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I was excited to see a service like this. I hate data brokers and have tried to go to somewhat-great (good?) lengths to obfuscate my personal info, including us

I was excited to see a service like this. I hate data brokers and have tried to go to somewhat-great (good?) lengths to obfuscate my personal info, including using e-mails that expose services selling/giving out my info. I signed up and was surprised to see 202 different brokers were offering my info. However, when I looked at the "More Info" drop-down on each, I noticed the last name was incorrect. So I looked at my profile and noticed I misspelled my last name, to a last name I am almost certain does not exist. Even if it somehow existed, to see it with the same first and middle name and location just seems way too much of a coincidence. Do any of these brokers really have my info or are you just showing this false information to help increase conversions?

beyondd 5y ago
Thanks for trying it out. One thing to clarify is that we list out each data broker we cover, regardless of whether or not your profile was found or not. We do this partly to support our Free Basic users that use the data broker links in the dashboard to QA and verify their own opt out work (or the opt out work of other services). So just because you see a data broker in your dashboard, does not mean we are implying that your profile is there. In fact, if you click on any of the links, you’ll see we spawn a modal that says “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.” My guess is that if you click through any of the links, it will lead to pages that say something like “profile not found” because it’s a name that does not exisit. We also have an article on our Help Desk that explains what’s happening, and further below is a snippet that most likely explains what you are experiencing: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a... “What is often confusing is that we display the “View” links for every data broker, regardless of whether we find your profile at the data broker or not. The "View" links are not intended to be perfect matches for your profile. Results will vary for each user, depending on your circumstances. Sometimes the "View" links are not perfect, and other people may be listed, or you might not be there at all, but in most cases, they allow you to quickly view a snapshot of where your personal details are exposed online.” This question has come up before, so we really need to do a better job of ironing out the confusion in the product. Thanks so much for the feedback.
- istjohn 5y ago
  This is super sketchy. Even the modal you describe is misleading: >> “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.” That is 100% misleading when you are linking to every data broker regardless of whether or not someone is in their database.
  - beyondd 5y ago
    The modal spawns when the user has just clicked through to a data broker and is about to leave Optery. We have a lot of warnings we're trying to convey on this one modal, most critically, strongly advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to any data brokers ever. I can definitely see how this is confusing though to see all the links for all the data brokers regardless of whether the user has been found or not, and we have a Help Desk article on the topic: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a... The primary reason we have this is for our Free Basic users who use the links as a mechanism to explore where their profile might be exposed and do their self-service opt out work. This is great feedback that we need to address this and make it more clear in the product. Thank you for the feedback. Below is the full text of the modal: ================ You Are Leaving Optery Optery is not affiliated with the site you’re being redirected to. External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect. When visiting data brokers, we recommend never sharing your personal email or paying any data brokers any money. We then link into our Help Desk article advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to data brokers: https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-personal-email-or-pay-any-money-to-data-brokers-linked-to-from-optery-1f9srmy/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona... We then give the user the option to click "Back" and return to Optery, or to "Continue".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - beyondd 5y ago
    Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. We made a few quick cosmetic updates to mitigate until we can re-work our dashboard more meaningfully. For example: 1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information" 2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..." 3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads... We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!

beyondd 5y ago

Thanks for trying it out. One thing to clarify is that we list out each data broker we cover, regardless of whether or not your profile was found or not. We do this partly to support our Free Basic users that use the data broker links in the dashboard to QA and verify their own opt out work (or the opt out work of other services). So just because you see a data broker in your dashboard, does not mean we are implying that your profile is there. In fact, if you click on any of the links, you’ll see we spawn a modal that says “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.” My guess is that if you click through any of the links, it will lead to pages that say something like “profile not found” because it’s a name that does not exisit. We also have an article on our Help Desk that explains what’s happening, and further below is a snippet that most likely explains what you are experiencing: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a... “What is often confusing is that we display the “View” links for every data broker, regardless of whether we find your profile at the data broker or not. The "View" links are not intended to be perfect matches for your profile. Results will vary for each user, depending on your circumstances. Sometimes the "View" links are not perfect, and other people may be listed, or you might not be there at all, but in most cases, they allow you to quickly view a snapshot of where your personal details are exposed online.” This question has come up before, so we really need to do a better job of ironing out the confusion in the product. Thanks so much for the feedback.

istjohn 5y ago
This is super sketchy. Even the modal you describe is misleading: >> “External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect.” That is 100% misleading when you are linking to every data broker regardless of whether or not someone is in their database.
- beyondd 5y ago
  The modal spawns when the user has just clicked through to a data broker and is about to leave Optery. We have a lot of warnings we're trying to convey on this one modal, most critically, strongly advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to any data brokers ever. I can definitely see how this is confusing though to see all the links for all the data brokers regardless of whether the user has been found or not, and we have a Help Desk article on the topic: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-leads-to-a... The primary reason we have this is for our Free Basic users who use the links as a mechanism to explore where their profile might be exposed and do their self-service opt out work. This is great feedback that we need to address this and make it more clear in the product. Thank you for the feedback. Below is the full text of the modal: ================ You Are Leaving Optery Optery is not affiliated with the site you’re being redirected to. External links help with self-service opt outs and provide visibility into where your info is posted online, but are not always perfect. When visiting data brokers, we recommend never sharing your personal email or paying any data brokers any money. We then link into our Help Desk article advising users to never share their personal email or pay any money to data brokers: https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-personal-email-or-pay-any-money-to-data-brokers-linked-to-from-optery-1f9srmy/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/do-not-share-your-persona... We then give the user the option to click "Back" and return to Optery, or to "Continue".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- beyondd 5y ago
  Thanks again for pointing this out. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, this is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. We made a few quick cosmetic updates to mitigate until we can re-work our dashboard more meaningfully. For example: 1) We changed the data broker dashboard title from "Websites exposing your personal information" to "Websites that expose personal information" 2) We changed the data broker dashboard subtitle from "Discover where your personal data is exposed..." to "Explore where your personal data might be exposed..." 3) Within the data broker dashboard subtitle, we added the text "Links frequently lead to empty pages" with a "learn why" link to the post on our Help Desk titled "What if a "View" link leads to an empty or not found page?" that goes here: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads-to-an-empty-or-not-found-page-21lzew/ https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-if-a-view-link-leads... We have several more changes we're working through to address this issue. Thank you again!