An expanding market for personal information has prompted growing concern about privacy. Anyone can run a simple search for your name, city, and state to reveal a number of data mining websites eager to share and sell your private data. Such easy and immediate access to personal information poses a number of privacy and security [...]
DeleteMe
How to delete yourself from BeenVerified.com
You probably haven’t heard of people search websites, but they know a whole lot about you. Also called “data brokers,” these websites make a business of collecting, publicly sharing, and selling your personal information on the Internet. In this post, I’ll show you how to delete personal information from one of the largest people search [...]
Spreading the word on removing yourself from background check sites: Part 1
A week ago, I–Sarah Downey, an attorney and privacy analyst at Abine–posted a reddit thread as LawyerCT on how to remove yourself from the background check site BeenVerified, as well as a few others. I was sick of people search websites making it hard for people to delete themselves, so I figured I’d share my [...]
Privacy with Google Search? Reviewing Google's +1 Feature
Google’s famously enigmatic search algorithm is no longer the only thing influencing search results: now public opinion will play a role. Should you use +1? If you’re concerned about your privacy, what is Google’s new +1 feature and how does it affect your online privacy? Google is inching closer to Facebook’s dominance of the social [...]
Your name, their database: An update on removing yourself from people search sites
Have you ever Googled yourself and found your name and contact info listed publicly online? This is a common phenomenon, and it’s happening to more of us every day. A few weeks ago, we ranked the best and worst of people search websites: places like Spokeo.com, Intelius.com, and WhitePages.com that collect and post your personal [...]