4 ms·

This is great, but removing the info from Google does nothing to remove it from the source. People search data brokers are one of the most common sources of unw

This is great, but removing the info from Google does nothing to remove it from the source. People search data brokers are one of the most common sources of unwanted posting of home address, phone number and email. If that's the info you want to remove, you can use Google as a tool for discovery to figure out who is posting the info, and then opt out at the source to have it removed. For more coverage you can use Optery's free crawl / scrape / scan of the people search data broker sites for you, and use that to have the listings removed from the source. Wherever possible, removing the info from the source is much better than just removing it from Google.

KarlKemp 4y ago
Meh… If some data about me is listed on a website nobody ever sees, I don’t care what sound a tree falling in the wood makes. This isn’t a binary issue. Removing data from Google will usually have 90 % of the effect of removing it everywhere.
- willis936 4y ago
  Data brokers aren't "websites no one uses".
- bobbygoodlatte 4y ago
  That all changes if you have a stalker / bad actor going after you online. Once your address hits one of these sites, it's on every one of them. And you'll be playing a constant game of whac-a-mole if you want them removed. The amount of hoops you need to jump through to protect your privacy / shield your address in the US is quite incredible. And if you don't do it correctly from the start (use an anonymous land trust, etc), you're hosed. Privacy should be the default. People's home addresses shouldn't be public info
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > hoops you need to jump through to protect your privacy / shield your address in the US is quite incredible The U.S. has a decentralized land registration system. The downside is it usually cannot provide indefeasible title [1]. The upside is it's tremendously robust. That robustness comes, in part, from publicly-verifiable records. > People's home addresses shouldn't be public info Confidential property ownership has its own issues. It's less stable. In the event of a dispute you only have the registrar's and disputing owners' records to consult. It's also associated with embezzlement, money laundering and tax fraud. (The set of societies where a public home address puts one at risk and the set that have problems with embezzlement and laundering overlap in their institutional weakness.) (For tenants, on the other hand, there are fewer compelling reasons to publish residence.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#Indefeasibility_of_title https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#Indefeasibility_...
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    That's if you define privacy as you knowing something and others not knowing. My post-lobotomy view of privacy is all my secrets are known to the people I hate the absolute most ("I hate them with perfect hatred // I call them mine enemies" PSALMS KJV), and while I thank them as enemies (Matthew KJV) I do not forgive them, the intention is someday they thank me in return, as the Christians they claim to be, for acting against them as an enemy. So then, what is privacy? If you're lobotomized, privacy is divulgation. I cannot erase my lobotomist's memory, and I cannot recollect all my own selfsame memories, so instead I divulge, and divulging is privacy. Understand this: privacy is about who knows what. Who do you want to know what? Some options are out of the question for me. After all, there is a condition right on the box of all cryptographic products, in this case especially 1Password which I used before, during, and after my lobotomy, which is this: cryptography is about forcing the government to torture you. Not just the government though! If you get tortured? Forget it! Warranty void! Well so then what? Nobody asks, OK so I get tortured, THEN WHAT? ANSWER ME! And I think I'm supposed to not be able to see the answer, I've been conditioned to avert my attention to the answer, not see the ads for the answer like fucking literal pathological banner blindness. So many ads I wanted so badly to see, I just couldn't see. The most targeted advertising, missing completely. Like it's invisible to me, I read the statute in the Federal Codes about torture, how it was defined, and I simply couldn't read the lawyer's advertising with a phone number to call them. So privacy? Before torture, divulging works against privacy. After torture, it works in its favor.