diff --git a/blog/.authors.yml b/blog/.authors.yml index c1e582e604..03582ed4b5 100644 --- a/blog/.authors.yml +++ b/blog/.authors.yml @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ authors: avatar: https://github.com/freddy-m.png jonah: name: Jonah Aragon - description: Team Member + description: Project Director avatar: https://github.com/jonaharagon.png mastodon: username: jonah diff --git a/blog/posts/easyoptouts-review.md b/blog/posts/easyoptouts-review.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a5d25da9c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/posts/easyoptouts-review.md @@ -0,0 +1,515 @@ +--- +title: EasyOptOuts Review & Real-World Test +date: + created: 2024-11-28 +categories: + - Reviews +authors: + - jonah +links: + - Data Removal Services: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/data-broker-removals/ +tags: + - People-Search Sites +license: BY-SA +review: + type: WebApplication + category: SecurityApplication + subcategory: People-Search Site Removal Tool + name: EasyOptOuts + alternateName: EasyOptOuts.com + price: 19.99 + period: yr + website: https://easyoptouts.com/ + rating: 4.5 + pros: + - Saves enormous time compared to manual opt-outs. + - Exceptional value, priced an order of magnitude lower than much of its competition. + - Searches and opts-out of all supported sites extremely quickly. + cons: + - Fairly bare-boned interface. + - The 100+ supported websites is still not close to some of the more expensive alternatives. + - No manual/human interaction. +--- +![EasyOptOuts logo](../assets/img/data-broker-removals/easyoptouts.svg){ align=right itemprop="image" } + +**EasyOptOuts.com** is a $19.99/year [people-search site removal service](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/data-broker-removals/) which will search a number of different data broker sites and automatically submit opt-out requests on your behalf. They will perform the first search and removal process immediately, and then re-run the process every 4 months in case your data shows up on new sites over time. + +[:octicons-home-16: Homepage](https://easyoptouts.com){ .md-button } +[:octicons-eye-16:](https://easyoptouts.com/privacy){ .card-link title="Privacy Policy" } + +## Background + +People-search sites represent an immense privacy risk to the majority of Americans. For many, sensitive personal information such as your address, phone number, email, and age is a simple internet search away. While there is unfortunately no federal regulation in place to protect your data, many of these companies will remove your information from their public databases upon request. EasyOptOuts is a low-cost online service which automates these opt-out requests, saving you time and removing the need to constantly monitor new sites/databases for your personal information on a regular basis. + +*Privacy Guides* is conducting independent evaluations of 2 people-search site removal services, EasyOptOuts and Optery. We selected these services based on community reviews and various reporting from organizations including [Consumer Reports](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/consumer-reports-evaluating-people-search-site-removal-services/19948). In our best judgement, these services consistently received the most positive feedback and results in terms of efficacy, so we prioritized their testing over other similar services due to our limited budget. + +This review concerns EasyOptOuts. Our evaluation of Optery will be posted to our blog in the future, so stay tuned. The EasyOptOuts subscription was paid for by Privacy Guides. *Privacy Guides* did not contact EasyOptOuts regarding this review, or request free/discounted services before conducting this review. + +## Methodology + +*Privacy Guides* conducted this review with 2 volunteer subjects who agreed to allow us to use EasyOptOuts to attempt to remove their personal information from public people-search sites, then evaluate those results. Our subjects: + +- Are US citizens +- Have never used a people-search removal service +- Have never manually opted-out of people-search sites +- Are homeowners +- Do not live in a state with specific privacy regulations related to data brokers or people-search sites + +The information we provided to EasyOptOuts: + +- First and last name +- Maiden name (if applicable) +- Birth year +- Current street address +- Most recent previous address (if applicable) +- Current phone number(s) +- Current email address + +We did not provide the names of relatives as requested by EasyOptOuts, as they were not volunteers for this review. This is one potential limitation with our evaluation to keep in mind. + +!!! info "Disclaimer" + + **Please note that this review is not intended to be a comprehensive evaluation of EasyOptOuts, as we are conducting this test with a very limited sample size.