In the past few years, you've probably learned a few tricks to be smarter about what information you post and share online. You don't give out your home address, you don't post your phone number on social media, and you certainly don't give your mother's maiden name or the street you grew up on.
You also might have Googled your name (don't be ashamed, we've all done it!), and found a lot of websites that already have your information, even if you've never heard of them. These websites, like Whitepages, MyLife, BeenVerified, and Spokeo, are called Data Brokers. Data brokers' business model relies on finding, posting, and selling your personal information.
No matter how careful you've learned to be online, these data brokers are experts and finding your personal information, and posting it online for anyone to find.
Luckily, that is where DeleteMe helps take the burden off of your hands and restore your privacy. DeleteMe removes you from the leading data broker sites and makes sure that you stay off of them, all year round.
What Are Data Brokers?
Unfortunately, no matter how much you've wisened up about online privacy, it's likely that your information has already been posted on Data Broker websites like Whitepages, BeenVerified or Spokeo. Data brokers are corporations that collect huge amounts of personally identifiable information (PII), and package it all together to create 'profiles' or 'listings'.
These listings could include your full name, home address, past residences, email address, vehicle registration number, birth date, phone number, lists of your relatives' names, or even photos of your home. It can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to get your information off of all of these sites - and there are essentially countless numbers of data brokers.
Data brokers crawl the web searching for your personal information. Then, they compile anything and everything that they can find and package it up into personal listing profiles about you. Most of them find this information from government records as well as other public records, such as your voter registration, birth certificate, or marriage license. They can also find it from self-reported information (like mailing lists and surveys), social media, and from other data brokers.
Even though it is normally difficult to access this information, because most of this information is already public in nature, data brokers are able to dig it up and post it online, for anyone to see with just a quick Google search.
Data brokers put all of your personal information in one easy-to-find place. Unfortunately, this is all perfectly legal - and can be very dangerous.
Data Brokers are Dangerous
Data broker sites like Whitepages, MyLife, Radaris, and Intelius are typically in the top 10 search results after you Google a person's name. When you click on the link or search for them directly on the site, you will find that individual's profile, with information like their name, address, age, and gender. Usually, there is just enough information posted for free for the searcher to be able to confirm that the person in the listing is the person they were looking for.
Then they can buy a full report from the data broker with even more information for a very small fee, often less than $25.
That means that there is very little stopping anyone - including criminals, hackers, identity thieves, fraudsters, and stalkers-from finding out your address, phone number, birth date, and more. They make it extremely difficult to remove your information, forcing you to go through tedious processes that are unique to each site. What's worse, they will repost your information, even after you've removed it.
How Can I Protect Myself?
Each data broker typically has its own unique opt-out policy. Unfortunately for us, many of these opt-out policies are difficult to find, so it can take hours to remove yourself from every website. Data brokers want to make it as inconvenient as possible for you to remove your information-forcing you to fax them opt-out forms or mail them a copy of your ID. What's worse, is that even after you have gone through the effort of removing your information, it could be re-posted as the data broker continues to crawl the web and create personal listings.
Of course, you could do all of the opt-outs yourself: comb the internet, looking on each data broker website for your information, and figuring out each site's unique opt-out process, which could include filling out an online form or even mailing them a written removal request and copy of your ID.
DeleteMe provides a free DIY Opt-Out Guide to make it easier to find all of the removal processes in one place. They know that everyone has the right to privacy, and are committed to making it accessible for anyone. But just one look at the DIY Guide will show you just how many data brokers are out there. Instead of going through each site yourself, and then checking again every few months to make sure your information stayed removed, it's much easier to DeleteMe do the hard work for you: get your peace of mind, and your privacy, back.
Stay Protected With DeleteMe
DeleteMe is a hands-free subscription service that removes you and your family's personally identifiable information from data broker websites. DeleteMe's team of privacy experts are well trained in privacy policies and opt-out procedures, so they can quickly and easily remove your personal information from data broker websites, saving you a great deal of time and effort. Real DeleteMe experts use a variety of manual and automated processes to find your personal information on each data broker website, and complete the opt-out processes for you, making sure that the process has worked and your information is removed.
You might wonder why DeleteMe is a subscription service. The answer is simple: as we mentioned, your personal information often repopulates after it has been removed, as data brokers continue to comb the web and post personal information. DeleteMe checks each site every on a regular basis, even after you've been removed, to make sure that your information stays private. By offering DeleteMe as a subscription, they are able to make sure your information stays off of these sites.
Before using DeleteMe, a Google search for your name could turn up an entire page of data brokers trying to sell your phone number, address, and more. After DeleteMe has removed you from the leading data broker websites, it will be much harder to find your personal information from an online search.
How Does DeleteMe Work?
After you've signed up for DeleteMe, you will be asked to complete your DeleteMe Data Sheet. This data sheet is how the privacy experts know what information you need removing from the data broker websites. It includes your name, nicknames and common misspellings of your name, current and past addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
This is the information that the data brokers already have, and so DeleteMe's privacy experts need it to remove you from the data broker websites. Rest assured, DeleteMe has proven to be an expert in the space, and they make it clear that you can trust DeleteMe with your personal information.
After that, you simply wait for DeleteMe's expert team to do the hard work for you. Within seven days of your date of signup, you will receive a detailed DeleteMe Privacy Report showing which data brokers already had your information, what's currently being done to remove that information and the length of time that it typically takes for that data broker to process an opt-out request and remove your information from their website. Some data brokers remove the information immediately, but unfortunately, some of the worst data brokers out there can take much longer to remove your information - in some cases over 6 weeks!
DeleteMe will keep you updated on the status of your opt-outs, sending you a new report on a regular basis so you know exactly which websites have re-posted your information, and that DeleteMe kept it safe.
You Can Trust DeleteMe
In addition to making sure your information is removed from data broker sites, DeleteMe makes sure to store the information they have about you in a safe and secure way. First of all, they will never track, store, or sell your personal information to anyone, under any circumstance. They only use it as necessary to carry out their service and remove you from data broker websites. They also allow you to use Two-Factor Authentication when logging in to your DeleteMe account.
This adds an extra step to your basic log-in procedure, requiring you to confirm your login with a verification code, adding an extra layer of security.
DeleteMe's privacy experts are real people who personally remove your information from each data broker website, making sure that your personal information was fully removed and stays safe. Since 2011, they have processed more than 10 Million consumer opt-outs; it's clear that the team behind DeleteMeknows what they are doing.
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Conclusion: Protect Yourself With DeleteMe ( DeleteMe Review)
DeleteMe is for anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with their personal information being publicly displayed and sold online. They make it easy for you to protect yourself and your family from those looking to commit identity theft, financial fraud, stalkers, or worse. Without DeleteMe, your personal information could be posted on a data broker website without your knowledge.
Protect yourself by letting DeleteMe monitor your information and keep you safe.