- ipython 5y ago
  I see this like a hacker who grows up and realizes that what they did before was wrong. People change. And the best people to address these issues head on- unfortunately- almost always started on the “wrong” side of the issue. Speaking from personal experience, you can reform yourself.
troydavis 5y ago
I did a version of this by Googling my name (as a phrase, with and without middle initial) combined with city names or street address fragments I’ve lived at. I then submitted removal requests for anything I found. I ended up submitting about 10 requests, 7 or 8 of which were online. Of course, not all data brokers have publicly indexed page, but a lot do.
- beyondd 5y ago
  This is great! A lot of people prefer to submit the opt outs themselves. Our Free Basic account can be used to help people do-it-yourself faster by helping with the discovery process. If you choose to sign up for Optery, next to each data broker listing we provide the opt out link and opt out email address to make it easy to navigate to. When submitting your own opt outs to these companies directly, we highly recommend creating a disposable email address, and Not using your primary email address, as just reaching out to them with an email often adds you to their email lists.
- cgb223 5y ago
  Did you follow up to see if they actually removed you? How many actually did?
  - troydavis 5y ago
    All of them responded when my listing was removed, and I could see that they were gone.
mdaniel 5y ago
I requested that they turn on 2FA, since they themselves will become an attack target by requesting so much PII That said, my experience with trying to use any opt-out service (automated or otherwise) is filled with a lot of "Oops, server error, try again later" responses at the end of filling out a ton of forms about oneself, so I wonder if Optery has some secret sauce, is persistent in the face of server errors, or just is fire-and-forget and thus follows the "spray and pray" method of account removal If I paid actual money for this, I'd want some observable metric showing that I had 166 public listings in June, followed by 66 in July, or something of the sort.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Yes - Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) is in development – this is almost ready and will be released soon. No server errors have been reported like what you’ve experienced at other services. A few people received an error trying to log in without completing the second step in the signup process, but we resolved this immediately and now prevent people from logging in without completing the two-step registration. Regarding your last comment, for our customers we deliver Removals Status Updates indicating the number of removals that have been completed, are pending, or are in process. The Removals Status Updates are configurable in account settings for delivery weekly, monthly (default), or never. The dashboard also has up-to-date status indicators for removals pending, in progress, not found, etc. Additionally, for our paying customers, we send Removals Reports approximately quarterly summarizing visually all the places customers have been removed and/or cannot be found.
  - beyondd 5y ago
    2FA is live now for Optery - here's the help page for setting it up: https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-to-add-multi-factor-authentication-mfa-2-step-verification-2fa-to-your-account-for-additional-security-e16sz4/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-to-add-multi-factor-a...
neatze 5y ago
How and why are you better then onerep.com ?
- beyondd 5y ago
  If you click through the original Show HN posted link at the very top of the page, there's a section on the Introducing Optery page titled "How Is Optery Different From Competitors?" with differentiators from OneRep, DeleteMe, PrivacyDuck, and PrivacyBot there. If you already have a OneRep subscription (or any other competitor opt out / removals service), you can sign up for Optery for free, and use the Free Basic account results to keep them honest and check their work. In our experience, we typically find 20 - 40 profiles other services have missed and left exposed.
altdataseller 5y ago
What about ZoomInfo? Can it remove my profile from there?
- altdataseller 5y ago
  I mean if I am going to pay that much, would be nice to remove it from a huge provider that leads to tons of spammy sales calls, rather than the low hanging niche ones like spokeo
  - beyondd 5y ago
    Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. This is a great question. There are hundreds of data brokers across different categories (e.g. people search, email, phone, audience marketing, geolocation, past purchases, TV viewing, etc). Many data brokers operate across categories. We've started off with the People Search Site category first because that's where we sensed the most pain from the users we spoke with. We are constantly expanding our coverage, and will be adding more data broker categories in the near future. ZoomInfo is high up on the list to be added soon because we get asked about them a lot.
908087 5y ago
With sites like this one, I'm always left considering what happens when the site "helping" me gets bought out (or changes business models) and sells me out anyway.
polishdude20 5y ago
Doesn't work for Canada? Only lets me put in US states
- beyondd 5y ago
  Optery is U.S. only at this time
hash872 5y ago
So I like removing myself from data brokers as a side hobby. In general they seem to be pretty quick to do so. However, OpenCorporates lists my name & home address, and absolutely refuses to remove it, as I'm self-employed and I have a corporate registration with my state. I eventually contacted the CEO directly and he said 'no, we won't remove you, go away'. They're based in the UK. Any general thoughts on them?
- dheera 5y ago
  Best thing I can say is (a) move (b) do NOT register for USPS forwarding to your new address (USPS will help the data brokers) (c) change your legal address for service of process to a registered agent service, not your residential address (d) get a UPS mail box for your day-to-day corporate mail, and preferably most of your personal mail as well Completely 100% refuse to ever give out your residential address for anything business-related. In addition, a couple of other common culprits for unethically releasing addresses to data brokers: - DMV -- opt out explicitly - Voter registration - Don't register to vote if you aren't in a swing state - Utilities -- opt out explicitly - Credit cards -- opt out explicitly - Random small e-commerce websites you need to receive packages from -- ship them to your UPS box or to your workplace if you can
  - DataBrokerLol 5y ago
    I would recommend against explicitly recommending voter fraud to people, regardless of the intent.
    - dheera 5y ago
      (I didn't think that was illegal if you were in the same district, but edited it anyway)
      - DataBrokerLol 5y ago
        It is, and it is (I thought?) common knowledge due to the high profile cases where this was abused. There's nothing morally wrong about doing it, but it is illegal and people do face consequences for it.
d_sc 5y ago
Why only US?
- dsmember 5y ago
  Do you know any databrokers in EU?
- beyondd 5y ago
  I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread
ipython 5y ago
Congratulations on launching! I signed up to take a look around. I’m excited that your free tier includes deep links to remove yourself. What I would like more than this is a way to feed fake data into the system. Inadvertently I have done so in a variety of ways, such that I regularly receive AARP advertising materials and my landline is on a myriad of robocall lists for senior citizen scams. I would love to see a way to blast totally useless information associated with my name to make the data entirely useless.
- dheera 5y ago
  I'm currently using OneRep. Can someone please tell me if Optery is better and if OneRep will release all my information if I unsubscribe from them?
  - DataBrokerLol 5y ago
    There is nothing besides OneRep or any agreements/contracts you have with OneRep that can answer that question for you.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Thanks for the good vibes, and glad you found the deep links useful! To your second point about introducing "noise" into your profile at data brokers to make it more useless. That's an interesting idea, but unfortunately, not something we would touch at Operty. Data brokers have hundreds of upstream partners who supply them with information to enrich their profile on you. We send opt out requests to data brokers, and nothing else.
