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Comment by j-bos | Hacker News Reader

This kind of thing feels better left to trusted 1st parties, oneself. Link to a list of data broker opt out methods:https://github.com/yaelwrites/Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-Li...

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I used Onerep until I was told it was shady. I now use Optery (https://www.optery.com/) which is a YC company. I'd love to hear if there are any issues with it.

The problem is there are 200+ data brokers out there and I don't have time to deal with that many.

Yeah, I saw when they announced on here, I think.

One question: Do you know if they pay the data brokers a percentage?

I have no idea. I hope not.

They submit opt-out removals though, so one would think that if they paid the data broker they would not have to go through that trouble?

Why is it monthly? What happens if you don’t renew?

Yeah I have the same concern. Are there any better options, short of hiring a human secretary, which I don't have the money for?

My first priority is not having my personal info listed on the internet; ethics of where my money is going is second.

Kanary is a grant recipient from YC and does data deletion as well. Main difference from Optery is simplicity of the tiers (there is only 1 premium tier that covers all sites + hands on support). While Optery's b2b tooling is more built out than ours.

We have a 'downgrade to a free tier' option if you are paying and want to take a break from the service. We delete all data if you decide to cancel, but you can join back any time. If it's not clear from the username, I'm on the team.

Optery has been flagging the conflict of interest between OneRep and Nuwber for years and put a statement out with our position following the Krebs article:

https://www.optery.com/optery-statement-following-investigat...

Yeah, I did this, following one of the guides (possibly the one linked in the parent). It definitely worked with the worst of these bottom-feeders: mylife.com

It involved phone call to an Indian call-center. While remaining polite (not easy) but persistent, I had to listen to multiple dumb pitches about their "services". I stuck with it and in the end they removed my name but indicated it "may" come back.

That was in 2018. My name no longer appears when searching their website. I do, however, get MULTIPLE garbage emails per day from mylife indicating "changes" about my profile and that of my family and neighbors.

I have avoided dealing with 3rd parties for this stuff. In addition to the fact that they may, as Krebs indicated, racketeer with the scummy brokers there's ALSO another concern: Some of them PAY the data brokers a percentage of the fees they collect to remove names. The last thing I want is for these bastards to get any money for their activities.

BTW, the founder and CEO of Mylife.com is Jeffrey Tinsley. He appears to have made quite a fortune doing this data-broker shit.

has anyone tried the service advertised by the author of the list? Looks interesting / useful. [1]

1: https://securityplanner.consumerreports.org/

Great list!

My first thought was: "why stick all this info in a readme and not some nice json list I could scrape".

I then thought: "maybe I can just have my AI friend scan the readme and do all the opt-out work for me"

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