In looking back over my most recent posts on this blog, I’m noticing a pattern. I’m tending to focus on technical aspects of privacy and security and am leaning more towards the security side of things. Given that I want to be balanced in the information I share here at FunctionallyParanoid, I thought it would be a good time to start making a concerted effort to share some information that isn’t focused on installing operating systems or configuring software. In this post, I’m going to talk to you about the evil role of “data brokers” in the world today and what you can do to limit their nefarious impact on your life.
Data brokers are not a new invention of our modern computer age. They have been around for thousands of years. As long as a given piece of information had value to someone else, they work to maximize that value and monetize it to their benefit. For example, if you knew the location of an invading army, you could sell that location to the country being invaded, regardless of whether it was the twenty-first century or the first century. For that matter, you could then turn around and sell the fact that the element of surprise was lost to the invading army and suggest they take a different route for their invasion and so on. Nice work if you can get it, eh?
The modern data brokers also set themselves up to sell the same information multiple times. What they do is comb through tons of data – things like mailing lists for catalogues, marketing databases, etc. They then correlate that information and assemble a dossier on each person that they can tease out. Once they assemble that dossier, they can then sell it to firms that want to market to you, to people trying to track you down to collect on a debt, whatever. The information is for sale to the highest bidder.
Yes, there are some limitations to what they can do, but it really depends on where you live. For example, if you live in California, there is a new data privacy law that places some realistic limits on these firms; however, if you live in Montana, you are pretty much on your own. There really isn’t a lot of privacy protection at the federal level.
Given that, what can you do? Well, for one, you can work to either correct or delete the information that these data brokers have on you. While there are services you can pay to do this on your behalf, I thought I’d do this the old fashioned way and see how good a job I can do using a little elbow grease and trying my hand at getting my information deleted.
The first thing you need to do is get a list of who the data brokers are. That is surprisingly difficult to do in a canonical way. However, after a series of DuckDuckGo searches (of course I use them and not Google – I’m FunctionallyParanoid after all), I was able to come up with the following list. What I’ll do is keep this post in draft form as I go through the process of requesting that my information be deleted and add tips and additional information on each broker as I knock them out.
As a sidebar, there is a service called Blur that allows you to get a free email forwarder that masks your email address. Essentially you put in your “blur” email address and then the email actually comes to you but the sender doesn’t really know what your true email address is. Might not be a bad idea to use a service like this for the removal emails where they require confirmation. Just a thought.
Here we go…
Acxiom
This is one of the big ones. You need to navigate to their opt out page and wade through a plethora of text about why this is a bad idea and you really should love having your data sold all over the place without you knowing who gets it. You then have to fill out a form at the bottom of that screen where the difference between the text and the white background is about +1 on the RGB scale – in other words, it is nearly indecipherable. After you squint your way through that, you will get an email that requires you to click a link to ensure that the information is deleted. As with all of these, set a calendar reminder to check back and ensure that your information has truly been removed.
BeenVerified
This broker seems to be the easiest to deal with and pretty quick in terms of deleting the information. Go to their opt out page and search for your information. Once you find your record or records (I found old addresses listing me with different middle initials), click on each one, supply an email address (yes, you have to do this because they require you to click a link in the email they send you to actually kick off the removal process), help Google or whoever identify busses or fire hydrants, and then wait for that email to show up. Once you click the link, they will begin the process and have you removed in 24-48 hours. Put a calendar reminder out there to check that you have been removed and see if there are any other records that need to be deleted.
Epsilon
Another big one. These folks have not only the ability to sell your data for offline purposes, they can do it online. And, they purport to be able to connect the two. Yikes! To get your data removed, go to their opt out page and fill it out. Just like with Axciom above, you have to wade through some text to get to the form. Again, don’t forget to set a calendar reminder to check back and ensure that the data has been deleted.
Intelius
This one is probably the easiest of the bunch. You simply navigate to their opt out page, search for yourself and then request that they delete the information. As with all of these, put a calendar reminder in your calendar to ensure that the information has been deleted.
MyLife
This one is a pain. You have to “join” their service (which to me seems to indicate that they have more accurate information on you) but you can obfuscate that information. Anyhow, once you join you can then search for your information and send an email to privacy@mylife.com to have them remove you. Include the URL from your search in the email and don’t forget to put a calendar reminder in to verify that it has been deleted.
Raradis
Similar to the others, you first have to search for your record on their site. You then copy the URL from your browser’s address bar and paste it into the opt out form to have them remove your information. They will notify you when the information is removed. When they did, I actually checked and my information was NOT removed. An email to customer service corrected the issue and my information was removed.
Spokeo
This one is pretty similar to many of the others. Go to their search page and look for yourself. Once you find a record you wish to remove, click on it, save the URL from your browser’s address bar and supply it to their opt out page. As with all of these, you’ll have some email interaction with them and they will let you know you have started the process. I strongly recommend taking their timeframe for removal and putting a reminder in your calendar to check up on it and make sure the information is truly gone.
WhitePages
This one is more pernicious. They seem to have lots of different records of me that need to be deleted. The process is pretty straightforward, however. You go to their search page and look for your information. After you find your listing, if you are fortunate enough to see one with an arrow at the right, click on that and copy the resulting URL from the address bar. You can then go to their opt out page, provide the URL and go through the request process. Since this broker sources from public records, I can’t find a way to delete their “premium search” and they still list your personal information (such as home address) on their search pages. To get around this, I tried using their CCPA opt out form because my records can be found by searching an address in California.
Conclusion
To net this out, it’s a few minutes worth of work but the end result is that your data isn’t being monetized by some faceless corporation somewhere. If you then have good hygeine on your privacy, perhaps you can reduce your data footprint to keep from being an interesting target for these brokers. Either way, it is probably worth checking in on your status on these sites a couple of times a year or more.