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CNET
18-07-2025
- CNET
We Recommend These 9 Tips to Safeguard Your Home Address From the Internet
Personal details like your phone number and home address are meant to be kept secure. Unfortunately, thanks to data brokers, your home address is often only a Google search away -- we understand if that gives you the privacy ick. You are not alone; several Reddit users worry about their safety because of the same. People who have moved homes for safety issues or just don't want to give lots of junk mail probably don't want their address so easily scanned and updated. The problem is that selling your address and especially when your address changes, can mean big bucks for everyone from your bank to the US Postal Service, which is how advertisers get their hands on your mailbox and fill it with junk. That also makes it easy for burglars to spoof an address as part of identity theft. Fortunately, there are effective ways to remove your home address from the internet, and we've found them all. Here's what you need to do to keep this bit of personal info safe. 1. Blur your current address on map apps If you want to blur more than what's in the black/red box, use the + button to zoom in. Nelson Aguilar/CNET The street view features on map apps can be very helpful if you're a little lost, but they can also feel like a privacy irritation when anyone can type in your address and get a view of your home. That's why Google and others have provided ways to blur your home on street views and image capture so users can't get too good of a look. As you'll find in our complete guide, you can visit Google Maps on your desktop computer and enter your address. Then just use the Report a Problem link and you can manually choose what parts of the street view to blur so you and your home are protected. Apple Maps, with its Look Around tool, offers a similar privacy function, but you'll have to request it specifically. Send an email to mapsimagecollection@ and provide it with your home address and a detailed description of your home in the Look Around feature. Apple will then blur it for your privacy. 2. Report your address when you find it in search results Googling your contact info is always a good idea if you're concerned about privacy. If you spot your address showing up in a Google Search result -- especially when Googling your name or other general information -- you can make a specific request to Google to remove it. To do this, go to your Google Account, where you can find the icon option to Manage Your Google Account. Then you can select Data & Privacy > History Settings > My Activity. Choose Other Activity in the left side menu, scroll all the way down until you find the Results About You section, and select Get Started. Visit Google's settings to find Removal Requests for certain information. Screenshot by Tyler Lacoma/CNET This option allows you to create an alert whenever Google notices your address in a search. From the alert section of the Results About You menu, you can request to have that information scrubbed from the internet with the Remove Result option. Google won't always do this: It will leave up addresses found on government sites, news pieces and some businesses, but it's a quick way to remove your address if it's popping up in annoying places. 3. Hide your address on social media Now is the perfect time to check your social media accounts and see if your address is included in your profile information. You may have added it a long time ago without really thinking about it, but social profiles don't need your address -- or for that matter, pictures of your home and street. Visit your account information, the "about you" pages and other spots to ensure your address doesn't appear there. 4. Check the Whitepages Whitepages (as opposed to the business-oriented Yellow Pages) is one of the largest collections of home addresses online and often the first stop for someone trying to look up a specific address. The good news is that while your address is probably in Whitepages, getting it removed takes only a few seconds. Just visit the Whitepages Suppression Request webpage and paste in the URL of your Whitepages profile, then request that it be removed. Past your profile URL in the Whitepage's opt out form. Screenshot by Tyler Lacoma/CNET 5. Remove accounts or request your address be removed Chances are good you input your home address when signing up for a variety of websites and services. Some of those accounts are important -- you probably want Amazon to keep your home address if you get a lot of shipments, for example. But others are unnecessary, especially if you don't use that account much anymore. In these cases, we recommend deleting your account or contacting customer service and requesting that your profile be removed. You can also sift through your promotion emails to get some reminders of the services you may have signed up for with your address. Common targets for cleaning up include: Shopping website logins Old apps you no longer use Political organizations Nonprofits and religious organizations Old subscription services for goods or online content Sports website profiles Contest websites 6. Invest in a post office box for deliveries If you've never signed up for a post office box, you may be surprised how easy it is. You can apply online at USPS, pick from five different sizes of local boxes and get a box number for your local post office. Prices vary by size and location, but they tend to cost around $30 for a box large enough to get packages in, down to around $15 for an envelope box. A post office box also allows you to save a signature for important delivery and a few other tricks. PO Box costs vary by location and size. Screenshot by Tyler Lacoma/CNET When you have a post office box, you can substitute it for nearly any account that wants a shipping address, keeping your home address info offline and out of the hands of advertisers. If you're willing to pay, it's one of the most effective privacy options. Some people also prefer to give out the address of a local third-party shipping store so that packages can be delivered to and picked up there. This may work, but it's important that you contact your local shipping store and ask if it allows it, or it could create a delay fiasco. 