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    Name -> address lookup being secret doesn't really make sense. Once it's out, you can't undo it, but you share it with all your friends and lots of organizations. I'd say something else in society needs to be fixed if that's become a problem. We used to have phone books, afterall.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  They're not websites no one ever sees, they're websites who will sell your personal data to anyone. They'll sell it in bulk to advertisers, or just to any individual. I had to deal with a stalker at one point and found over 100 of such sites, it took me a few days to opt out of all of them (and some ignored my requests). Data brokers are total scum. Not to mention that this Google effort requires an explicit threat to be made on the page in question. They won't remove data broker pages, you have to contact each on individually and hope they'll actually fulfill your request.
tyrfing 4y ago
Those sites are low quality and it's often easy to get much better free data. SF recorder's publicly posted property records, searchable by name, for example. There are also numerous private databases with high quality data which certainly don't want to be indexed. Your info being on those public sites (which isn't very meaningful due to how many errors they have) is mostly a symptom of how easily available it is, rather than a source to be plugged. Suppressing it may make it slightly harder for an uncommitted nutcase to track you down, but won't make much of a difference overall. Going from a name to much more info is very easy in the general case, and if it isn't, there won't be valid info on those sites.
rotexo 4y ago
So you would recommend Optery? Some of the paid opt-out services seem to me to be essentially extortion schemes, want to make sure any service I use wouldn’t be like that.
- beyondd 4y ago
  Extensive analysis of Optery and the topic of removing your personal info from the web on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010
  - rotexo 4y ago
    Thanks, will have to read up on it.
  - hanniabu 4y ago
    Are you still using those misleading scam tactics? And what's the purpose of the monthly membership if it works?!
    - varenc 4y ago
      The monthly subscription only make sense if you consider that new data brokers are popping up all the time and opting out is a constant process. That said, it seems like 90% of the value you get from a one-time usage, but of course they insist on a subscription. But my solution to that is to use a burner credit card number! Specifically from privacy.com. I just make a new card with a limit of $20 to ensure it can't be billed again next month. I should of course just cancel the subscription, but if I forget they can't charge me next month anyway. I highly recommend privacy.com or other burner card services.
- varenc 4y ago
  Just FYI, the parent commenter is the Founder of Optery! So I think they’d recommend it, though I appreciate their light touch. It does seem like Optery is the only legit offering in a sea of scammy opt-out services/schemes.
paul7986 4y ago
Personally its always been out there these people search sites just make it easy to figure it out who your dealing with especially when it comes to dating. Was just with someone for the past few months who said all their relatives passed due to a horrific car accident and they would talk a lot about saying how much they missed them and are alone; have no one. Ummm they are all alive and well.. there was no horrific accident and she is just a crazy manipulator... gain sympathy to get whatever she wanted (toxic ... gross.. go away) ... Amber Heard type. thanks SearchPeopleFree.com for letting me learn and move on quickly!
- cto_of_antifa 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
another-dave 4y ago
It's good form to disclose that you own the tool you're recommending.
tnzk 4y ago
Recently I'm interested in Optery. What do you think the most differentiator to Atlas? https://www.atlas.net/ https://www.atlas.net/