  - ipython 5y ago
    I figured you wouldn’t touch it, since you’re a legitimate business and all. But … as previous employees at such data broker companies there must be some strategies that individuals could take to do so :)
dr_kiszonka 5y ago
Can you share a sample report that your site can generate? I am on mobile and can only see one animation. One product that I could see myself paying for is an app that poisons data brokers' profiles of me, but this, I am guessing, would be pretty hard to do.
- beyondd 5y ago
  If you sign up for a free account, you will get a free Exposure Report that is usually very eye opening. Most people’s jaws drop when they see how exposed they are. Highly recommended!
bogwog 5y ago
Aren't these sites all extortion schemes? If you guys are offering to remove someone's info from a site like that, it must mean that you're either hacking into their databases, or you're working with them. I can see the value proposition here for those sites, because potential victims probably decide to not pay because they see that their information is posted in a lot of sites, and taking them all down would be too expensive. Having a centralized (and clean/fancy looking) service like yours could convince those people to finally pay up, and the profits are split between the network sites. Or am I completely misunderstanding this?
- beyondd 5y ago
  The data broker sites sell information about consumers, that’s primarily how they make their money. It is true that some data broker sites will attempt to charge you for removing your information, but everyone can make these removal requests for free, so paying them is not necessary (and highly discouraged!) To reiterate what I’ve mentioned a few times on this page: We are not a data broker. We do not sell data. We do not publish data. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. Per our Privacy Policy: “We don’t sell or rent your personal information to any third parties for any purpose. You are the only owner of your Personal Data and can request disclosure or deletion at any time.” https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/ https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/ We are a third party service, un-affiliated with any data broker, providing visibility to consumers for free on what private information data brokers are posting about them online. We then have free do-it-yourself tools consumers can use to submit opt outs themselves, or paid plans where we submit the opt outs for our customers. There are misconceptions, and one of them is about what happens if a customer subsequently cancels our service. If that happens, over time, data brokers may start adding you back. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (the most strict privacy law in the U.S.) actually permits data brokers to stop honoring an opt out request after 1 year. Some data brokers honor opt outs indefinitely, but others require annual effort to ensure your name and personal info stays removed. However, under no circumstance will Optery ever re-send information to any data brokers for any kind of re-population effort. The only information we send to data brokers are opt out requests.
Exuma 5y ago
How does this compare to DeleteMe (which I already pay for)?
- beyondd 5y ago
  If you click through the original Show HN posted link at the very top of the page, there's a section on the Introducing Optery page titled "How Is Optery Different From Competitors?" with differentiators from DeleteMe, OneRep, PrivacyDuck, and PrivacyBot there. If you already have a DeleteMe subscription (or any other competitor opt out / removals service), you can sign up for Optery for free, and use the Free Basic account results to keep them honest and check their work. In our experience, we typically find 20 - 40 profiles DeleteMe has missed and left exposed. If you do this, please send us a message and let us know what you find.
DataBrokerLol 5y ago
Make sure you actually read their ToS and Privacy Policy. This is nearly useless at best and harmful at worst. "If you purchase a paid subscription plan, as a condition to fulfilling your subscription plan, (i) you must provide your personally identifiable information(“PII”) such as full name, birth year and home address to Optery, Inc. and (ii) Optery, Inc. must send your PII to the data brokers and information aggregators included in the Removal Lists. This information is required by the data brokers and information aggregators in order to locate your record(s) and remove you from their database(s). We cannot control, guarantee or warranty how these third-parties will treat your PII or what they will do with it."
- beyondd 5y ago
  As has been mentioned elsewhere here, how exactly would it work otherwise? i.e. how do you suggest someone opts out of a data broker, without providing PII? Opting out presents a catch-22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are, i.e. provide PII. If you have a method for opting out of people search data brokers without providing PII, I’d love to hear how that works.
apayan 5y ago
Congrats on launching. This is a product category that I've been wanting to tackle for quite some time, and it looks like you've done a pretty good job. I also notice that many of the comments are raising the point about how to trust you and the catch-22 of having to provide PII to protect PII. I get it. I was going to launch a product like this as a second or third product of my company so there would be enough trust and good will built up to reduce everyone's apprehension. It's tough. :-/ I see in another comment you want to add support for opting out of zoominfo. Great idea. If I may humbly share some other suggestions: * A family plan so I can monitor/remove my wife and children's data as well. Even a way to help my parents would be great. * Opt out of junk snail mail. * I don't know if this can be automated, but a way to get the credit card companies to stop selling our transaction data. I can't even count how many times Chase has sent us a letter telling us that they've updated their privacy policy, and if we want to opt out of their latest data selling scheme, we need to write a letter and mail it off to some mysterious address and pray that they actually do what they say they will do.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging words. Each of your suggestions is on our roadmap. After adding Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which is nearly complete and will be released soon, our second most popular feature request is to add a family plan. This is high on our list and we plan to offer a solution for this in the coming months.
mtnGoat 5y ago
Pretty sure a free service to do this was posted here a few months ago. I used it to get a lot of stuff removed, was very effective.
- beyondd 5y ago
  I mentioned a free service posted here recently in another comment (pasted again below) – was this it? The top comment in another data privacy Show HN shared recently illustrates the gap our tool fills: "Does it take into account whether or not a given data broker currently has my data? Since the deletion requests contain my personal info (for some, a fair amount of it), I'd rather not have that sent to 500 brokers if only 10 or 20 of them actually have me in their database." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828)
Klonoar 5y ago
I've often considered building something like this, but shy away each time when I remember that many brokers won't deal with you unless you're an authorized agent of the user you're representing. IIRC, DeleteMe works the way it does because it's actual humans behind the scenes doing a lot of the work. Anyway, props on the launch, but it's ultimately a very sad indictment of our society that products like these even need to exist.
- beyondd 5y ago
  Thank you for the kind words and for checking out Optery! We are an Authorized Agent working on behalf of our customers. You can learn more in our Terms of Service here: https://www.optery.com/terms-of-service/ https://www.optery.com/terms-of-service/
mleonhard 5y ago
I live in California. Will any of the data brokers actually delete their data about me, or do they just stop selling it for a while? What about Acxiom?
rdtwo 5y ago
Instead of opt out I’d like the option to poison the pool. I think opt out is too risky but flooding it with obviously bad data would be more useful as bad data will likely propogate between brokers

