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Hi there, just signed up for your free service, and wow, it's creepy to see my childhood home phone number just sitting there next to my name and current addre

Hi there, just signed up for your free service, and wow, it's creepy to see my childhood home phone number just sitting there next to my name and current address so many times. Three things: First, I'm looking at your paid plans, and what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of, and then I can repeat the process any time I happen to think about it. I know that's not what you want as a business, and I'm sure it's not what your backers want, but I can't see why a monthly subscription service is the right model from a user's POV. All I really want is to periodically wipe the slate clean. Second, I see that you have the most expensive plan labeled as "MOST POPULAR," and I'm afraid I just don't believe that that's true; and given how much your business relies on trust, something about the breeziness/sleaziness of this tactic seems out of place. And third, a general comment -- this seems like a cool idea for a company, But I'm surprised YC was interested in it. I personally can't see any way that this becomes a billion dollar business, or 100 billion, or whatever returns VCs are looking for. But heck, if I was able to guess that kind of thing, I'd be out there doing it. Good luck y'all

istjohn 5y ago
Unfortunately, your second point is just the tip of the sleaze-burg. All those sites they showed as having your information also seem to have info on "Notareal Personxxx": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610432
- hansvm 5y ago
  That might just be a UX issue. If the Exposure Risk Scan were instantaneous rather than ~1hr I think (optimistically) that the result page wouldn't be misleading as a whole. That said, I did confirm your observed behavior with securely random identifiers (in the off-chance that "Notareal Personxxx" is _actually_ sufficiently commonly used for testing that it was slurped up by data brokers).
- beyondd 5y ago
  This is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. Several comments have cried “foul” on this one and we hear it loud and clear. We apologize this has persisted in the product, and can definitely see how this can be misleading. To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found. What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through. The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception. I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you! We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here: 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...
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    Sorry I might come across as harsh, but you indicate this is a 'defect', at the same time your comment makes clear that this is a known issue and you choose to keep it that way. > The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. You can't have it both ways - either admit its intentional or change if you know its deceptive. The whole thread here convinces me that this is neither a product that should exist, nor does this startup have the users' interests in mind.
- 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 out Optery! It sounds like you got the same “Wow” moment most new Optery users describe. Glad to hear! 1) We do see some people activate their subscription for a few months, and then cancel their plan to downgrade back down to the Free Basic tier. The Free Basic tier sends ongoing Exposure Reports (currently every 3 months), so if they start to see more profiles pop back up, they re-activate. There are significant benefits to keeping the subscription running on an ongoing basis though. For example, we are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers automatically as we add them to your plan. Sometimes we struggle with a data broker for many months, and then get a breakthrough and are able to get a waterfall of profiles removed at that data broker. We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up, so they are removed immediately. 2) The Ultimate plan is our most popular plan by far. It’s not even close. Second most popular is our Core plan. And Extended is our third most popular plan. PCMag recently did a deep dive into our space and named Optery their coveted “Editors’ Choice” as the most outstanding product on the market. Here was their summary quote “Optery’s handling of the core data removal task outshines the rest, and its free tier brings privacy protection to those who can’t afford expensive subscriptions. In the realm of personal data removal, Optery is our Editors’ Choice.” https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery Optery is the premium product in the space, so it’s natural that our customers would gravitate to the highest tier plan. 3) Thank you!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cacarbonate 5y ago
> what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of easyoptouts is the closest thing I know of to what you're after. It's still a subscription at $20 p.a., not $10, but you can sign up and then cancel after initial opt outs.
- beyondd 5y ago
  At this price I believe Optery still provides more value than easyoptouts. For $9.99, half the price of easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 100+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. For $24.99, about the same price as easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 200+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. By cancelling the plan, you wouldn’t benefit from the ongoing scanning, monitoring, and removals from companies that take longer than 30 days, or the coverage for the new data brokers continually being added to the plans. But Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what the reports are saying.
thoraway77f 5y ago
Wait until you find out that as a kid your phone number and address where in a yellow pages in every household around your community!

