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Comment by tholtken | Hacker News Reader

Especially with a backend service provider (onerep.com) that is questionable at best.

What are the issues with Mozilla's use of onerep?

One of the issues are OneRep's affiliate partnerships with the very data brokers you're paying them to remove you from: https://imgur.com/a/juSC66b

Any other issues besides that possible conflict of interest? Also, you're the founder of a competing service, right?

not affiliated with Optery but agree conflict of interest, also misleading by onerep and at best deceptive. take that potential lack of trust together with the several reports online that onerep's us operation is a sham and they are really operating out of eastern europe and sending user data there...seems shady. begs the question: what does a privacy-respecting org like Mozilla see in onerep and how is it better than what other companies offer?

They are. There's a flagged dead comment where they say so (I don't know if this link will work for a flagged dead comment):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39276106

beyonddd should really identify themselves as the founder of a competitor. Nothing wrong with posting, but pseudo-anonymously disparaging the competition seems very inappropriate.

Yes - I flagged myself as an Optery founder on my first comment, but as you mentioned the comment was subsequently flagged and hidden from view. It is also made clear here: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=beyondd

From my perspective, I'd put it in any comment mentioning Optery or criticizing competitors. People often read one comment; they don't read all your comments and your profile.

It also adds some credibility: You actually know what you're talking about in regard to this kind of service.

Yes - I flagged myself as an Optery founder on my first comment, but the comment was subsequently flagged and hidden from view (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39276106). It is also made clear here: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=beyondd

OneRep is the service I used, briefly. I have no Affilliation with them except as past customer. They delivered as promised and the effect has been persistent 2+ years since the time I discontinued the subscription.

I think "partnership" seems like too strong a word for what appears to be the simple use of an affiliate program. Why would OneRep know or care about an individual affiliate and the content of their site, as long as their behavior with regards to the affiliate program is above-board?

Affiliate programs have application processes intended to filter out bad actors and mis-alignment with a brand. To use an extreme example, a web site promoting terrorism would typically be rejected. Approving data brokers as affiliate partners for a data broker removal service is viewed by many as questionable. To use an another extreme example, how would you feel about an anti-virus software company that approved as affiliate partners creators and distributors of computer virus programs.

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