7. Set up a virtual mailbox (no, not your email) Virtual mailbox services are common for some businesses, frequent travelers and those highly protective of their address. A virtual mailbox receives your mail, tosses the junk and scans the important pieces of mail, then forwards them to your account so you can view them online wherever you are. Virtual mailboxes typically cost around $10 to $20 per month. You'll need to find a virtual mailbox company that offers services in your area and jump through a few legal hoops to authorize it to handle your mail -- steps the service should walk you through. Common options include Anytime Mailbox, PostScan Mail, LegalZoom Virtual Mail (previously Earth Class) and IPostal1. Arlo's smart camera has a ton of features, but it may be too much for some users. Arlo/Amazon 8. Avoid using smart home location settings A number of smart home devices, including powerful security cameras and doorbells, will ask for or require your home address. They do this to enable more advanced mapping features, settings like Ring's Bird's Eye view, weather reports, climate information and other capabilities. However, if you want to protect your home address from outside eyes and potential sales, try to avoid smart home technology that requires a location. You can usually find alternatives to devices that want your address, such as local storage-only security cameras with simplified account setup. However, signing up for any kind of professional monitoring or subscription service may require address info: You may be able to get away with entering a post office box or similar alternative, but security systems will generally want your real address. 9. Enable a VPN for extra protection Internet service providers don't just know your IP address, they can also find out your physical address or at least its proximity. If you'd like to keep that information to yourself, one of the best options is a VPN, or virtual private network. These services encrypt all your online data and allow you to hide your location in many different ways. Some are free, but the best VPNs typically come with a monthly subscription that starts at just a few dollars. Take a look at our list of the best VPNs, or look up your browsers to see if they offer built-in VPN capabilities. Bonus tip: Only give out your address when required A birdhouse like mailbox on a forested street. guntasmidre / 500px via getty This step helps all the other tips work: Keep your home address protected by giving it out only when you absolutely have to. For most people, that includes opening a bank account, signing up to vote and other important life tasks. But in many other cases you can provide an alternative address that doesn't give away the exact location of your home but still gives you the access and mail destination you need. You can provide this address when you want shipments or mail or when other organizations like a gym, health clinic or local sign-up sheet ask. Start this habit when you implement any address protection measures. With your home address more private online, consider adding protection with the best cameras without subscriptions, tips on deterring burglars and the top home security mistakes we're all making.
New York Times
18-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
The Best Data Removal Service Can Help You Scrub Your Internet Presence
Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter By Max Eddy Max Eddy is a writer who has covered privacy and security—including password managers, VPNs, security keys, and more—for over a decade. Updated June 27, 2025 If you've ever Googled yourself — who hasn't? — you've probably found your personal information for sale on websites belonging to data brokers. These companies collect phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, and even information on family members, and then sell your information to anyone willing to pay. You can manually submit opt-out requests to data brokers yourself, but there are hundreds of them. Data removal services do the heavy lifting for you — for a price. After testing nine services, we've concluded that the set-it-and-forget-it design and reasonable pricing of DeleteMe make it the best choice for most people. Our budget pick, EasyOptOuts, has fewer features, but for $20 a year, it provides a cheap and easy way to improve your online privacy. DeleteMe is easy to set up and even easier to use: For $129 a year, you receive periodic reports on what data it has removed on your behalf, but otherwise it does the work for you. The most interaction you'll have with a data removal service is when you enter your data, and DeleteMe does an excellent job of streamlining this process. It's comprehensive — covering names, addresses, and even relatives — but flexible enough that you don't need to remember every little detail to reap the benefits. Once you've done your part, you might never need to interact with it again. DeleteMe sends periodic reports that list what information it found and what steps it took to remove your data. EasyOptOuts matches its barebones design with an affordable annual price. It's the cheapest data removal service we've tested, and it gets the job done. EasyOptOuts is a less flexible service than others we tested, and it provides minimal information about the data it has removed on your behalf. But the price, just $20 a year, makes it easy to overlook this basic service's limitations. If you're interested in getting your personal information off the internet but reluctant to pay the high price of other services, EasyOptOuts is a solid option. Explore all articles I'm a senior staff writer at Wirecutter, covering security, privacy, and software. I have reviewed products designed to safeguard online privacy for 13 years. For this guide: I researched 16 data removal services and enrolled with nine of them, granting them as much information as they requested. I personally evaluated those services over a period of two months. I designed a long-term testing experiment to evaluate the efficacy of data removal