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

blog.mozilla.org

111–120 of 206 posts

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

#111
post #99
post #7

I’m a happy, long term Optery user (not affiliated) and they take care of 100% of this for you. https://www.optery.com The Mozilla offering looks somewhat comparable, but I do wonder if they’re going to beat a company which has the sole focus of solving this problem.

Anyone have experience comparing this to Incogni? I’ve been an unaffiliated user for over a year now. While many brokers have replied, many never seem to.

Optery founder here. We did a deep dive comparison between Incogni and Optery (https://www.optery.com/incogni-review/). The biggest takeaway is Incogni, at this time, does not cover many of the most popular people search sites like Whitepages, TruePeopleSearch, Spokeo, RocketReach, ThatsThem, BeenVerified, TruthFinder, InstantCheckmate, and many others. Most Incogni reviews you'll find online are written by their affiliate partners.

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

#112
post #13
post #5

I wanted to try this, but it seems to be restricted to only people in the USA. It is impossible to enter a location outside the USA in the sign-up form, and it's impossible to skip that form. Please, Mozilla, make it much clearer which countries are supported to avoid causing this frustration and to give people a reason to come back once other countries are supported.

Sorry about that. The form should only be shown for people in the USA, but detecting the country you're in can't be done perfectly. Which is a good reminder - we'll look into making the US-only part clearer. (I'm an engineer on Monitor.)

What’s wrong with simply displaying/linking to a list of supported countries?

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

#113

There is a service I've heard advertised on twit.tv podcasts called DeleteMe that I've been interested in that does a similar thing and seems to cover way more data brokers: https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/ OpenRep is another one I've seen mentioned. Covers 190+ sites: https://onerep.com/sites-we-remove-from One thing I can't find is a list of sites that Mozilla Monitor covers. Here's a comparison. I on…

Optery founder here. We did a deep dive comparison between DeleteMe and Optery (https://www.optery.com/deleteme-review/). The biggest takeaway is you have to scroll to the bottom of the DeleteMe Sites We Remove From page and read the fine print on what is covered by the plan you are purchasing. The "750+ Data Brokers" written across the top of the page is misleading. The standard plan covers about ~90 sites.

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They submit an opt-out request on your behalf. Frequently, the data will not be removed entirely, or re-surfaces later on. You're entirely dependent on the good will of the data broker sites, who are likely trying very hard to stop automation like this.

> Frequently, the data will not be removed entirely, or re-surfaces later on. You're entirely dependent on the good will of the data broker sites, who are likely trying very hard to stop automation like this. This was my instinctual, cynical assumption, too. Unless there's a GDPR-like law in place and some standard for differentiating identities, they're just going to find loopholes to recapture peoples' data (e.g. r…

I've used several of these services now and they all have the same issue - the thing is, the data brokers don't even use loopholes. They'll (sometimes) cooperate with removing the data, and then it just reappears in identical form sometime later, often very quickly. They pretend like it isn't their problem and the problem is their data sources that contain the data. It's the complete wild west.

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

#116
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always enjoy the vague yet threatening online comment. I'm of the opinion that this is from one of the better bot farms who have learned if you make people nervous, you can control their choices.

Agreed. I ceaselessly flag comments like this online. Scary passive voice messages would be worthless even if they weren't from an influence campaign. Say what you mean or hold your tongue! I have zero patience for cowards using vague passive voice.

I agree about vagueness, and it's great that there's more awareness about rhetorical technique. Still, it's written in active voice.

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

#117

There is a service I've heard advertised on twit.tv podcasts called DeleteMe that I've been interested in that does a similar thing and seems to cover way more data brokers: https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/ OpenRep is another one I've seen mentioned. Covers 190+ sites: https://onerep.com/sites-we-remove-from One thing I can't find is a list of sites that Mozilla Monitor covers. Here's a comparison. I on…

Optery founder here. We did a deep dive comparison between DeleteMe and Optery ( https://www.optery.com/deleteme-review/ ). The biggest takeaway is you have to scroll to the bottom of the DeleteMe Sites We Remove From page and read the fine print on what is covered by the plan you are purchasing. The "750+ Data Brokers" written across the top of the page is misleading. The standard plan covers about ~90 sites.

I noticed that shortly after I posted and have included that info now (edited the comment). Classic dark pattern. That info should be more prominently displayed in their pricing information.

So your service will handle (up to) 305+ data brokers automatically? depending on how much you are willing to pay of course

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

#118

There is a service I've heard advertised on twit.tv podcasts called DeleteMe that I've been interested in that does a similar thing and seems to cover way more data brokers: https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/ OpenRep is another one I've seen mentioned. Covers 190+ sites: https://onerep.com/sites-we-remove-from One thing I can't find is a list of sites that Mozilla Monitor covers. Here's a comparison. I on…

Sorry for the typo of calling "OneRep" "OpenRep" (I wrote it twice). I can't edit my post anymore but just wanted to clarify that it is OneRep.

https://onerep.com/

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

#119
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are. There's a flagged dead comment where they say so (I don't know if this link will work for a flagged dead comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39276106 beyonddd should really identify themselves as the founder of a competitor. Nothing wrong with posting, but pseudo-anonymously disparaging the competition seems very inappropriate.

Yes - I flagged myself as an Optery founder on my first comment, but as you mentioned the comment was subsequently flagged and hidden from view. It is also made clear here: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=beyondd

From my perspective, I'd put it in any comment mentioning Optery or criticizing competitors. People often read one comment; they don't read all your comments and your profile.

It also adds some credibility: You actually know what you're talking about in regard to this kind of service.

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

#120

> 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.

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