** We do not consider our results to be statistically significant. Rather, this review should be taken as an additional "real-world" data point for you to consider when evaluating this service. We encourage you to seek out other independent reporting to consider as well before making any purchase decision. + +## Initial Search + +*Privacy Guides* performed an initial search for personal information for each of our subjects on Google by searching for their first and last name in quotes, plus their current city and state (for example, `"Jane Doe" Chicago IL`). We then counted the number of unique results which contained their personal information in the title or description shown in Google. + +Using standard engine search results is one of the most common methods of discovering personal information, and typically represents the greatest risk to most people, so measuring the number of search engine results that are removed as a result of the opt-out process is one of our highest priority measurements. + +
+ +
+ +**Person A (11 Google results):** + +- 411.com +- thatsthem.com +- blockshopper.com* +- fastpeoplesearch.com +- usphonebook.com +- spokeo.com +- truepeoplesearch.com +- information.com +- peoplesearch.com* +- radaris.com +- peoplefinders.com + +
+ +
+ +**Person B (10 Google results):** + +- whitepages.com +- truepeoplesearch.com +- usphonebook.com +- fastpeoplesearch.com +- spokeo.com +- radaris.com +- information.com +- thatsthem.com +- idcrawl.com* +- peekyou.com* + +
+ +
+ +We also performed a manual search for their information on 15 different "high-priority" data brokers. These brokers represent either the most commonly used people-search sites, and/or cover a large number of people-search sites with their databases, so having your data removed from these companies can have an outsized positive effect on your overall privacy. + +| Service | Person A | Person B | +| ----- | ----- | ----- | +| advancedbackgroundchecks.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| beenverified.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| checkpeople.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| clustrmaps.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| dataveria.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| gladiknow.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| infotracer.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| intelius.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| peekyou.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| publicdatausa.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| radaris.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| spokeo.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| thatsthem.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| usphonebook.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| spyfly.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| **Remaining Results** | **100%** | **100%** | + +It should be noted that EasyOptOuts does not claim or advertise that they have the ability to opt you out of some of the websites above, so we do not expect 100% coverage. However, the site compatibility of EasyOptOuts *is* a real-world limitation of the service we think you should consider before making a decision, so we intentionally did not limit our review to only the sites they advertise support for. The sites EasyOptOuts does *not* advertise support for are marked with an asterisk (*). + +## User Experience + +Registering a new account with EasyOptOuts was a very simple and easy-to-follow process. Their website does a great job explaining what is happening and why they need the data they're requesting at every step. Many of the fields are required, including your first and last name, year of birth, and precise street address. However, including your email addresses, phone numbers, and names of relatives in the search are optional. This is to be generally expected, as your precise data is needed to perform opt-out requests in the majority of cases. However, some competitors do allow you to provide a little less information, such as only your city/state instead of your exact current address, at the expense of potentially being less effective. + +The only payment processor in use by EasyOptOuts is PayPal, but they've enabled the option to accept credit card payments without an actual PayPal account. PayPal does default to creating a new account for you with this information, so if you want to avoid that you should uncheck the "Save info & create your PayPal account" option at checkout. + +We received a notification that the opt-out process had been completed approximately 1.5 hours after payment. This is much faster than many