services. Five Wirecutter staffers will be using the services for at least a year to inform our recommendations. Anyone concerned about their online privacy may benefit from a data removal service. If you type your name with 'address' or 'phone number' into a search engine, there's a good chance you'll find data brokers who have your personal information for sale. Although you can sometimes manually request that these brokers take your information down, doing so is a tedious process that you need to repeat for each data broker. Data removal services promise to handle the nitty-gritty of removing your information from data broker sites for a fee. They also keep looking for your data across the galaxy of data brokers and continue filing removal requests as long as you pay for the service. But even using a data removal service doesn't completely scrub your online identity. A representative of EasyOptOuts told us that data brokers may repost information that has been taken down, though whether that happens is unpredictable. The rep also told us that the company doesn't believe its service will lead to people getting fewer spam calls, so set your expectations accordingly. Also, not every data removal service is available to customers outside the US — DeleteMe is available in 11 other countries, but EasyOptOuts is US-only. Data brokers aren't the only source for your personal information. Many people routinely provide lots of information about themselves on social media platforms, which use that data to serve targeted ads. Advertisers, like data brokers, are keen to learn as much as they can about you, and they use a variety of tools to try to track you between websites, which is why we recommend using a tracker blocker such as Privacy Badger. Once you start taking control of your personal information with a data removal service, build on that momentum to start improving your security hygiene, too. Using a password manager and enabling two-factor authentication wherever it's available are two easy ways to make yourself safer online. Share this article with a friend. We considered the following criteria when making our picks: A standalone tool: Some data removal services are bundled together with other tools, such as VPNs and antivirus. Although such packages might provide subscribers with more utility, we focused on companies that provided data removal services without additional, questionably useful features tacked on. Some data removal services are bundled together with other tools, such as VPNs and antivirus. Although such packages might provide subscribers with more utility, we focused on companies that provided data removal services without additional, questionably useful features tacked on. Easy, flexible data entry: The most interaction you'll have with a data removal service is giving it your personal information, so the ideal data removal service should make this process as painless as possible. We preferred services that are flexible enough to use whatever information you can provide and do not reject incomplete information. The most interaction you'll have with a data removal service is giving it your personal information, so the ideal data removal service should make this process as painless as possible. We preferred services that are flexible enough to use whatever information you can provide and do not reject incomplete information. Reasonable price: You can subscribe to a data removal service for as little as $20 a year or as much as $300, with significantly higher pricing for additional features and family accounts. We gave preference to services that met our minimum criteria at an affordable price. Data removal service Cost per year Family discount or plan EasyOptOuts $20 None Incogni $99 $198 per year for four people DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro $100 None Mozilla Monitor $108 None Kanary Copilot $120 50% off family members' accounts DeleteMe $129 $229 per year for two people, $329 per year for four people Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover $100 $233-per-year Multi-device Ultimate bundle for two adults and up to 10 children; also includes antivirus, VPN, and other tools Privacy Bee $197 None Optery $249 (tiered pricing; custom removals available at this tier) 20% discount for two, 25% for three, 30% for four or more accounts Transparency: We gave preference to data removal services that showed what they found and when it was removed. We gave preference to data removal services that showed what they found and when it was removed. Custom removal: Your information can pop up in surprising places, which is why a data removal service should ideally have a system for customers to report sightings of their information online and have the company investigate whether it can be removed. Your information can pop up in surprising places, which is why a data removal service should ideally have a system for customers to report sightings of their information online and have the company investigate whether it can be removed. Number of data brokers covered: With rare exception, most data removal services say they cover at least 100 data brokers. This is a very difficult figure to verify independently and as such we don't consider this to be the most important criterion. If the data removal company can prove that it found your information and removed it, and if it offers custom removals, the actual number of data brokers doesn't matter as much. With rare exception, most data removal services say they cover at least 100 data brokers. This is a very difficult figure to verify independently and as such we don't consider this to be the most important criterion. If the data removal company can prove that it found your information and removed it, and if it offers custom removals, the actual number of data brokers doesn't matter as much. Trustworthy security practices: You need to provide an enormous amount of personal information to a data removal service in order for it to track down and remove your data. The company, in turn, must explain what measures it uses to protect your data, and it should not sell your information for profit. When setting up our accounts, we provided as