You’re more popular than you realize, but that isn’t as good as it sounds. Some of your biggest fans are data brokers.
Data broker companies find your personal information and sell it to eager buyers, from reputable American companies to foreign governments. Businesses are interested in you because they’d like to get better at marketing products and services to you. Foreign governments may want more insight into the collective American psyche, but they may also have nefarious reasons that they don’t exactly want to advertise. Even scammers will sometimes buy your information, which can lead to identity theft.
This is where data removal services come into play. Data removal services are companies that work to pry your personal information out of the hands of data brokers.
These services typically aren’t free. Operty, for example, offers a free plan for some services — mostly access to self-service tools. But you’ll pay up to $25 monthly for automated and custom removal requests. Is it worth paying for these services? And do these services actually work?
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
How data removal services work
If all goes according to plan, a data removal service will contact data brokers and tell them that you want out of the data broker business and are supposed to be able to opt out.
“Most times, it will work to a certain extent,” says Weiqing Sun, a computer science engineering technology professor and cybersecurity program director at the University of Toledo, in Ohio. But Sun says that these programs aren’t foolproof.
“The removed data may come back later,” he says, so if you’re going to use a data removal service, you’ll probably want to keep using it.
Here’s how data removal services tend to function:
Step 1: The scan: The best data removal services scan hundreds of data brokers and people-search sites using your name, address and other information to find what data brokers have a profile on you.
Step 2: The opt-out request: Once a data removal service knows who has your profile, it will send automated or manual opt-out requests on your behalf, so that your profile is removed. There are privacy laws that can help ensure that companies (at least the reputable ones) comply and stop selling your information. For instance, there is the California Consumer Privacy Act and the General Data Protection Regulation law in Europe. The laws are both designed to restrict how data brokers collect information and to offer consumers a way to have more control over their own personal data.
Step 3: The monitoring: This is not a one-time process. The best services continuously monitor for new instances of the user’s data appearing and send repeated removal requests.
Automation vs. manual action
These two approaches are your best bets for getting data brokers to stop selling your information.
You can manually opt out, contact data broker, or hire a data removal service to remove your file for you. If a data removal service works for you, they typically attack the data broker problem in three ways:
Automated: In this case, a data removal service will use software to find and submit requests to data brokers, which is fast and efficient.
Manual: Some services have a team of people who can manually track down and submit requests, which can be more thorough for sites with complex opt-out procedures.
Self-service: Some data removal service plans offer a self-service option, where you can request removal from specific sites yourself.
The hybrid model: Many services use a combination of both for best results, where they can do some of the manual opting out and automate other services. Some services also allow you to manually opt out yourself, saving you money.
Benefits of data removal services
As you can imagine, there are a lot of potential positives about using data removal services.
Saves time and effort: This is the primary benefit, of course. If you don’t want to spend months contacting dozens of sites individually, asking them to remove your data from their sites, and then later, possibly contacting them again, you may feel better off paying for a service.
Expertise and legal leverage: These services are experts at navigating data brokers’ often-confusing and sometimes intentionally complex opt-out processes. They also know which laws to cite to compel a response.
Continued protection: The main attraction is that these sites have ongoing monitoring features. Since data can reappear, the service’s continuous action is key to long-term privacy (assuming the site you’re working with works).
Reduced digital footprint: With any luck, you’ll start to notice that you’re having success at getting your name out of data brokers’ files, as you see a noticeable decrease in spam calls, junk mail and targeted ads.
Limitations of data removal services
Data removal services can’t erase everything. You have to be realistic about the limitations. A few areas that you will never quite conquer:
Public records: Information in public government records, like property or court records, is not something these services can “delete.” (If you want to try, though, simply run for Congress and try to get your new colleagues to pass a law to no longer make records public)
Social media: Data brokers cannot remove information you have voluntarily posted on public social media profiles or forums.
Behavioral data: Data removal services are less effective at removing data tied to online habits and behaviors than your name.
Unresponsive sites: Data removal services can’t force every website or data broker to comply with removal requests. Not every data broker is reputable, and the patchwork of laws that govern privacy isn’t always effective.
There are some other factors that you’ll want to consider.
New data brokers emerging: New data brokers are constantly joining this growing industry, and old ones can re-collect data. So if you really want to stop your data broker issue, you either need to pay for continuous service or make it a hobby and periodically ask data brokers to stop collecting and selling your information.
The trust factor: Yes, there’s some irony in giving a third-party service your personal information to protect it. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, but you will want to carefully research the data removal service’s privacy policy and reputation.
Effectiveness varies: Not all data removal services are created equal, and some may have partnerships with data brokers or be less effective than they claim. You want to research the data removal service you’re about to work with, just as if you were researching VPNs or antivirus software.
Factors that affect effectiveness
Not surprisingly, there are several reasons why not all data removal services are created equally.
Varied performance: The effectiveness of data removal services varies widely, with some performing much better than others in tests.
Cost vs features: Cheaper services may have fewer features, while more expensive options may offer more comprehensive services or custom requests.
Legal frameworks: Data removal can be more challenging in the United States, which has weaker data privacy laws than the European Union, where regulations like GDPR offer greater protection.
DIY vs. professional service
As noted, you don’t have to hire a data removal service. You can do it yourself.
The DIY approach
- Find the data brokers with your information. Some services offer a free scan for this. You also should be able to find some websites simply by searching the internet for your name and other features, like your address and phone number.
- Locate each broker’s specific opt-out page.
- Submit the required forms, often with a personal ID.
- Follow up manually to confirm removal.
The professional service approach
Benefit: It’s a set-and-forget solution, which is beneficial because you save immense time and have ongoing protection.
Cost: It’s a recurring expense. This is a con because it’s typically a monthly or annual subscription.
Clearly, the DIY approach is highly time-consuming, but it’s not as hard as it sounds, says Robert Siciliano, a security analyst and author of Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention.
“I’ve reached out to dozens,” he says. “Most of them have a legitimate opt out feature [on their website], and in some cases, your data can be removed right away. And others, it might take them days to weeks to get back to you. In every instance, what I usually do is copy and paste the URL that has my information, and email it to myself and set up a calendar reminder to follow up to make sure it’s gone.”
Siciliano says it has become easier to work with data brokers than it used to be.
“Years ago, it would be next to impossible to remove this information,” he says.
Siciliano says that laws like the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 and the Fair Credit Reporting Act apply to data brokers.
“Data brokers comply because they don’t want the US clamping down like Europe did with the General Data Protection Regulation, which could’ve essentially put them out of business,” Siciliano says.
So what should you do? Work with a data removal service, or make data removal your hobby? Or just throw up your hands and do nothing?
Ultimately, the answer is both satisfying and unsatisfying: It’s entirely up to you. For now, unless new laws rein in the data brokers, the best option for data removal services, whether you hire yourself or a professional, depends on your time, patience, budget and commitment to privacy.
