Question: has anyone used tools like DeleteMe and Optery to remove their data from the web? Curious to hear thoughts, opinions, experiences.
Here is one in particular that includes some people sharing reviews, plus Optery's CEO going into detail on the different data removal companies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010
If you're interested in these services, a good approach is to sign up for each company’s free scan and compare the results.
Full disclosure: I am on the team at Optery
1. They seem to largely rely on automated or semi-automated workflows, and that sometimes breaks down. For me, they removed ~95% of the stuff, but I could still find some breadcrumbs in web searches, and need to file a couple more opt-outs manually. It might be less of a problem if your online footprint is small.
2. They target "frontend" sites, rather than the actual data brokers. This cleans up search results, but doesn't necessarily remove from the commercial databases that are available to commercial and institutional users. Because the frontends come and go, it also means that if you cancel your subscription, you will probably go back to square one in 2-5 years.
It's worked well for me. Outside of info on my own site, there's only one broker that's exposing an old address. That one was newly found or resurfaced within the past month, so it should be gone soon. I moved in December and my new address is not at all findable in correlation with my name, which is awesome.
That said, I think the sibling comment by hunson_abadeer about "95%" sets the right expectation for most. It's a constant whack-a-mole: we're always improving our strategies while data brokers multiply and find new datasets, which they use to resurface previously-removed profiles. Happy to answer any questions.
Take a look at https://www.kanary.com too - yc grant awardee in 2018.