much information as possible to the data removal service. In most cases, this included names and variations of names, a birthdate, current and previous addresses, and email addresses. A few services requested more information, such as the names of relatives, and some asked for a limited power of attorney and a redacted copy of a driver's license. We evaluated each service not only on its ease of setup but also on how flexible it was. For example: Some services required a full address and would not accept a partial one. That's needlessly restrictive and annoying if you don't remember the precise house number for a place you lived at 15 years ago. Once the data removal services started their work, we evaluated the breadth of information they provided to customers; the best services report where they've found your personal information, as well as what action they've taken. We also looked at what actions companies expected customers to take. Lastly, we read each service's privacy policy and contacted companies as necessary to better understand how they operated and what they did to protect customers. We culled the list of finalists to five: DeleteMe, EasyOptOuts, Incogni, Optery, and Privacy Bee. In March 2025 we recruited Wirecutter staffers to embark on a year-long journey to test each one long-term. Each person is tracking what information their assigned service says it has taken down each month. Our testers are also regularly searching for their information on a set of five data brokers that all of these data removal services claim to cover. We will continue to update this guide with their findings. I Tried, and Failed, to Disappear From the Internet You don't have to pay for a data removal service in order to get data brokers to take down your data. You can start by simply searching for your name and 'address' or 'phone number,' and browsing the results. Sites that claim to have your information should also have an option to request that it be removed; this usually involves filling out forms, responding to emails, and sometimes providing more personal information in order to prove who you are. Most of the data removal services we tested include detailed instructions to remove your data from specific data broker sites. Some, like DeleteMe and Optery, perform a free scan to start you off in finding the companies selling your data. Others, such as Kanary Copilot and Consumer Reports's Permission Slip, help identify data brokers and streamline removal requests, but you still do the bulk of the work. Alternatively, you can skip engaging with data brokers and instead try to have search results that contain your personal information suppressed. Google's Results About You tool generates reports about sites that might have your personal information and allows you to request that such sites be removed from search results. Even after I had most of my data removed from broker websites, Results About You still found and removed several results that listed my information. However, the data brokers still have my data — it's just not as easy to find. DeleteMe for MacOS DeleteMe is easy to set up and even easier to use: For $129 a year, you receive periodic reports on what data it has removed on your behalf, but otherwise it does the work for you. With a successful track record that stretches back more than a decade, DeleteMe may well be the original data removal service. The company offers a comprehensive and hands-off approach to removing your data, and we specifically appreciate the breadth of information that DeleteMe covers and its flexibility regarding how much information you provide. DeleteMe's high-quality experience and thoughtful design make it stand out from the rest, even services that cover more data brokers. Setting up your account is painless and comprehensive. DeleteMe, like other data removal services, requires you to enter your legal name and several variations on it at setup. We really liked that it frequently needed only partial information, such as the city and state, but not street, of previous addresses. That's great, because we couldn't remember every place we've lived over the past two decades. Some data brokers, on the profiles they construct about you, list people they think are related to you, so we liked that DeleteMe was one of the very few data removal services that let us include information on family members in our profile. DeleteMe doesn't remove relatives' information (at least, not without a family plan), but this information might improve its results. DeleteMe does have two requirements that might scare some new users: It asks that you grant it a limited power of attorney and upload a redacted photo of an ID, such as a driver's license. The former allows the company to act on your behalf; it's restricted to data removal activities, and you can revoke it at any time. The latter ensures that you are who you say you are, and DeleteMe includes tools for removing your ID number in its uploader. Five of the nine data removal services we tested asked for a limited power of attorney, but only DeleteMe and Optery asked for a state ID. You never have to interact with it again — if you don't want to. Once you set up DeleteMe, you don't need to do anything else. Within seven days you receive your first report detailing what DeleteMe has done on your behalf. The company then emails you fresh reports quarterly on what it has found or removed, and it occasionally asks permission to add a new data broker to search (you should grant that permission). If you want to log in more frequently, you can view a large, colorful chart that DeleteMe updates with how much information it has removed on your behalf, and you can browse old reports, too. It offers additional tools that can keep your information out of data brokers' hands. You can create masked emails that automatically forward to your primary email address, which you can use to sign up for services and then abandon if they become overwhelmed with spam. You can also create masked phone numbers that forward to your real phone number, which gives you an additional layer of privacy, though they cost $7 per number. The DeleteMe Search Yourself tool lets you run Google