KarlKemp 4y ago

Meh… If some data about me is listed on a website nobody ever sees, I don’t care what sound a tree falling in the wood makes. This isn’t a binary issue. Removing data from Google will usually have 90 % of the effect of removing it everywhere.

willis936 4y ago
Data brokers aren't "websites no one uses".
bobbygoodlatte 4y ago
That all changes if you have a stalker / bad actor going after you online. Once your address hits one of these sites, it's on every one of them. And you'll be playing a constant game of whac-a-mole if you want them removed. The amount of hoops you need to jump through to protect your privacy / shield your address in the US is quite incredible. And if you don't do it correctly from the start (use an anonymous land trust, etc), you're hosed. Privacy should be the default. People's home addresses shouldn't be public info
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > hoops you need to jump through to protect your privacy / shield your address in the US is quite incredible The U.S. has a decentralized land registration system. The downside is it usually cannot provide indefeasible title [1]. The upside is it's tremendously robust. That robustness comes, in part, from publicly-verifiable records. > People's home addresses shouldn't be public info Confidential property ownership has its own issues. It's less stable. In the event of a dispute you only have the registrar's and disputing owners' records to consult. It's also associated with embezzlement, money laundering and tax fraud. (The set of societies where a public home address puts one at risk and the set that have problems with embezzlement and laundering overlap in their institutional weakness.) (For tenants, on the other hand, there are fewer compelling reasons to publish residence.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#Indefeasibility_of_title https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#Indefeasibility_...
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  That's if you define privacy as you knowing something and others not knowing. My post-lobotomy view of privacy is all my secrets are known to the people I hate the absolute most ("I hate them with perfect hatred // I call them mine enemies" PSALMS KJV), and while I thank them as enemies (Matthew KJV) I do not forgive them, the intention is someday they thank me in return, as the Christians they claim to be, for acting against them as an enemy. So then, what is privacy? If you're lobotomized, privacy is divulgation. I cannot erase my lobotomist's memory, and I cannot recollect all my own selfsame memories, so instead I divulge, and divulging is privacy. Understand this: privacy is about who knows what. Who do you want to know what? Some options are out of the question for me. After all, there is a condition right on the box of all cryptographic products, in this case especially 1Password which I used before, during, and after my lobotomy, which is this: cryptography is about forcing the government to torture you. Not just the government though! If you get tortured? Forget it! Warranty void! Well so then what? Nobody asks, OK so I get tortured, THEN WHAT? ANSWER ME! And I think I'm supposed to not be able to see the answer, I've been conditioned to avert my attention to the answer, not see the ads for the answer like fucking literal pathological banner blindness. So many ads I wanted so badly to see, I just couldn't see. The most targeted advertising, missing completely. Like it's invisible to me, I read the statute in the Federal Codes about torture, how it was defined, and I simply couldn't read the lawyer's advertising with a phone number to call them. So privacy? Before torture, divulging works against privacy. After torture, it works in its favor.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  Name -> address lookup being secret doesn't really make sense. Once it's out, you can't undo it, but you share it with all your friends and lots of organizations. I'd say something else in society needs to be fixed if that's become a problem. We used to have phone books, afterall.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
They're not websites no one ever sees, they're websites who will sell your personal data to anyone. They'll sell it in bulk to advertisers, or just to any individual. I had to deal with a stalker at one point and found over 100 of such sites, it took me a few days to opt out of all of them (and some ignored my requests). Data brokers are total scum. Not to mention that this Google effort requires an explicit threat to be made on the page in question. They won't remove data broker pages, you have to contact each on individually and hope they'll actually fulfill your request.

tyrfing 4y ago

Those sites are low quality and it's often easy to get much better free data. SF recorder's publicly posted property records, searchable by name, for example. There are also numerous private databases with high quality data which certainly don't want to be indexed. Your info being on those public sites (which isn't very meaningful due to how many errors they have) is mostly a symptom of how easily available it is, rather than a source to be plugged. Suppressing it may make it slightly harder for an uncommitted nutcase to track you down, but won't make much of a difference overall. Going from a name to much more info is very easy in the general case, and if it isn't, there won't be valid info on those sites.

rotexo 4y ago

So you would recommend Optery? Some of the paid opt-out services seem to me to be essentially extortion schemes, want to make sure any service I use wouldn’t be like that.

beyondd 4y ago
Extensive analysis of Optery and the topic of removing your personal info from the web on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010
- rotexo 4y ago
  Thanks, will have to read up on it.
- hanniabu 4y ago
  Are you still using those misleading scam tactics? And what's the purpose of the monthly membership if it works?!
  - varenc 4y ago
    The monthly subscription only make sense if you consider that new data brokers are popping up all the time and opting out is a constant process. That said, it seems like 90% of the value you get from a one-time usage, but of course they insist on a subscription. But my solution to that is to use a burner credit card number! Specifically from privacy.com. I just make a new card with a limit of $20 to ensure it can't be billed again next month. I should of course just cancel the subscription, but if I forget they can't charge me next month anyway. I highly recommend privacy.com or other burner card services.
varenc 4y ago
Just FYI, the parent commenter is the Founder of Optery! So I think they’d recommend it, though I appreciate their light touch. It does seem like Optery is the only legit offering in a sea of scammy opt-out services/schemes.

paul7986 4y ago

Personally its always been out there these people search sites just make it easy to figure it out who your dealing with especially when it comes to dating. Was just with someone for the past few months who said all their relatives passed due to a horrific car accident and they would talk a lot about saying how much they missed them and are alone; have no one. Ummm they are all alive and well.. there was no horrific accident and she is just a crazy manipulator... gain sympathy to get whatever she wanted (toxic ... gross.. go away) ... Amber Heard type. thanks SearchPeopleFree.com for letting me learn and move on quickly!

cto_of_antifa 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

another-dave 4y ago

It's good form to disclose that you own the tool you're recommending.

tnzk 4y ago

Recently I'm interested in Optery. What do you think the most differentiator to Atlas? https://www.atlas.net/ https://www.atlas.net/