istjohn 5y ago

Unfortunately, your second point is just the tip of the sleaze-burg. All those sites they showed as having your information also seem to have info on "Notareal Personxxx": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610432

hansvm 5y ago
That might just be a UX issue. If the Exposure Risk Scan were instantaneous rather than ~1hr I think (optimistically) that the result page wouldn't be misleading as a whole. That said, I did confirm your observed behavior with securely random identifiers (in the off-chance that "Notareal Personxxx" is _actually_ sufficiently commonly used for testing that it was slurped up by data brokers).
beyondd 5y ago
This is a product experience defect, and is not intended to be deceptive. Several comments have cried “foul” on this one and we hear it loud and clear. We apologize this has persisted in the product, and can definitely see how this can be misleading. To explain what’s happening from the inside, immediately after the sign up, we retrofit the profile data you’ve input at the signup process into our URL templates for each data broker. This provides an immediately actionable link you can click on to see if your profile is present on the other end at the data broker. Meanwhile, our automated scanner starts running to see if it can actually find your profile at each data broker. After about 1 hour, a PDF report is emailed with ~70 (on average) places on the web that your profile has been found. What’s often really confusing, and that we definitely need to fix in the UI, is when the user starts clicking on the links and they find “no profile found” they think that something’s gone wrong, or that we’re trying to be deceptive. Even more confusing is when a dummy name like "Notareal Personxxx" is input, the links are still there for you to click through. The defect in the product is that the UI assumes a large number of matches for each user will be found, typically 50 – 100 on average. Everything in the UI is framed up with that assumption. However, when there are only a few results, or in the extreme case where a fake name is input, and there are no results at all, the UI still frames everything up as if it were for a typical user with 50 – 100 matched profiles. The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. So after they’ve submitted their own opt out, they want to be able to click through the link and see that the profile is gone. This is why most people use the product with glee, but when a link leads to a “page not found”, at best people are confused, and at worst they cry “foul” of deception. I love Show HN and Launch HN threads because the builders get so much rich feedback like this on how to improve the product. This is the best feedback that we’ll take with us and start hammering away on immediately. Thank you! We do have a Help Desk post describing what’s happening with these links, but we need to update it and make it more clear based on this feedback. You can find a little more information on how these links work here: 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...
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  Sorry I might come across as harsh, but you indicate this is a 'defect', at the same time your comment makes clear that this is a known issue and you choose to keep it that way. > The other reason this product defect has persisted is because our Free Basic users use the links to QA their own self-service opt out work. You can't have it both ways - either admit its intentional or change if you know its deceptive. The whole thread here convinces me that this is neither a product that should exist, nor does this startup have the users' interests in mind.
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 out Optery! It sounds like you got the same “Wow” moment most new Optery users describe. Glad to hear! 1) We do see some people activate their subscription for a few months, and then cancel their plan to downgrade back down to the Free Basic tier. The Free Basic tier sends ongoing Exposure Reports (currently every 3 months), so if they start to see more profiles pop back up, they re-activate. There are significant benefits to keeping the subscription running on an ongoing basis though. For example, we are constantly adding new data brokers, so if you keep the service running, you get covered for new data brokers automatically as we add them to your plan. Sometimes we struggle with a data broker for many months, and then get a breakthrough and are able to get a waterfall of profiles removed at that data broker. We do ongoing monitoring and scans, to find and remove your profiles if they pop back up, so they are removed immediately. 2) The Ultimate plan is our most popular plan by far. It’s not even close. Second most popular is our Core plan. And Extended is our third most popular plan. PCMag recently did a deep dive into our space and named Optery their coveted “Editors’ Choice” as the most outstanding product on the market. Here was their summary quote “Optery’s handling of the core data removal task outshines the rest, and its free tier brings privacy protection to those who can’t afford expensive subscriptions. In the realm of personal data removal, Optery is our Editors’ Choice.” https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/optery Optery is the premium product in the space, so it’s natural that our customers would gravitate to the highest tier plan. 3) Thank you!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cacarbonate 5y ago

> what I actually want right now is just to pay $10 to have this current batch taken care of easyoptouts is the closest thing I know of to what you're after. It's still a subscription at $20 p.a., not $10, but you can sign up and then cancel after initial opt outs.

beyondd 5y ago
At this price I believe Optery still provides more value than easyoptouts. For $9.99, half the price of easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 100+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. For $24.99, about the same price as easyoptouts, you could let Optery’s opt out bot run for 30 days on 200+ data brokers and then cancel the plan before the next monthly payment is due. By cancelling the plan, you wouldn’t benefit from the ongoing scanning, monitoring, and removals from companies that take longer than 30 days, or the coverage for the new data brokers continually being added to the plans. But Optery’s Free Basic plan provides free quarterly scans and reports, so you could always turn it back on based on what the reports are saying.

thoraway77f 5y ago

Wait until you find out that as a kid your phone number and address where in a yellow pages in every household around your community!