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Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

blog.mozilla.org

131–140 of 206 posts

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#131

> 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?

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.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#132
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used Permission Slip by CR with limited success. I use @ . , and you cannot enter a wildcard in Permission Slip.

I use this pattern but I'm starting to move away from it. Some things just don't work (ex. linking accounts between companies) and it also throws customer service agents into a panic when they see their own company name in the e-mail address. I'm also not sure it gets me that much. I do get to see how was compromised or sold my data, but most of that just goes to spam anyway. I also usually find out about the comprom…

Sure some of the CSA's panic a bit, but I've never had one not go along especially after explaining my purpose. I've not seen too many compromises, but some of them were not public. Especially with small businesses like a car dealership, they may never know themselves.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#134

Mozilla Monitor Plus - $14/mo, or $108/yr. Too pricey for most. >Every month, we use the information you provided about yourself (name, location and birthdate) to search across ⁨190⁩ data broker sites that sell people’s private information. If we find your data on any of these sites, we initiate the request for removal. Data removal can take anywhere from a day to a month. This feature is available for ⁨Monitor Plus⁩…

Closest thing I can find to roll your own.

https://github.com/yaelwrites/Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-Li...

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#135
post #3

I like this in theory, I don't have time to chase down every data broker to opt-out on my own. I'm just wondering how I can measure whether it's really effective or not. Anyone have experience with this kind of thing?

This is always my pessimistic view of the world we live in today. Why in the world would they delete that data vs just putting it on mute/ignore/etc? The only "proof" you have is if you send a request to see the data they hold on you. If they send you an empty report because the ignore flag was set, you would only see an empty report. You have no evidence that the data was actually deleted.

And I've never seen a single stalker-corp ("data broker") executive serve prison time for failing to delete data that they claimed was deleted.

Either that has literally never happened, or there's inadequate auditing/enforcement, and I don't consider the former to be plausible.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#136

Do any of these offer family plans? I feel like At these price points, I would really like to sign up everyone in my household. The FAQ pages seem to all imply individual and I don't think I'm asking for a "business" or "enterprise" option.

Onerep (another commenter believes this is Mozilla's U.S. partner) has a $15/mo family (paid annually, 6 people) plan.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#137
These services sure are the new sell it to everyone infinite margin after you built it once thing on YouTube sponsorships after everyone who was ever going to buy one has a VPN now.

What actually creates this cost, though? I was hoping it'd be free or at cost for the infrastructure and maintenance.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#138

Not sure what I think about charging people to remove this information—are they not also just as bad? This seems like the sort of thing that shouldn't require a victim to pay for, but for law to enforce this not happening. As with for-profit healthcare in the USA, just seems scumbag to profit off of misfortune and misery.

In fairness, Mozilla can't make a law.

Sure, but they are also treating it as a business opportunity, just like the people compiling the data are. They should perhaps be pushing on the legal aspect of what's wrong with the situation rather than making money from it.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#139

> 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?

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'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.

Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

#140
post #3

I like this in theory, I don't have time to chase down every data broker to opt-out on my own. I'm just wondering how I can measure whether it's really effective or not. Anyone have experience with this kind of thing?

This is always my pessimistic view of the world we live in today. Why in the world would they delete that data vs just putting it on mute/ignore/etc? The only "proof" you have is if you send a request to see the data they hold on you. If they send you an empty report because the ignore flag was set, you would only see an empty report. You have no evidence that the data was actually deleted.

That's because this is actually a data validation service for brokers. Most of their data is junk or incomplete, but now they know which pieces belong to actual people who want to pay money for it to be deleted.
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