searches and then mark the results as something you want to keep, something you want removed, or something that's not related to you. (Privacy Bee has a similar Manage Trust tool, but DeleteMe's is easier to understand.) You can also submit custom removal requests, in a separate form. DeleteMe is reasonably priced, compared with the competition. Across the data removal services we looked at, we found an average annual cost of about $118 — just a few dollars less than DeleteMe's $129-per-year price tag. If you decide to cancel your subscription, DeleteMe will prorate the cost and refund you. DeleteMe also offers a repeatable free scan of data brokers and includes numerous DIY guides that can help you send your own take-down requests. Flaws but not dealbreakers It doesn't show much proof of its work. Optery includes detailed screenshots of the data brokers that are selling your information, and it updates those frequently. In contrast, DeleteMe has a more hands-off approach: It sends you quarterly reports listing the sites and types of information for sale but offers no screenshots to back that up. It doesn't cover as many data brokers as other services do. On its website, DeleteMe lists hundreds of data brokers it searches and sends removal requests to, but if you subtract all the ones that are limited to corporate-account tiers or special requests, the list shrinks to about 100. Optery and Privacy Bee cover 635 and 914 brokers, respectively, but also cost significantly more. However, you can ask DeleteMe to take down other information you come across using the custom removal request option. Does covering more data brokers necessarily give you better results? That's something we'll be looking at in our long-term testing. Set-and-forget means you won't get much feedback. We think most people would prefer a service that demands very little time and attention, but DeleteMe's approach does come at the cost of your knowing what it's up to. Kanary Copilot, Optery, and many other data removal services show a stream of new information about where your data is and what the company is doing about it. With DeleteMe, you have to trust the process. EasyOptOuts EasyOptOuts matches its barebones design with an affordable annual price. It's the cheapest data removal service we've tested, and it gets the job done. EasyOptOuts offers a simple, low-risk way to try a data removal service. It's far cheaper than the other services we tested, and although it doesn't give you as many features, its low price makes it a solid, entry-level option to start removing your data from the internet. It's so cheap. EasyOptOuts costs $20 per year — not per month, per year. That's a fraction of the cost of our top pick. Just about anyone can afford to sign up. It's a set-and-forget experience. Like DeleteMe, EasyOptOuts doesn't give you real-time updates on where it has found your data. Three times a year, it sends you an email listing the data brokers that EasyOptOuts found with your information, as well as the companies that it has asked to remove your data. These reports aren't even available on the EasyOptOuts site, so be sure not to miss any in your inbox. EasyOptOut's website lists 111 data brokers it covers. That's less than most of the other services we tested but a bit more than DeleteMe's core offering. EasyOptOuts also lists 26 additional data brokers that the company claims are downstream from brokers it does cover, and says that your information will likely disappear from them, as well. The company says that you can email requests for the service to look at a specific data broker. DeleteMe's custom removal request system is more robust. EasyOptOuts told us that it uses an entirely automated system for removing customer data. Its FAQ page notes that one major data broker uses 'an opt-out process that [EasyOptOuts] can't support.' We'll be curious to see if this automated approach yields good results in our long-term testing. Flaws but not dealbreakers The low price comes at the cost of features and flexibility. The reports from EasyOptOuts are extremely light reading. They don't even include what information it found (which DeleteMe reports) or screenshots (which Optery provides). Although you can email and request that EasyOptOuts look at a particular data broker, the company told us that its system is entirely automated, so we're skeptical that this could be as effective as the custom removal requests that other companies offer. Entering information isn't as easy as with our top pick. It's tricky to enter your information into EasyOptOuts, because the service places annoying limits on name variations and requires complete addresses. EasyOptOuts told us that it hasn't undergone any third-party audits. That isn't a dealbreaker, but we would like to see the company invest in more ways to prove its trustworthiness to customers. DeleteMe has undergone third-party audits of both its internal security practices and its financials. Share this article with a friend. We found a lot to like about Optery. Its tiered pricing is flexible for tight budgets, and it lets you choose between providing additional information or having it search only a smaller (but still large) pool of data brokers. Optery is also one of the few data removal services that show screenshots of data broker sites as proof that those brokers hold your information. It does come at a cost, however: Although pricing starts at $39 a year, you need to pay $249 to get custom removals. We prefer our top pick. We like the slick look of DuckDuckGo Privacy Pro. We also appreciate that it stores the personal information you provide on your computer, not on DuckDuckGo's servers. At $100 a year, Privacy Pro is reasonably priced, but it's bundled with other services that you may not use, so judging its value was harder for us. Also, you must have the DuckDuckGo browser installed to use it. Still, if you're particularly privacy-conscious, you might want to take a look at this service — but only if you need a bundle. If there's an 800-pound gorilla among data removal services, it's Privacy Bee. For $197 a year, this company searches for your data across a staggering 914 data brokers. However, we found