Say Mine?

[myrdale]

In my continued quest to increase my privacy online, I came across an interesting, affordable service. SayMineApp.

You log into the website and grant it access to your email. It then scans your emails (and the internet I think?) to develop a list of companies that have your email. In my case it was 136 separate companies. For a fee ($12 per year) it will show you the list and allow you to make individual deletion request for the sites / services which you don't use / never signed up for.

In my case, I recognized about half of the companies listed. SavingAdvice for example was on the list. The other half I had no clue. I've put in a few dozen deletion request. Most are listed as taking 3 to 5 days. Some may be longer.

Actual reviews of this service are thin, and most of the ones I came across are in Hindi. Has anyone else had any experience with this service?

Another service I signed up for, DeleteMe, $100 per year, has been making steady progress in removing me from the search results of online site. In February they had removed 67 listings, in May it was 42, August it was 28 with another 28 pending.

[disneysteve]

I just mark things as spam so any future emails from them go to my spam folder and I don't have to deal with them. Costs me nothing to do this except a second to flag the messages as spam. I'm not sure why I'd pay for that to happen.

[kork13]

Yeah, my issue with services likes that is that it's not gonna be a long-lasting fix. Your name/info are still going to be on every list that gets sold/stolen from various sites you've used in the past, so it's just a game of whack-a-mole. You may get your info removed now, but it'll be back. There really are very few ways to effectively protect your information anymore today.

[disneysteve]

Yeah, my issue with services likes that is that it's not gonna be a long-lasting fix. Your name/info are still going to be on every list that gets sold/stolen from various sites you've used in the past, so it's just a game of whack-a-mole. You may get your info removed now, but it'll be back. There really are very few ways to effectively protect your information anymore today.

Exactly. You can’t remove yourself from the internet. I think all of the companies that claim to do that are basically scams. So much of everything we do is online now. Our info is out there. You can’t fix that.

[myrdale]

Last night around 10pm (pretty much 24 hours after I sent my first round of request), my phone started dinging from emails. Something like ten different companies responded that they had received my request and were processing it.

If you're interested in seeing if you're information has been lost in data breaches, check out the website Have I Been Pwned . When you enter your email address, the site searches recorded data breaches. In my case my information has been stolen on nine separate occasions.

Several of these nine are on the list of companies that I've sent request through SayMineApp to remove. Of course in these cases the horse is already out of the barn, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth taking some basic actions to reduce your exposure to future data breaches.

[disneysteve]

Last night around 10pm (pretty much 24 hours after I sent my first round of request), my phone started dinging from emails. Something like ten different companies responded that they had received my request and were processing it.

Here is just one article explaining why trying to unsubscribe can actually worsen the problem. The correct way to deal with spam email is what I said earlier - mark it as spam and delete it without opening it.

https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_US/privacyhub/why-unsubscribing-from-spam-emails-is-not-your-safest-bet/

Not only are you wasting time and money with your approach, you may actually be making the problem worse.

[Jluke]

In general I assume that all emails have a tracker on them so the sender knows if I opened the email or not.

so I try not to open them if it’s obvious junk

[myrdale]

Keep in mind, this isn't about spam alone. This is about deleting your information from companies you may have given it to in the past.

I ordered a BlendTec blender back around 2010. Since then they have maintained on file my name, address, phone number, and email. It's all completely harmless, so long as they are not hacked. But considering I don't plan on ordering any more blenders for the next decade, why let them keep me on file? Now multiply that by x50 for all the other businesses I've placed one time orders with.

[disneysteve]

Keep in mind, this isn't about spam alone. This is about deleting your information from companies you may have given it to in the past.

I ordered a BlendTec blender back around 2010. Since then they have maintained on file my name, address, phone number, and email. It's all completely harmless, so long as they are not hacked. But considering I don't plan on ordering any more blenders for the next decade, why let them keep me on file? Now multiply that by x50 for all the other businesses I've placed one time orders with.

For the companies you know are legit it’s okay to click on the Unsubscribe link. Just not on the ones from places you don’t recognize.

[disneysteve]

Also your name, address, phone number, and email are not anything a hacker wants. Now if you have your credit card info stored with any of those places that could be a concern if they have a data breech. But unsubscribing from the email notices wouldn’t fix that anyway. It doesn’t remove your info from their database so a data breech still would affect you.

I still don’t see what anything you’ve described accomplishes.

[myrdale]

For the companies you know are legit it’s okay to click on the Unsubscribe link. Just not on the ones from places you don’t recognize.

It's not about unsubscribing. Its about being deleted from their system altogether.

[myrdale]

It doesn’t remove your info from their database so a data breech still would affect you.

This service reportably does.

[disneysteve]

This service reportably does.

Ah. If that’s actually true that’s a good thing. I am highly skeptical of that actually being the case. Data often isn’t even stored by the company itself but rather with a third party. I wonder how deep they are able to go in removing your info. And I’d still say it’s an exercise in futility. All of your info and data is already out there. Removing it from one company or 10 companies likely does little to nothing in the grand scheme of things. I guarantee you that any criminal who wants your data can find it quickly and easily on the dark web.

[ua_guy]

Several people I know do cybersecurity for a living. They've all told me the same thing, these things are a total waste. Your data is everywhere, it's been stolen a billion times including your SSN. They say to monitor your credit, make all your login credentials unique, rotate them often. And don't use debit cards or give out ACH information.

[disneysteve]

Your data is everywhere, it's been stolen a billion times including your SSN.

Exactly. Anyone who says they’ll remove your info from the internet for a fee is scamming you.