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Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

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Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#41

Post by oofbey »

nixass wrote: post #40
pards wrote: post #27

I tried this (as a Canadian): 1. It asks you to optionally sign up for a bunch of other services like Spokeo 2. It asks for access to your email via Apple's Mail app which I don't use 3. I got a lot of 404s anyway 4. Many sites require manual intervention to work Nice idea, but it needs a LOT of TLC to make it generally useful. I suspect that having a non-numeric "zip" code and a non-US address might be breaking a lo…

> 2. It asks for access to your email via Apple's Mail app which I don't use Assumption that people use Apple services by default is wild

They probably built it just for themselves. More the first person in the post title.

Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#45

Post by opengrass »

trollbridge wrote: post #31
IgorPartola wrote: post #14

Back in 2011 or so the Yellow Pages still delivered physical phone books to ever address in the state where we were. My city literally sent out an extra off cycle recycling truck the next day to pick them all up. Everyone threw them out. Well my coworkers and I realized that the opt out form just needed an address. We contemplated pulling all known addresses for the entire country and automating submitting them all o…

Around the same time frame, my brother rented some rooms in his house to people who had the occupation of actually delivering those phone books. (This was in a different country, but apparently the Yellow Pages existed everywhere.) The delivery-people got overwhelmed and eventually just resorted to putting the stacks and stacks of phone books into piles and burning them. It took a long time until they got caught beca…

I sure do! Calling all local contractors for a quote VS falling for the SEO king.

Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#46

Post by jackp96 »

baggachipz wrote: post #36
Saris wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the people who set up the email service just forget or don't bother to add the receivers email to the URL parameter when you click unsubscribe, so it'll ask for your email again which is always an annoying step.

It's a dark pattern which adds friction to the process, in order to reduce the number of unsubscribes.

There are plenty of dark patterns in digital marketing, and you're generally right about the thinking.

But there is a (somewhat plausible) defense here: if someone forwards you an email and you hit the unsubscribe link, then it unsubscribes them; not you. Requiring the user to enter their email helps ensure you don't accidentally unsubscribe the wrong person.

That said — the most impactful thing anyone can do to punish dark pattern digital marketing behavior is to report the message as SPAM in your email client. That'll hurt their delivery rates and damage their sending reputation with email providers.

Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#47

Post by jeroenhd »

airstrike wrote: post #11

> 4. Solves CAPTCHAs via CapSolver (AI-powered, ~$0.001/solve) Right, so my suspicion was correct: I'm the only one being inconvenienced by the same old captchas.

It depends on the CAPTCHA, but there's a reason why Apple, Cloudflare, and Google are shifting towards remote attestation for proof-of-humanity.

The reCAPTCHA v3 Enterprise version and MtCaptcha cost a whopping 3x as much ($3 per 1000 solves). Seems like they're the best CAPTCHAs to go for.

Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#49

Post by jeroenhd »

ramon156 wrote: post #13

The only thing that is tied to MacOS is launchd, seems like that's useful info to add to the docs. I don't know if you can just do a run from the CLI. Supporting Systemd should be easy. Not sure what windows uses.

Creating a Windows service is a bit harder (as Windows actually uses a real API for services rather than just relying on process spawning and scripting around that), but with task scheduler you can schedule tasks to run once a month in all kinds of ways.

Re: Show HN: Auto-identity-remove – Automated data broker opt-out runner for macOS

#50

Post by aembleton »

airstrike wrote: post #11

> 4. Solves CAPTCHAs via CapSolver (AI-powered, ~$0.001/solve) Right, so my suspicion was correct: I'm the only one being inconvenienced by the same old captchas.

Looks like they have a browser extension! https://www.capsolver.com/products/browser-extension
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