111 points by beyondd 5y ago

Hi HN, After many years working at data brokers such as BlueKai, Lusha, and Oracle Data Cloud, we've spent the last few months building a tool that provides granular visibility into the private information posted about you online by people search sites like TruthFinder, MyLife, Radaris, CellRevealer, Spokeo, WhitePages, etc. After sign up, we provide deep links to your profile at over 100 of these sites, as well as an Exposure Report with screenshots so you can see exactly what these sites are posting about you. There are typically 40 - 60 matches for each user that signs up. The top comment in another data privacy Show HN shared recently illustrates the gap our tool fills: "Does it take into account whether or not a given data broker currently has my data? Since the deletion requests contain my personal info (for some, a fair amount of it), I'd rather not have that sent to 500 brokers if only 10 or 20 of them actually have me in their database." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828) Full disclosure, signing up is free and provides the visibility into what data brokers are posting about you described above, but we also have paid subscription tiers where we submit and manage the opt outs and removals. If you want to skip the overview content, you can go straight to the signup here: https://app.optery.com/signup https://app.optery.com/signup (We only support U.S. residents at this time.)

curtisblaine 5y ago

US only. Please make it clear before asking for email / pwd to sign up.

beyondd 5y ago
Sorry about that. We just updated our sign up page to make this more clear.

tylerscott 5y ago

It's incredible how many companies exist solely to collect (and sell?) personal data. I was ignorant to just how wide spread bits of my data were until I fired up Optery. It was sorta shocking to see all the results.

orf 5y ago

USA only. Not particularly clear. Seems cool though.

beyondd 5y ago
Sorry about that. We just updated our sign up page to make this more clear.

bberenberg 5y ago

I don't understand why I need to upgrade from Core to Extended to find out if Ultimate is right for me?

beyondd 5y ago
That's a great question. This is our first time sharing publicly, and this is great feedback that we might we need to change that. The intention is to tier the paid version of the product in terms of price and value, but that may not be the best place to do it. That said, as soon as you receive your Exposure Report by email (typically within ~24 hours), it will include screen shots for the data brokers covered by the Ultimate plan, so you will have some visibility there for help deciding.

qqw 5y ago

Doesn't supplying all this info about myself just confirm that it is correct, thus further putting my privacy at risk? > For each user, we typically turn up 2X – 5X more profile match results than Google, or any of our competitors How? Is it different than manually looking up my info at each site listed under "which data brokers are covered by each plan?" Not a bad idea for a business, you sell them my data then charge me to have them delete it. I didn't know you had competitors though, now I'm comparing your features to theirs.

beyondd 5y ago
We do not sell data. We are not a data broker. People sign up with us to see what information data brokers are posting about them online, and then are provided with free and paid options to opt out and have themselves removed. Yes - you could manually look up your info at each site listed under "which data brokers are covered by each plan?" - which would take you many, many hours, or you could create an account with Optery and have us do it for you automatically. The data brokers most likely already have info on you. There is a catch22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are. Other services use your own private email address to submit the opt outs. We do not share your private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.
- cdstyh 5y ago
  Can I know your name, address, and phone number please?
mtnGoat 5y ago
Yup, and then they take it down, but re-buy it from a partner next month. And that’s why this service is recurring. They all working together.

gigel82 5y ago

Be very careful with any tool like this; you'll need to prove who you are by verifying an email address and / or phone number to your real name, which in turn will most likely "confirm" your data with all the upstream brokers (if you pay for some extra service you're twice a sucker with them most likely getting paid by brokers for proving your identity and by you as well for using the "service"). Note: this could be totally legit but in my personal experience, 100% of the tools that promise to do this were in fact shady as fuck and working with the brokers to enrich their data.

johnrob 5y ago
Sadly, I doubt the brokers have much concern about their data being inaccurate!
- gigel82 5y ago
  I used a tool like this posted to HackerNews a couple years back (against my better judgement, eh), and the information on a few of the data brokers afterwards was not only not removed but actually showed a green checkmark ("verified"). It's entirely possible the data brokers are simply using the "opt out" requests as a way to validate the data, but it's just as likely that the tool works with the brokers to confirm information instead of actually removing it.
beyondd 5y ago
Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. We do not sell data. We are not a data broker. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. We are privacy enthusiasts who believe consumers should be in full control of their data. You can learn more about our mission, background and values here: https://www.optery.com/about-us/ https://www.optery.com/about-us/ There are some bad actors out there unfortunately. The most well-known is OneRep, which has an opt out and removals business, but are owned by an ownership group that simultaneously runs the People Search Site data broker Nuwber. It's almost certain that they run off the same data spine, meaning your data is co-mingled. Another one is BrandYourself, which includes data brokers as part of its affiliate program. So if you pay them for removals, you are indirectly paying the data brokers. There are others that I have a strong suspicion of, but don't know for certain, so I won't risk sharing their names. But please don’t lump the rest of us working hard to protect people from data brokers into that same bucket. Along with us, DeleteMe, PrivacyDuck, and Kanary and a few others are above-board with no affiliation or financial relationship with any data broker (to the best of my knowledge). Just working hard for consumer data rights. The data brokers most likely already have info on you. There is a catch22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are. Other services use your own private email address to submit the opt outs. We do not share your private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.

myself248 5y ago

The pricing page doesn't make it clear why it's charged monthly, when it seems like this should be a one-time thing. What happens if I pay for a month, get all the opt-outs, and stop paying? My cynicism says that an unethical service in your position could hold my identity hostage and immediately re-publish anything as soon as I stop paying. I'm sure you're not doing that, but forgive me for thinking it; we're talking about an entire industry that rests on ethics that many of us would consider stalking and should be profoundly illegal, so the possibility of such behavior is palpable! So, it would be good to explain or clarify _that_ you're not holding me hostage, and lay out the value proposition for an ongoing subscription to what feels like a one-time event.

