Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?

Post by kazagistar » Tue, Mar 07, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

dsp1234 wrote: post #42

mehrdadn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such public list. Most of these companies are privately held, their methods are trade secrets, and there is no real form of legal recourse. How can there not be a public list of these data miners? When e.g. a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? Is there a secret list in every courthouse or something? Or when someone wants to star…

a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? I think you have a misunderstanding of what a US court can do. A court can only tell a specific party to take some action, and generally only if that party is somehow related to the legal action (such as being a defendant). Generally, there is no judgement that a court can make that can effect unnamed part…

Post by megous » Tue, Mar 07, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

avh02 wrote: post #152

e0m wrote: post #55

If you have your own domain name with a wildcard, it's really helpful to enter: someservice@mydomain.com as your email. That way if it leaks you'll know who did it and can setup much more robust rules to block. I'll use the domain name as the main address so I remember which name goes to which site. For physical address mailings, you can hyphenate (or use a middle name) as the service. So First Service-Last as the ad…

I just started doing the wildcard domain thing last month, I'm happier knowing that I can shut the taps. I get annoyed just knowing that there's spam in my spam list. First time I was on the phone with a customer service rep. after using the @ .com format I was asked if i was sure my email address was correct. I lol'ed and told them not to worry about it.

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Mar 07, 2017, 2:58 AM UTC

monodeldiablo wrote: post #163

I've had the misfortune to be present for an in-person demo of a verification service nearly a decade ago. It involved those relationship questions ("Which one of the following people have you not lived with in the last 5 years?") that are incredibly creepy. I was shocked that they had so much data on me -- I have no debt, no credit cards, no house, no car, no bills, and I had always entered informal rent agreements…

Post by clubm8 » Tue, Mar 07, 2017, 3:01 AM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #164

e0m wrote: post #55

If you have your own domain name with a wildcard, it's really helpful to enter: someservice@mydomain.com as your email. That way if it leaks you'll know who did it and can setup much more robust rules to block. I'll use the domain name as the main address so I remember which name goes to which site. For physical address mailings, you can hyphenate (or use a middle name) as the service. So First Service-Last as the ad…

You can do this with gmail. For example if your gmail is root@gmail.com You can do root+yahoo@gmail.com, root+reddit@gmail.com and such on.

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Mar 07, 2017, 3:10 AM UTC

bb611 wrote: post #96

ennuihenry wrote: post #82

Easy one is they scrape Google for Linkedin bio info. I'm paranoid that USPS sells your info once you fill out their change of address form.

You're not paranoid, I don't know if money changes hands but my changes of address have 100% been accompanied by spam snail mail. I just don't change my mailing address anymore.