Privacy Bee's interface overwhelming and its system for trusting some companies with your data questionably useful. Its account-setup process leaves a lot to be desired, too. Permission Slip by Consumer Reports is an iPhone-only app that gamifies managing your data with a Tinder-style interface and provides templates for you to easily send removal requests to companies that sell your information. It doesn't search for your data as other services do, so it isn't a data removal service in the same sense as our top pick, but it does walk you through how to send data removal requests to many sites and companies that aren't traditional data brokers, such as Wendy's and Slack. If you pay $60 a year, it will blast out removal requests to a preset list of 100 data brokers and have a human fill out 25 removal requests on your behalf. Our top pick is more comprehensive. Surfshark VPN is behind Incogni, a well-designed service that costs $99 a year, but that price increases to $180 when you add the option for unlimited custom removals. Incogni's most compelling offer is its family plan, which covers five people for $198. We like the detail that Incogni provides about where it has found your data and what it has done, but our top pick is cheaper and easier to use. Kanary Copilot is an unusual service that requires you to download the iPhone app to create an account, but after you've created it, you can access it from any web browser. Like Permission Slip, Kanary Copilot is adept at helping you better control who has your data and provides much of its service for free, but as with that service, we disliked having to take action on our own to get data removed. We like its design and ease of setup, but Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover does only so much automatically — to address everything the service found, we had to follow the included instructions to request the data removal ourselves. If you're keen on privacy or a fan of Firefox, Mozilla Monitor seems like an easy choice, but this service is not what it seems. The data removal services under Mozilla Monitor's hood are provided by OneRep, whose founder has admitted to also founding several data brokers. Mozilla has pledged to find a new vendor, but at this writing OneRep is still powering Mozilla Monitor. This article has been updated to clarify EasyOptOut's compatibility with major data brokers. This article was edited by Caitlin McGarry and Jason Chen.
Fox News
17-07-2025
- Fox News
The data broker opt-out steps every retiree should take today
The tragic events in Minnesota last month stand as a solemn reminder for all Americans to reflect and take action. The gunman who targeted lawmakers used people search websites to hunt down his victims' home addresses before carrying out his deadly attacks. Police found a handwritten notebook in his vehicle containing a list of 11 data broker sites, along with notes about which were free and what personal data they displayed. The sites included TruePeopleSearch, Spokeo, Pipl, PeopleFinders, BeenVerified, Whitepages, TruthFinder, Intelius, Ownerly, USSearch, and PeopleLooker. These same sites contain your information, too, and they sell it to anyone with a credit card. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide - free when you join my The $200 billion data broker industry includes over 4,000 companies worldwide. Here are some major players: These companies build detailed profiles that include your name, address, phone number, email, age, marital status, children's information, education, job, income, political leanings, health details, location data and purchasing habits. They gather this data from public records, social media, shopping habits, and your smartphone's location tracking. Data brokers do more than invade your privacy. They create serious real-world risks that affect your finances, safety, and overall quality of life. Financial fraud: Scammers buy detailed financial profiles to specifically target seniors and people facing financial difficulties. Physical safety threats: They sell your home address and phone number, putting domestic violence survivors and anyone who values privacy at serious risk. Medicare and healthcare scams: Scammers use your personal details to target you with fake Medicare offers, bogus health insurance plans, and medical identity theft schemes that can cost you thousands. Social discrimination: Companies use your data to determine your loan rates and insurance costs, all without telling you how you're being judged. Spam calls and robocalls: Telemarketers and scammers buy your phone number and pester you with unwanted calls about everything from fake warranties to phony charity requests. You can remove your information from data brokers, but they make it incredibly difficult on purpose. Thousands of data broker sites exist, and trying to remove your data is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Even after you remove your info, it often pops back up again. If you're determined to take control of your data on your own, then here's what the step-by-step process typically looks like. 1. Search: Find out which companies have your data by searching for yourself on major people-search sites and checking what comes up. However, many databases are private and hidden from view, so you can't always tell who has your info. 2. Visit: Go to each website individually. 3. Locate: Hunt for their opt-out procedures, which are usually buried in the fine print. 4. Submit: Fill out and send removal requests. Note that some sites may require a phone call or additional forms. 5. Follow up: Chase down companies that ignore your requests, which is unfortunately common. 6. Monitor: Keep checking in regularly to see if your information reappears. Privacy experts say handling the major data brokers alone takes 10 to 15 hours, plus ongoing monitoring. If you've tried it yourself and found the process overwhelming, there's a smarter approach. Professional data removal services can handle it for you: While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren't cheap - and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It's what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: It's a scary truth: data brokers have collected thousands of data points on nearly everyone with an online presence. Trying to manage all of that on your own can be overwhelming, and for most people, it simply isn't practical. Your personal information is already out there, being bought and sold every day. If you're retired or living on a fixed income, you may be an even bigger target. This isn't just about protecting your privacy. It's about safeguarding your identity, your safety, and your peace of mind. Should the government be doing more to stop data brokers from selling your personal information? Let us know by writing us at Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide - free when you join my Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