beyondd 5y ago
Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. Regarding our pricing. It is true that most of the opt out submissions and removals happen up front. If someone wanted to go this route, I'd recommend keeping the subscription active for a minimum of 3 months, and then cancelling the subscription. Some data brokers process opt out removals within 24 hours, but others take several weeks to comply. Also, the majority of data brokers honor opt out requests on the first try, but others require retries or follow ups over several weeks. In our experience, it can take up to 2 - 3 months of effort for the longtail to disappear. The other consideration is that data brokers are inconsistent in how long they will honor an opt out. The California Consumer Privacy Act (the most strict privacy law in the U.S.) actually permits data brokers to stop honoring an opt out request after 1 year. Some data brokers honor opt outs indefinitely, but others require annual effort to ensure your name and personal info stays removed. Like antivirus, the landscape is very dynamic. New data brokers come online regularly, data broker databases are constantly being updated and refreshed (sometimes overwriting prior opt out request flags), and we (Optery) are continually expanding our list of data brokers we cover for each paid subscription plan tier. So if you want a service that's continually scanning for your profiles and opting you out on an ongoing basis when new results turn up, that would be a good reason to keep a subscription active on an ongoing basis. But you are free to cancel, or delete your account entirely at any time! Regarding your second point. We are not a data broker. We do not sell data. We do not publish data. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. There are some opt out services out there that have financial partnerships and affiliations with data brokers – Optery is not one of them. We only submit to data brokers the minimum amount of information necessary for them to locate your profile, and then remove it, which, in the majority of cases is: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, City, State, and an email address. Note that we never share our customers private email address with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.

dgeiser13 5y ago

I signed up for an account and all I see on the dashboard is... "Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (developer guidance)."

beyondd 5y ago
There are two steps in the signup process. Step 1 is for basic email and password. Step 2 is for the bare minimum information necessary to find your profiles at data brokers. We found when people skipped step 2 and then logged in, they would get this error. We fixed the bug and have made step 2 required. Here's more info: https://help.optery.com/en/article/why-does-optery-need-so-much-of-my-information-ry0lom/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/why-does-optery-need-so-m...

bythreads 5y ago

US only because you're scared of gdpr?

beyondd 5y ago
I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread

photoGrant 5y ago

All you need to know: > If you purchase a paid subscription plan, as a condition to fulfilling your subscription plan, (i) you must provide your personally identifiable information(“PII”) such as full name, birth year and home address to Optery, Inc. and (ii) Optery, Inc. must send your PII to the data brokers and information aggregators included in the Removal Lists. This information is required by the data brokers and information aggregators in order to locate your record(s) and remove you from their database(s). We cannot control, guarantee or warranty how these third-parties will treat your PII or what they will do with it. By purchasing and maintaining an active paid subscription, you approve Optery, Inc. to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests. If you do not wish to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests, then you should not use Optery, Inc.’s Removal Services.

crummy 5y ago
how exactly would it work otherwise?
- nickphx 5y ago
  A hash of a unique identifier? Most of the "databroker" APIs I've worked with only use hashed identifiers..
dheera 5y ago
> you approve Optery, Inc. to submit your PII to data brokers and information aggregators for the purposes submitting opt out, suppression and removal requests I've successfully removed my address from almost every data broker without giving out this information. One who had my old address initially wanted more of my info to remove my info, so instead of doing that, I sent them a cease and desist, and that worked. Can you please do that instead of sending more PII to people than what they already have?
- sneak 5y ago
  Could you share your cease and desist template?

shubik22 5y ago

Congrats on your product. I'm curious what lead to you all creating this product, after you spent "years working at data brokers." Perhaps this is too harsh an analogy, but how is this different than someone who spends years working at a tobacco company and then launches a company which sells a smoking cessation product? As other comments here point out, even the process of opting out of these brokers via Optery requires disclosure of personal information and some level of trust. I can imagine the fact that you all previously worked at data brokers make people less likely to trust you with their personal information, rather than more.

sethherr 5y ago
I am also curious about this, and would like a response before signing up. You’ve established your knowledge of data brokerages, but not your motivations. Did you all have a change of heart? Just see a product opportunity?
beyondd 5y ago
Co-creator of Optery here. Thanks for the good vibes. The data broker industry is large, and there are hundreds of players across different sub-categories (e.g. people search, email, phone, audience targeting, geolocation, past purchases, TV content viewed, data enrichment, identity graph, etc). Personally, I worked in the audience targeting sub-category for delivering personalized online advertisements. I left the space ~5 years ago when I left Oracle Data Cloud (BlueKai). What we did was anonymized audience targeting for large consumer brand advertisers (i.e. not people search, email, phone, nor anything PII based). A lot has changed since I entered the space in 2011, and indeed, since I left the space in ~2016. Data has become more weaponized, data brokers have become more brazen in the liberties they take with our data, and the ends they’ll go to circumvent consumer preferences and even privacy laws. Fortunately, a lot of progress is being made. People are becoming more aware, stronger laws are getting passed, technology is being put to better use, and privacy tech is emerging as a more important category. We felt like we had a lot of inside knowledge of how the industry worked and felt called to put that knowledge to work helping people. This is why providing a Free Basic account that provides a lot of value for free was core to what we wanted to do. Trust is earned over time and we have a lot of work ahead of us given the distrust so many bad actors have established with people’s personal data. We are a new product and company we’re working hard to build trust with our users and customers every day.

