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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

> we can automatically and continuously request to remove your personal information with an annual paid subscription of $8.99 per month ($107.88 a year).

This is a lot of money for most people. What would the benefit be of doing this all the time versus just subscribing once a year? How quickly do details reappear in databases?

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I'm given to understand these data broker services make it as painful and time-consuming to opt out as they can. Supposing you can even find all the places you're listed (Optery supports 305+ sites), it sounds like a substantial time commitment to follow through on all of them.

I signed up, and Mozilla warns it takes 7-14 days for data on most of these sites to be removed. They must need to do a lot of things by hand. This would also explain why you get 1 scan per month.

These sites deliberately are slow in the removal of requests. So there is both manual sending but also needing to re-check if the site actually removed your info because brokers just kind of suck.

I'm confused how the internet is just ok with Mozilla engaging with these extortion websites. These sites are not legitimate and now that Mozilla and Google are engaging with them they just play into the protection racket.

This really isn’t a lot of money for anyone in the USA, which is where the product is offered.

Hell with the current economic environment I unfortunately spend more than this on my morning coffee.

Over a hundred dollars a year? That's a lot of money to get people to pay for a product category that most people do not currently purchase.

Most people would also wonder why this is a perpetual subscription as opposed to something they can pay for one-off once every year or two.

I had this same question. What's the point of a removal request if the site can just add your info back in next month?

And if they can't, what's the point of a monthly subscription?

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