similar services will submit opt-out requests. However, as they note in the notification email: "Some sites remove data quickly, but some take weeks," so while the initial requests have been made, it will still take some time for them to actually go into effect. + +EasyOptOuts is able to provide its service at a much lower price point than competitors like Optery or DeleteMe because they have no manual/human intervention at any point in the opt-out process. This limits the amount of websites they are able to support, however. In fact, their emailed report explicitly recommends manually opting-out of PeopleConnect sites at because they are not able to do so with their automated systems. Optery for example supports a much wider range of websites including PeopleConnect on their Ultimate plan, which takes a "Human + Machines" approach with an assigned human agent performing some more complex opt-out requests, but that and similar services come in at a price of 10 times or higher compared to EasyOptOuts. + +## 1 Week + +| Service | Person A | Person B | +| ----- | ----- | ----- | +| advancedbackgroundchecks.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| beenverified.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :warning: Found | +| checkpeople.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| clustrmaps.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| dataveria.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| gladiknow.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| infotracer.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :warning: Found | +| intelius.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| peekyou.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| publicdatausa.com* | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| radaris.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| spokeo.com | :warning: Found | :warning: Found | +| thatsthem.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| usphonebook.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| spyfly.com | :white_check_mark: Removed | :white_check_mark: Removed | +| **Remaining Results** | **33%** | **46%** | + +It should be noted that some of these websites included "sponsored links" to *other* data-brokers in their search results. For example, while both people's data was removed from advancedbackgroundchecks.com's own internal database, the search results on advancedbackgroundchecks.com still included a sponsored link to their data on truthfinder.com, one of the websites operated separately by PeopleConnect which EasyOptOuts does not support. This means that manual intervention is still very important when using EasyOptOuts, to cover larger services like PeopleConnect which require more complex interaction. + +On Google we saw some reduction, but many results with sensitive information remained. This is something we'll monitor for future updates, as these results drop from Google's caches. + +
+ +
+ +**Person A (8 Google results):** + +- thatsthem.com +- blockshopper.com* +- fastpeoplesearch.com +- usphonebook.com +- information.com +- peoplesearch.com* +- radaris.com +- fastpeoplesearch.com + +
+ +
+ +**Person B (7 Google results):** + +- truepeoplesearch.com +- usphonebook.com +- information.com +- fastpeoplesearch.com +- information.com +- thatsthem.com +- peekyou.com* + +
+ +
+ +## 1 Month + +## 3 Months + +## Additional Sites + +In addition to the websites we performed an [initial search](#initial-search) with, the EasyOptOuts report we received claimed to find and remove our participants' data from the following websites. While *Privacy Guides* did not search all of these sites in advance of the test to validate these results independently, searching tens or hundreds of smaller sites *is* one of the key advantages of using an automated service like EasyOptOuts. + +
+ +
+ +**Person A:** + +??? warning "We found your information and performed opt outs for the following 112 sites" + + - 411.com + - advancedbackgroundchecks.com + - arrestwarrant.org + - backgroundcheck.run + - backgroundcheckers.net + - beenverified.com + - bumper.com, covered by beenverified.com + - centeda.com + - checkpeople.com + - checksecrets.com + - clubset.com + - clustrmaps.com + - councilon.com + - courtcasefinder.com + - curadvisor.com + - cyberbackgroundchecks.com + - dataveria.com + - familytreenow.com + - fastbackgroundcheck.com + - fastpeoplesearch.com + - findpeoplesearch.com + - freepeoplesearch.com + - gladiknow.com + - golookup.com + - goreversephone.com + - govwarrantsearch.org + - hudwayglass.com + - information.com + - infotracer.com + - inmatessearcher.com + - kidslivesafe.com + - kwold.com + - mugshotlook.com + - mylife.com + - neighbor.report + - neighborwho.com + - newenglandfacts.com + - numberguru.com + - nuwber.com + - officialusa.com + - ownerly.com + - people-background-check.com + - people-wizard.com + - peoplebyname.com + - peoplechk.com + - peoplefinders.com + - peoplelooker.com + - peoplesearch123.com + - peoplesearcher.com + - peoplesearchnow.com + - peoplesearchusa.org + - peoplesmart.com + - peopleswhizr.com + - peopleswiz.com + - peopleswizard.com + - peoplewhiz.com + - peoplewhiz.net + - peoplewhized.com + - peoplewhized.net + - peoplewhizr.com + - peoplewhizr.net + - peoplewiz.com + - peoplewizard.net + - peoplewizr.com + - personsearchers.com + - persontrust.com + - privaterecords.net + - privatereports.com + - pub360.com + - publicdatacheck.com + - publicinfoservices.com + - publicrecordreports.com + - publicsearcher.com + - quickpeopletrace.com + - radaris.com + - recordsfinder.com + - rehold.com + - reunion.com + - reverselookupaphonenumber.com + - reversephonecheck.com + - sealedrecords.net + - searchpeoplefree.com + - searchpublicrecords.com + - searchquarry.com + - secretinfo.org + - smartbackgroundchecks.com + - spydialer.com + - spyfly.com + - staterecords.org + - telephonedirectories.us + - texasarrests.org + - texasarrestwarrants.org + - thatsthem.com + - truepeoplesearch.com + - truthrecord.org + - unmask.com + - usa-people-search.com + - usatrace.com + - usphonebook.com + - usrecords.net + - uswarrants.org + - vehiclerelatedrecords.com + - verecor.com + - vericora.com + - veriforia.com + - verifyrecords.com + - veripages.com + - virtory.com + - weinform.org + - wellnut.com + - whitepages.com + - yellowbook.com + +??? info "We checked the following 10 sites, but didn't find any personal information, so we didn't perform opt outs" + + - americaphonebook.com + - floridaresidentsdirectory.com + - freepeopledirectory.com + - northcarolinaresidentdatabase.com + - ohioresidentdatabase.com + - peoplewin.com + - selfie.network + - selfie.systems + - spokeo.com + - unitedstatesphonebook.com + +
+ +
+ +**Person B:** + +??? warning "We found your information and performed opt outs for the following 107 sites" + + - 411.com + - advancedbackgroundchecks.com + - arrestwarrant.org + - backgroundcheck.run + - backgroundcheckers.net + - beenverified.com + - bumper.com, covered by beenverified.com + - centeda.com + - checkpeople.com + - checksecrets.com + - clubset.com + - councilon.com + - courtcasefinder.com + - curadvisor.com + - cyberbackgroundchecks.com + - dataveria.com + - familytreenow.com + - fastbackgroundcheck.com + - fastpeoplesearch.com + - findpeoplesearch.com + - freepeoplesearch.com + - gladiknow.com + - golookup.com + - goreversephone.com + - govwarrantsearch.org + - hudwayglass.com + - information.com + - infotracer.com + - inmatessearcher.com + - kidslivesafe.com + - kwold.com + - mugshotlook.com + - neighborwho.com + - newenglandfacts.com + - numberguru.com + - nuwber.com + - ownerly.com + - people-background-check.com + - people-wizard.com + - peoplebyname.com + - peoplechk.com + - peoplefinders.com + - peoplelooker.com + - peoplesearch123.com + - peoplesearcher.com + - peoplesearchnow.com + - peoplesearchusa.org + - peoplesmart.com + - peopleswhizr.com + - peopleswiz.com + - peopleswizard.com + - peoplewhiz.com + - peoplewhiz.net + - peoplewhized.com + - peoplewhized.net + - peoplewhizr.com + - peoplewhizr.net + - peoplewiz.com + - peoplewizard.net + - peoplewizr.com + - personsearchers.com + - persontrust.com + - privaterecords.net + - privatereports.com + - pub360.com + - publicdatacheck.com + - publicinfoservices.com + - publicrecordreports.com + - publicsearcher.com + - quickpeopletrace.com + - radaris.com + - recordsfinder.com + - rehold.com + - reverselookupaphonenumber.com + - reversephonecheck.com + - sealedrecords.net + - searchpeoplefree.com + - searchpublicrecords.com + - searchquarry.com + - secretinfo.org + - smartbackgroundchecks.com + - spydialer.com + - spyfly.com + - staterecords.org + - telephonedirectories.us + - texasarrests.org + - texasarrestwarrants.org + - thatsthem.com + - truepeoplesearch.com + - truthrecord.org + - unmask.com + - usa-people-search.com + - usatrace.com + - usphonebook.com + - usrecords.net + - uswarrants.org + - vehiclerelatedrecords.com + - verecor.com + - vericora.com + - veriforia.com + - verifyrecords.com + - veripages.com + - virtory.com + - weinform.org + - wellnut.com + - whitepages.com + - yellowbook.com + +??? info "We checked the following 15 sites, but didn't find any personal information, so we didn't perform opt outs" + + - americaphonebook.com + - clustrmaps.com + - floridaresidentsdirectory.com + - freepeopledirectory.com + - mylife.com + - neighbor.report + - northcarolinaresidentdatabase.com + - officialusa.com + - ohioresidentdatabase.com + - peoplewin.com + - reunion.com + - selfie.network + - selfie.systems + - spokeo.com + - unitedstatesphonebook.com + +