TheFreim 5y ago

> After many years working at data brokers So you worked for years at (immoral) data harvesters but now you're a changed man who pinky swears to not use people's data they submit to you in a bad way? Sorry, I don't trust this product yet.

quickthrower2 5y ago
The only way I'd trust such a service is if it's domain name ends in .gov (or equivalent for other countries) and is free or a nominal fee.
- shrimpx 5y ago
  The USDS should work on stuff like this. https://www.usds.gov https://www.usds.gov
  - notJim 5y ago
    This feels like FTC territory. USDS is more about provisioning services AFAIK. However, new regulations would be required, and I don't really see that happening.
mssundaram 5y ago
I'd like to see beyondd (one of the co-founders on here) to address this
- beyondd 5y ago
  I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread
ipython 5y ago
I see this like a hacker who grows up and realizes that what they did before was wrong. People change. And the best people to address these issues head on- unfortunately- almost always started on the “wrong” side of the issue. Speaking from personal experience, you can reform yourself.

troydavis 5y ago

I did a version of this by Googling my name (as a phrase, with and without middle initial) combined with city names or street address fragments I’ve lived at. I then submitted removal requests for anything I found. I ended up submitting about 10 requests, 7 or 8 of which were online. Of course, not all data brokers have publicly indexed page, but a lot do.

beyondd 5y ago
This is great! A lot of people prefer to submit the opt outs themselves. Our Free Basic account can be used to help people do-it-yourself faster by helping with the discovery process. If you choose to sign up for Optery, next to each data broker listing we provide the opt out link and opt out email address to make it easy to navigate to. When submitting your own opt outs to these companies directly, we highly recommend creating a disposable email address, and Not using your primary email address, as just reaching out to them with an email often adds you to their email lists.
cgb223 5y ago
Did you follow up to see if they actually removed you? How many actually did?
- troydavis 5y ago
  All of them responded when my listing was removed, and I could see that they were gone.

mdaniel 5y ago

I requested that they turn on 2FA, since they themselves will become an attack target by requesting so much PII That said, my experience with trying to use any opt-out service (automated or otherwise) is filled with a lot of "Oops, server error, try again later" responses at the end of filling out a ton of forms about oneself, so I wonder if Optery has some secret sauce, is persistent in the face of server errors, or just is fire-and-forget and thus follows the "spray and pray" method of account removal If I paid actual money for this, I'd want some observable metric showing that I had 166 public listings in June, followed by 66 in July, or something of the sort.

beyondd 5y ago
Yes - Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) is in development – this is almost ready and will be released soon. No server errors have been reported like what you’ve experienced at other services. A few people received an error trying to log in without completing the second step in the signup process, but we resolved this immediately and now prevent people from logging in without completing the two-step registration. Regarding your last comment, for our customers we deliver Removals Status Updates indicating the number of removals that have been completed, are pending, or are in process. The Removals Status Updates are configurable in account settings for delivery weekly, monthly (default), or never. The dashboard also has up-to-date status indicators for removals pending, in progress, not found, etc. Additionally, for our paying customers, we send Removals Reports approximately quarterly summarizing visually all the places customers have been removed and/or cannot be found.
- beyondd 5y ago
  2FA is live now for Optery - here's the help page for setting it up: https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-to-add-multi-factor-authentication-mfa-2-step-verification-2fa-to-your-account-for-additional-security-e16sz4/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/how-to-add-multi-factor-a...

neatze 5y ago

How and why are you better then onerep.com ?

beyondd 5y ago
If you click through the original Show HN posted link at the very top of the page, there's a section on the Introducing Optery page titled "How Is Optery Different From Competitors?" with differentiators from OneRep, DeleteMe, PrivacyDuck, and PrivacyBot there. If you already have a OneRep subscription (or any other competitor opt out / removals service), you can sign up for Optery for free, and use the Free Basic account results to keep them honest and check their work. In our experience, we typically find 20 - 40 profiles other services have missed and left exposed.

altdataseller 5y ago

What about ZoomInfo? Can it remove my profile from there?

altdataseller 5y ago
I mean if I am going to pay that much, would be nice to remove it from a huge provider that leads to tons of spammy sales calls, rather than the low hanging niche ones like spokeo
- beyondd 5y ago
  Hi! Co-creator of Optery here. This is a great question. There are hundreds of data brokers across different categories (e.g. people search, email, phone, audience marketing, geolocation, past purchases, TV viewing, etc). Many data brokers operate across categories. We've started off with the People Search Site category first because that's where we sensed the most pain from the users we spoke with. We are constantly expanding our coverage, and will be adding more data broker categories in the near future. ZoomInfo is high up on the list to be added soon because we get asked about them a lot.

