Data Removal Services or just Google myself and remove my own data (startrek.website)

submitted 1 year ago by nagaram@startrek.website to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been upset recently by a colleague googling me and found my full name on several 3D Printing sites I used to use. I guess I signed in with my google account and so it just pops up now that I've deleted all my socials.

I have a fairly uncommon first + last combo so the cursory google search and then sending "delete my data" emails from the email they know from the 3 data brokers who popped up seems good and now just my linkedin is showing (this is the ideal state).

Is there more I'm missing? should I go for a deleteme subscription in case I missed anything? Other sources I should go to?

I really don't mind sending my own emails to these pests, but is that really all the services are doing? Or is there a backend I'm missing?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think easyoptouts is worth it ($20/quarter). It has like a 70% success rate which will decrease a ton of grunt work for you. There are a lot (well north of 150+) of these data sites to try and manage.

Just because you remove data once does not mean it won't be put back on the site later which means you need to make a habit of constantly rechecking the sites if you chose to do it yourself.

I would also recommend signing up to have Google alert you when your name comes up in searches. This will make it easy to remove them from Google and let you know what you still have to remove.

[-] yanamishi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago

My experience with easyoptouts lasted about a year. During that time I saw my info respawn on spokeo. Apparently spokeo was drawing the data from LexisNexis, which easyoptouts also says they submit a request for removal to-- but Consumer Disclosure Reports from LexisNexis before and after using the service were identical.

This is not to say that the service is not worth the low price, but vigilance is key.

this post was submitted on 09 May 2025

47 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

50626 readers

563 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS