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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 subm

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!

mawise 5y ago
> 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!
- joering2 5y ago
  > 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.
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  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.
akudha 5y ago
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...
- beyondd 5y ago
  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-from-a-data-broker-is-this-permanent-16lu9pu/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/when-my-data-is-removed-f...
- lizard 5y ago
kirso 5y ago
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!

mawise 5y ago

> 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!

joering2 5y ago
> 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.
estaseuropano 5y ago
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.

akudha 5y ago

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...

beyondd 5y ago
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-from-a-data-broker-is-this-permanent-16lu9pu/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/when-my-data-is-removed-f...
lizard 5y ago

kirso 5y ago

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!