908087 5y ago

With sites like this one, I'm always left considering what happens when the site "helping" me gets bought out (or changes business models) and sells me out anyway.

polishdude20 5y ago

Doesn't work for Canada? Only lets me put in US states

beyondd 5y ago
Optery is U.S. only at this time

hash872 5y ago

So I like removing myself from data brokers as a side hobby. In general they seem to be pretty quick to do so. However, OpenCorporates lists my name & home address, and absolutely refuses to remove it, as I'm self-employed and I have a corporate registration with my state. I eventually contacted the CEO directly and he said 'no, we won't remove you, go away'. They're based in the UK. Any general thoughts on them?

dheera 5y ago
Best thing I can say is (a) move (b) do NOT register for USPS forwarding to your new address (USPS will help the data brokers) (c) change your legal address for service of process to a registered agent service, not your residential address (d) get a UPS mail box for your day-to-day corporate mail, and preferably most of your personal mail as well Completely 100% refuse to ever give out your residential address for anything business-related. In addition, a couple of other common culprits for unethically releasing addresses to data brokers: - DMV -- opt out explicitly - Voter registration - Don't register to vote if you aren't in a swing state - Utilities -- opt out explicitly - Credit cards -- opt out explicitly - Random small e-commerce websites you need to receive packages from -- ship them to your UPS box or to your workplace if you can
- DataBrokerLol 5y ago
  I would recommend against explicitly recommending voter fraud to people, regardless of the intent.
  - dheera 5y ago
    (I didn't think that was illegal if you were in the same district, but edited it anyway)
    - DataBrokerLol 5y ago
      It is, and it is (I thought?) common knowledge due to the high profile cases where this was abused. There's nothing morally wrong about doing it, but it is illegal and people do face consequences for it.

d_sc 5y ago

Why only US?

dsmember 5y ago
Do you know any databrokers in EU?
beyondd 5y ago
I responded to this question on this page under a different sub-thread

ipython 5y ago

Congratulations on launching! I signed up to take a look around. I’m excited that your free tier includes deep links to remove yourself. What I would like more than this is a way to feed fake data into the system. Inadvertently I have done so in a variety of ways, such that I regularly receive AARP advertising materials and my landline is on a myriad of robocall lists for senior citizen scams. I would love to see a way to blast totally useless information associated with my name to make the data entirely useless.

dheera 5y ago
I'm currently using OneRep. Can someone please tell me if Optery is better and if OneRep will release all my information if I unsubscribe from them?
- DataBrokerLol 5y ago
  There is nothing besides OneRep or any agreements/contracts you have with OneRep that can answer that question for you.
beyondd 5y ago
Thanks for the good vibes, and glad you found the deep links useful! To your second point about introducing "noise" into your profile at data brokers to make it more useless. That's an interesting idea, but unfortunately, not something we would touch at Operty. Data brokers have hundreds of upstream partners who supply them with information to enrich their profile on you. We send opt out requests to data brokers, and nothing else.
- ipython 5y ago
  I figured you wouldn’t touch it, since you’re a legitimate business and all. But … as previous employees at such data broker companies there must be some strategies that individuals could take to do so :)

dr_kiszonka 5y ago

Can you share a sample report that your site can generate? I am on mobile and can only see one animation. One product that I could see myself paying for is an app that poisons data brokers' profiles of me, but this, I am guessing, would be pretty hard to do.

beyondd 5y ago
If you sign up for a free account, you will get a free Exposure Report that is usually very eye opening. Most people’s jaws drop when they see how exposed they are. Highly recommended!

bogwog 5y ago

Aren't these sites all extortion schemes? If you guys are offering to remove someone's info from a site like that, it must mean that you're either hacking into their databases, or you're working with them. I can see the value proposition here for those sites, because potential victims probably decide to not pay because they see that their information is posted in a lot of sites, and taking them all down would be too expensive. Having a centralized (and clean/fancy looking) service like yours could convince those people to finally pay up, and the profits are split between the network sites. Or am I completely misunderstanding this?

beyondd 5y ago
The data broker sites sell information about consumers, that’s primarily how they make their money. It is true that some data broker sites will attempt to charge you for removing your information, but everyone can make these removal requests for free, so paying them is not necessary (and highly discouraged!) To reiterate what I’ve mentioned a few times on this page: We are not a data broker. We do not sell data. We do not publish data. We do not have any financial relationship with any data broker. We are not affiliated with any data broker. Per our Privacy Policy: “We don’t sell or rent your personal information to any third parties for any purpose. You are the only owner of your Personal Data and can request disclosure or deletion at any time.” https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/ https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/ We are a third party service, un-affiliated with any data broker, providing visibility to consumers for free on what private information data brokers are posting about them online. We then have free do-it-yourself tools consumers can use to submit opt outs themselves, or paid plans where we submit the opt outs for our customers. There are misconceptions, and one of them is about what happens if a customer subsequently cancels our service. If that happens, over time, data brokers may start adding you back. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (the most strict privacy law in the U.S.) actually permits data brokers to stop honoring an opt out request after 1 year. Some data brokers honor opt outs indefinitely, but others require annual effort to ensure your name and personal info stays removed. However, under no circumstance will Optery ever re-send information to any data brokers for any kind of re-population effort. The only information we send to data brokers are opt out requests.

