How does Mozilla determine what 190 data brokers are relevant?
Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
151–160 of 206 posts
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could there be some sort of Robin Hood action to all of this? What if you took all the leaked data about millions of people and used that to opt out them out of all the various services that buy and then sell the data?
That is a possibility. Another scenario is one in which you sign up to a service like Optery and submit a non-existent individual with fabricated information for PII removal; after about a month or so, this fabricated individual started showing up as a possible person that lived at my address when I was trying to get a quote from Progressive. So, seems like somewhere in the midst of this process, one of the 240 broke…
Thanks so much for sharing this, I was wondering what would happen if I tried this. I guess this basically tells me to be weary of such services. Great info.
P.S. Just a heads up that you may have basically revealed your address by sharing those fake names (though I haven't tried to search), unless you also made up those names just now for illustration...
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#153[flagged]
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.
I see how I was too vague. I decided to post without elaborating because I thought the concerns were obvious from previous HN discussions about Mozilla announcements of different sorts, and because I was running out of time, which probably was a mistake.
The Pocket partnership and acquisition, the 250 layoffs with the 4x CEO pay increase, the Mullad partnership for a worse offering, are all concerning and they do destroy trust, but my primary concern is the apparent lack of focus. Can Mozilla sustain all these potentially positive initiatives (like this recent announcement or https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/)? I very much doubt it. And I hope this changes before Firefox usage drops even further.
I'm not a Mozilla hater. I have contributed Firefox translations in the past, built extensions, and I even collaborate actively with some of the projects that I think are distracting Mozilla.
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your point is spot on. Data removal services have an aspect where a ton of value is obtained in the first 1 - 4 months as the majority of profiles are wiped away, and then after that you're sort of in maintenance mode where the service catches profiles as they pop back up, or when new data brokers are added to the system for coverage. Optery generally has 2 types of customers: - The first type are those that care a l…
Have you considered adding a 3-months-every-year option? I wonder if automating the second type of customer would provide you a lift in revenue.
This is a great suggestion and we would like to add this. Not because it would provide any revenue lift though, but because it is what some Optery customers have been asking for, e.g. can I have a lower cost subscription that runs every other month, or every three months, etc. Technically, you can do this today by cancelling and re-starting a Monthly subscription at your desired cadence, or pausing and re-starting your subscription periodically, but that requires manual effort. A configurable cadence is definitely on our backlog though.
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#155Not sure if dumb question: If they use the data you provide (such as your address) to search other data brokers, doesn't that potentially give the data broker MORE information than they already had on you? Do the companies in this space prevent this somehow? Edit: Lest people think this is somehow impossible otherwise - all it should take would be to search for just your name + location, get the query results, then f…
It feels weird, but this is how background checks work, and how the current removal process for data brokers works.
I can't think of other ways to verify yourself other than to verify yourself.
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#156Do 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.
Optery offers a family plan: https://www.optery.com/family/
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#157Which laws are Mozilla using to get the data brokers to remove personal info in the US. I know there is such a law in California but is there also a federal law?
No federal law in the U.S. yet unfortunately, but more states are passing laws by the day (fortunately): https://iapp.org/resources/article/us-state-privacy-legislat...
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a dumb question at all. Yeah, in the process of finding you within a data brokers system and sending a removal request, they need to send that broker your personal data... it's a bit awkward. Optery, another PII removal service has a whole section about this in their privacy policy (section 7 of https://www.optery.com/privacy-policy/ ): > Optery, Inc. must send your PII to the data brokers and information aggrega…
Optery also has a Help Desk article on this catch-22 where in order to opt out of data broker sites, you must first tell them who you are, otherwise, how else would they know who to opt out: https://help.optery.com/en/article/what-information-does-opt...
They could use a bloom filter with some sort of a cryptographic hash. On a hit, the data broker could challenge them to compute a salted hash of the "matched" data. If the salted hash matched, the data broker would remove the data.
I think the same algorithms that are used for password storage would work for this without modification (except the data broker would pick different salts during each session, and you'd send the hash over the network).
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Agreed on the dark pattern, and yes, Optery's Ultimate plan currently covers 300+ data brokers by default and offers unlimited Custom Removals. Optery has a team that's continually testing and adding more sites to the coverage defaults. There are several options, Free, Paid, Family, Business at different prices. For full disclosure, I'm one of the Optery founders, as mentioned previously.
Re: Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a sense, it sounds like the advice of the services is less subscribing to them than trying not to have a few e-mails that map to your personal identity. Firefox Relay is a great way to do that :) https://relay.firefox.com Integrating that with Monitor is pretty high on at least my personal wish list.
It’s an ok way to do it. And I’ve been subscribed (but not using it) for 2 years. But until Firefox Relay supports custom domains, I am of the opinion that it’s not ideal.
With providers like Addy and SimpleLogin it is possible to use your own domain.