Fox News
30-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
9 online privacy risks you probably don't know about
Print Close By Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report Published June 30, 2025 Privacy risks are hiding in plain sight, as your personal data is likely being collected, tracked, and sold without your knowledge. It's not just your name and email out there-data brokers are gathering much more sensitive information about your daily life, including your sleep patterns, medical visits, online habits, and even your relationship status. These details are compiled into detailed personal profiles and sold to advertisers, insurance companies, political campaigns, and in some cases, cybercriminals. What makes this especially concerning is that most of it happens quietly in the background, often without your consent. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join. 9 personal details you are sharing online without realizing it You may think you're protecting your privacy, but chances are you're revealing more than you think through your everyday digital activity. 1) How sleep and fitness data is collected and sold Fitness trackers, bedtime apps, and even your phone's settings feed data brokers info about when you sleep, wake, and work out. That's highly sensitive health data. A recent data leak exposed over 8 million patient records , allowing cybercriminals to build detailed medical profiles that could be used to commit identity theft, insurance fraud, and conduct phishing attacks . Recent research reveals that over 28% of Americans had their SSN breached since 2020, exposing them to increased risk of experiencing cyberattacks. YOUR HEALTH DATA IS BEING SOLD WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT 2) Your streaming habits are being tracked Every time you binge a show or stream a documentary, your smart TV, streaming apps, and browser record exactly what you're watching, when you watch it, and how long you stay tuned in. This data helps build a behavioral profile of your tastes, routines, and emotional triggers. It's not just used for harmless recommendations; advertisers and data brokers tap into this to predict your mood, interests, and even potential vulnerabilities. Ever wonder why oddly specific ads start showing up after a documentary binge? This is why. 3) How long you read articles can be used to profile you It's not just the articles you click, it's how long you linger on them that matters. Data brokers monitor whether you skim or dive deep into topics like health scares, financial worries, or personal relationships. The time you spend on certain pages helps them identify your fears, desires, and private interests. This insight can later be used for hyper-targeted ads or, worse, by malicious actors looking to exploit your anxieties. 16 BILLION PASSWORDS LEAKED IN MASSIVE DATA BREACH 4) How data brokers infer your relationship status You might keep your relationship off social media, but your online footprint gives you away. Your purchase history, social check-ins, and frequent location visits tell data brokers whether you're single, dating, engaged, or married. They can even infer relationship trouble by analyzing certain patterns, like increased visits to bars or late-night takeout orders. This deeply personal information can end up in a detailed profile on some sketchy website you've never heard about . 5) Your location data may reveal medical visits Your phone's location data doesn't just map your commute; it tracks visits to places like fertility clinics, addiction centers, and therapists' offices. That data gets sold to brokers who categorize you based on these visits, sometimes flagging you for health-related concerns you haven't publicly shared. One study found that 74% of health-related data was sold without users' knowledge or consent. This information could be used to hike insurance rates, deny you payouts, or target you with sensitive, intrusive ads. 6) Home value and crime stats used to target you Public records make it easy for data brokers to access your home's value, tax history, and neighborhood crime rates. These are used to target you with aggressive refinancing offers, alarm system ads, or moving service promotions. Scammers also use this data to profile households they think are vulnerable based on property values or crime rates. The result is an increased flood of junk mail, spam calls, targeted online ads you never asked for, or worse, like physical safety risks. 7) Data brokers know who you live with By monitoring Wi-Fi connections, shared deliveries, smart home devices, and online purchase patterns, data brokers can determine exactly how many people live in your home. They often build profiles on your family members too—even if they've never created an online account themselves. This allows advertisers to tailor ads to your household, making your family's online activities part of your digital profile. It's invasive, and most people have no idea it's happening. 8) Your political views can be tracked through online behavior Even if you keep politics off your social media feeds, your browsing history tells a different story. The news articles you read, political newsletters you subscribe to, and nonprofits you donate to all get tracked. Data brokers use this to place you on lists of likely voters for certain parties or causes. This can lead to politically targeted ads , donation requests, and even manipulation attempts around election seasons, all without your explicit permission. 