Exuma 5y ago

How does this compare to DeleteMe (which I already pay for)?

beyondd 5y ago
If you click through the original Show HN posted link at the very top of the page, there's a section on the Introducing Optery page titled "How Is Optery Different From Competitors?" with differentiators from DeleteMe, OneRep, PrivacyDuck, and PrivacyBot there. If you already have a DeleteMe subscription (or any other competitor opt out / removals service), you can sign up for Optery for free, and use the Free Basic account results to keep them honest and check their work. In our experience, we typically find 20 - 40 profiles DeleteMe has missed and left exposed. If you do this, please send us a message and let us know what you find.

DataBrokerLol 5y ago

Make sure you actually read their ToS and Privacy Policy. This is nearly useless at best and harmful at worst. "If you purchase a paid subscription plan, as a condition to fulfilling your subscription plan, (i) you must provide your personally identifiable information(“PII”) such as full name, birth year and home address to Optery, Inc. and (ii) Optery, Inc. must send your PII to the data brokers and information aggregators included in the Removal Lists. This information is required by the data brokers and information aggregators in order to locate your record(s) and remove you from their database(s). We cannot control, guarantee or warranty how these third-parties will treat your PII or what they will do with it."

beyondd 5y ago
As has been mentioned elsewhere here, how exactly would it work otherwise? i.e. how do you suggest someone opts out of a data broker, without providing PII? Opting out presents a catch-22 where in order to opt out, you have to tell them who you are, i.e. provide PII. If you have a method for opting out of people search data brokers without providing PII, I’d love to hear how that works.

apayan 5y ago

Congrats on launching. This is a product category that I've been wanting to tackle for quite some time, and it looks like you've done a pretty good job. I also notice that many of the comments are raising the point about how to trust you and the catch-22 of having to provide PII to protect PII. I get it. I was going to launch a product like this as a second or third product of my company so there would be enough trust and good will built up to reduce everyone's apprehension. It's tough. :-/ I see in another comment you want to add support for opting out of zoominfo. Great idea. If I may humbly share some other suggestions: * A family plan so I can monitor/remove my wife and children's data as well. Even a way to help my parents would be great. * Opt out of junk snail mail. * I don't know if this can be automated, but a way to get the credit card companies to stop selling our transaction data. I can't even count how many times Chase has sent us a letter telling us that they've updated their privacy policy, and if we want to opt out of their latest data selling scheme, we need to write a letter and mail it off to some mysterious address and pray that they actually do what they say they will do.

beyondd 5y ago
Thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging words. Each of your suggestions is on our roadmap. After adding Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which is nearly complete and will be released soon, our second most popular feature request is to add a family plan. This is high on our list and we plan to offer a solution for this in the coming months.

mtnGoat 5y ago

Pretty sure a free service to do this was posted here a few months ago. I used it to get a lot of stuff removed, was very effective.

beyondd 5y ago
I mentioned a free service posted here recently in another comment (pasted again below) – was this it? The top comment in another data privacy Show HN shared recently illustrates the gap our tool fills: "Does it take into account whether or not a given data broker currently has my data? Since the deletion requests contain my personal info (for some, a fair amount of it), I'd rather not have that sent to 500 brokers if only 10 or 20 of them actually have me in their database." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27146828)

Klonoar 5y ago

I've often considered building something like this, but shy away each time when I remember that many brokers won't deal with you unless you're an authorized agent of the user you're representing. IIRC, DeleteMe works the way it does because it's actual humans behind the scenes doing a lot of the work. Anyway, props on the launch, but it's ultimately a very sad indictment of our society that products like these even need to exist.

beyondd 5y ago
Thank you for the kind words and for checking out Optery! We are an Authorized Agent working on behalf of our customers. You can learn more in our Terms of Service here: https://www.optery.com/terms-of-service/ https://www.optery.com/terms-of-service/

mleonhard 5y ago

I live in California. Will any of the data brokers actually delete their data about me, or do they just stop selling it for a while? What about Acxiom?

rdtwo 5y ago

Instead of opt out I’d like the option to poison the pool. I think opt out is too risky but flooding it with obviously bad data would be more useful as bad data will likely propogate between brokers