+ +
+ +In addition, for all subscriptions EasyOptOuts says that "the following 10 sites aren't freely searchable. We always perform opt outs for them:" + +- acxiom.com +- adstradata.com +- archives.com +- backgroundalert.com (searchable, but covered by lexisnexis.com, which isn't searchable) +- idtrue.com (searchable, but covered by lexisnexis.com, which isn't searchable) +- lexisnexis.com +- oracle.com +- pipl.com +- thomsonreuters.com +- us.epsilon.com + +What this means is that EasyOptOuts will send the personal information you provide to these websites *regardless* of whether they have your information in the first place. While this is an unfortunate necessity if you want to ensure your data is removed from as many databases as possible, we would like to see this provided as an *option* during EasyOptOuts' registration process for people who would like to avoid this behavior. + +## Evaluation + +For our final evaluation, we will look at how many of the initial Google search engine results are no longer listed after 3 months, how many results from the 15 data brokers we initially measured were removed, and how many results from the subset of the 15 data brokers that EasyOptOuts advertises support for (13 total) were removed. + +The first two results are intended to benchmark the "real-world efficacy" of EasyOptOuts, i.e. how much of an impact you will immediately notice while using the service. The third result is intended to benchmark how well EasyOptOuts lives up to their own marketing claims. + +| | Person A | Person B | +| ---- | ---- | ---- | +| Percentage of Google search results removed | | | +| Percentage of high-priority data brokers removed | | | +| Percentage of *compatible* high-priority data brokers removed | | | diff --git a/docs/about.md b/docs/about.md index e0e5704523..10ccaf5fa5 100644 --- a/docs/about.md +++ b/docs/about.md @@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ schema: - https://twitter.com/privacy_guides - https://github.com/privacyguides - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111710163 - - https://opencollective.com/privacyguides - https://www.youtube.com/@privacyguides - https://mastodon.neat.computer/@privacyguides --- diff --git a/docs/index.md b/docs/index.md index b6e181000c..12de419ac2 100644 --- a/docs/index.md +++ b/docs/index.md @@ -14,13 +14,12 @@ schema: "@type": Organization "@id": https://www.privacyguides.org/ name: Privacy Guides - url: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/ + url: https://www.privacyguides.org/ logo: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/assets/brand/logos/png/square/pg-yellow.png sameAs: - https://twitter.com/privacy_guides - https://github.com/privacyguides - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111710163 - - https://opencollective.com/privacyguides - https://www.youtube.com/@privacyguides - https://mastodon.neat.computer/@privacyguides - diff --git a/mkdocs.blog.yml b/mkdocs.blog.yml index 609d396e67..7aad243ee0 100644 --- a/mkdocs.blog.yml +++ b/mkdocs.blog.yml @@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ theme: - search.highlight extra_css: - - assets/stylesheets/extra.css?v=20240802 + - assets/stylesheets/extra.css?v=20240829 watch: - theme diff --git a/theme/assets/stylesheets/extra.css b/theme/assets/stylesheets/extra.css index 68b294dcfb..0bfef2cc1d 100644 --- a/theme/assets/stylesheets/extra.css +++ b/theme/assets/stylesheets/extra.css @@ -522,3 +522,8 @@ path[d="M20.71 7.04c.39-.39.39-1.04 0-1.41l-2.34-2.34c-.37-.39-1.02-.39-1.41 0l- width: 100%; padding: 1em !important; } + +.pg-proconlist { + list-style-type: disc; + padding-inline-start: 1em; +} diff --git a/theme/blog-post.html b/theme/blog-post.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..de4a8567eb --- /dev/null +++ b/theme/blog-post.html @@ -0,0 +1,310 @@ + + +{% extends "main.html" %} + +{% import "partials/nav-item.html" as item with context %} + + +{% block container %} +
+ + + + {% if config.theme.language == "en" %} + + {% endif %} + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+
+
+ + + + + + {% if "toc.integrate" in features %} + {% include "partials/toc.html" %} + {% endif %} +
+
+
+ + +
+ {% block content %} + {% include "partials/content.html" %} + {% endblock %} +
+
+{% endblock %} diff --git a/theme/partials/content.html b/theme/partials/content.html index a8d4cc880d..e4b21103c6 100644 --- a/theme/partials/content.html +++ b/theme/partials/content.html @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ {% if page and page.meta and page.meta.cover %}
- +

{{ page.title | d(config.site_name, true)}}

{% endif %} @@ -40,7 +40,9 @@

{{ page.title | d(config.site_name, true)}}

{% endif %} +
{{ page.content }} +
{% include "partials/source-file.html" %}