10 SIGNS YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS BEING SOLD ONLINE 9) Life milestones are tracked before you announce them The internet picks up on your major life milestones long before you announce them. If you start browsing for engagement rings, baby gear, or moving boxes, data brokers immediately flag those behaviors. This triggers waves of ads and marketing campaigns designed to capitalize on your upcoming life changes. In many cases, you'll start seeing offers and promotions months before you tell your closest friends or family members. How to find out which data brokers have your information and remove it While no service can completely erase every trace of your data online, using a trusted data removal service is one of the most effective steps you can take. These services actively monitor and submit removal requests to hundreds of data broker websites, saving you hours of tedious work. It is not cheap, but when it comes to protecting your personal privacy, the cost is worth it. Reducing the amount of exposed data tied to your name lowers your risk of being targeted by scammers who often combine breached data with what they find online. If you are ready to take control of your personal information, start with my top picks for data removal services. Check out my top picks for data removal services here . Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web Kurt's key takeaways Your online activity reveals more than you think, and you do not need to overshare on social media for your data to end up in the wrong hands. Everything from your location history to your streaming habits can be tracked, sold, and used to build a profile on you. That profile can be used by advertisers, data brokers, political groups, or even cybercriminals. The good news is that you can push back. Being aware of what you are sharing is the first step. Second, using a trusted data removal service can make a real difference. You do not need to be paranoid, but you do need to be proactive. Taking control of your digital footprint is one of the smartest things you can do to protect your privacy in today's hyper-connected world. Do you think more needs to be done to stop companies from being allowed to know everything about you while you're left in the dark? Let us know by writing us at . For more of my tech tips & security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to . Ask Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to cover . Follow Kurt on his social channels Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions: New from Kurt: Copyright 2025 All rights reserved. Print Close URL
The Verge
25-06-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Hundreds of data brokers might be breaking state laws, say privacy advocates
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a nonprofit privacy rights group have called on several states to investigate why 'hundreds' of data brokers haven't registered with state consumer protection agencies in accordance with local laws. An analysis done in collaboration with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) found that many data brokers have failed to register in all of the four states with laws that require it, preventing consumers in some states from learning what kinds of information these brokers collect and how to opt out. These findings could be explained by variations in the definition of a data broker, but they may indicate some brokers are breaking the law. Data brokers are companies that collect and sell troves of personal information about people, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, financial information, and more. Consumers have little control over this information, posing serious privacy concerns, and attempts to address these concerns at a federal level have mostly failed. Last month, LexisNexis Risk Solutions disclosed a data breach that may have revealed the names, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, and contact information for over 364,000 people. Four states — California, Texas, Oregon, and Vermont — do attempt to regulate these companies by requiring them to register with consumer protection agencies and share details about what kind of data they collect. Consumers in California, for example, can use the online database to search for different data brokers registered in the state, see contact information, and find steps on how to opt out of data collection. Meanwhile, in Texas, data brokers must follow certain security measures designed to protect consumers' information. In letters to the states' attorneys general, the EFF and PRC say they 'uncovered a troubling pattern' after scraping data broker registries in California, Texas, Oregon, and Vermont. They found that many data brokers didn't consistently register their businesses across all four states. The number of data brokers that appeared on one registry but not another includes 524 in Texas, 475 in Oregon, 309 in Vermont, and 291 in California. As noted by the EFF, differences in how each state defines a data broker could explain some of these discrepancies. It's also possible some brokers don't collect data from people in all these states — although the industry typically casts a wide net. Conversely, the EFF also says this analysis wouldn't include the data brokers that 'disregard state laws by failing to register in any state.' The EFF and PRC suggest that California, Texas, Oregon, and Vermont look into the companies that failed to register across other states, writing that their findings 'could indicate a systematic failure of compliance' in each state. They add that an investigation and enforcement actions could 'send a powerful signal' regarding a state's commitment to privacy. For now, state-level regulation is Americans' main source of protection against data brokers. Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) aimed to clamp down on the industry with a rule that would ban brokers from selling your Social Security number, but the Donald Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later scrapped these plans.
