What DeleteMe and Incogni aren't telling you

Summary

In this video, Reject Convenience explores the intricacies of data brokers and the effectiveness of data deletion services like DeleteMe and Incogni. The creator questions the legitimacy and efficiency of these services, comparing them to VPNs, highlighting how both industries capitalize on consumer fears of privacy invasion. The video further explains the types of data brokers, the data they collect, and the minimal regulations governing them, alongside exploring the broader issues of data collection by major tech companies and their implications on privacy.

Highlights

• DeleteMe and Incogni delete your data, but their efficiency and necessity are questionable. 🤨
• Various types of data brokers exist, each with unique ways of collecting and using your data. 📊
• Personal health data brokers are especially concerning due to the sensitive nature of the data collected. 😷
• Despite marketing claims, using services like DeleteMe may not solve the larger issue of data over-collection. 🚫
• Consumers can take steps to protect their privacy, including using privacy-friendly services and advocating for stricter data regulations. 🛡️

Key Takeaways

• Data deletion services, while not scams, may not be worth the price and can sometimes be less efficient than deleting data on your own. 🕵️‍♂️
• Majority of data brokers operate with minimal oversight, allowing extensive data collection and sales. 📈
• Data brokers fall into various categories, including personal health, financial information, and marketing data brokers, each collecting different types of data. 🗂️
• Many data issues stem from lax regulations, making it easy for companies to collect unnecessary data. 🏛️
• Taking personal action, such as contacting local representatives and opting for privacy-conscious services, can help mitigate data privacy concerns. 📞

Overview

The video by Reject Convenience dives into the multifaceted world of data brokers, outlining different types of brokers and the kinds of data they collect. Among these, personal health data brokers stand out with their unsettling collection of sensitive information with little regulation. The video highlights how services like DeleteMe and Incogni promise to help but may not always deliver their advertised value.

Reject Convenience explains the broad scope of what constitutes a data broker, breaking it down into categories such as financial, marketing, and health data brokers. These brokers collect vast amounts of personal information, often with minimal regulation, and then sell it. The creator questions whether these data deletion services truly offer a worthwhile solution to privacy concerns or if they're simply capitalizing on consumer fears.

Proposing proactive measures, the creator advises viewers to protect their own data by opting for privacy-conscious services and reaching out to political representatives to demand better data protection laws. These actions, combined with a conscious effort to avoid unnecessary data exposure can help individuals reclaim some control over their personal information in an age marked by pervasive data collection.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Data Broker Services The chapter introduces data broker services with a focus on a solution called 'Agny.' Agny is designed to help individuals reclaim control over their personal data by intercepting data brokers and requesting the removal of data such as addresses, employment history, social media accounts, and phone numbers. Instead of individuals having to contact data brokers themselves, Agny automates this process, offering a 60% discount on the data protection plan to encourage individuals to take back control of their personal data.
• 01:00 - 04:00: Understanding Data Brokers The chapter titled 'Understanding Data Brokers' delves into the practices of data brokers, whose primary business model involves collecting and retaining personal information. It discusses the challenges faced by individuals attempting to delete their personal information from companies. For instance, when trying to remove their personal data from Office Depot, the individual's request was denied due to location-based policies. Similarly, it questions whether other companies, such as General Motors, would comply with data deletion requests. This highlights the complexities and limitations individuals face in managing their personal data within the digital landscape.
• 04:00 - 05:00: People Search Services The chapter titled 'People Search Services' explores the intricacies and concerns surrounding data privacy and data brokers. It delves into the irony of companies, which are not technically data brokers, being more protective of personal data than data brokers themselves. The chapter questions the motivations behind companies that manage personal data, whether they comply with data protection out of legal obligation or moral principles. It also aims to explain what a data broker is, the methods they use to collect personal data, the entities they share this data with, and critically examines companies like Incogn and Delete Me, pondering over whether they are legitimate services or potential scams.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Financial and Risk Mitigation Data Brokers The chapter provides an overview of financial and risk mitigation data brokers, acknowledging that the video is not sponsored despite previous sponsorship attempts by Delete Me. It highlights that services like Incogn and Delete Me thrive due to the existence of data brokers who collect and sell personal data to the highest bidder. The discussion touches upon the business models of these services and the role of data brokers in this ecosystem.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Personal Health Data Brokers The chapter introduces the concept of data brokers, highlighting the complexity and broad definition of the term. It suggests that companies like Incogn and Delete Me utilize the term intentionally, as it is so broad that it may not accurately describe their operations. It mentions that there are five major categories of data brokers, which will be explored in detail throughout the chapter.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Marketing Data Brokers and Inferred Data This chapter discusses the roles of data brokers, specifically marketing data brokers, and the concept of inferred data. It compares people search services to modern-day phone books that are available online, providing important information that is often free to access. Marketing data brokers collect and pool large amounts of information about individuals' online activities, categorizing them into certain behaviors, referred to as inferred data.
• 15:00 - 25:00: Data Deletion Services Analysis The chapter titled 'Data Deletion Services Analysis' discusses the role of financial information data brokers, also known as credit reporting bureaus, primarily focusing on three main companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These brokers track a wide array of financial activities such as payments to phone bills, utilities, rent, loan payments, and credit applications. Additionally, the chapter briefly touches upon risk mitigation data brokers who track identities to prevent various risks.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Legal and Regulatory Concerns This chapter discusses the various types of data brokers and their operations, particularly focusing on risk mitigation data brokers and personal health data brokers. It highlights how these brokers play a role in background checks for jobs or apartment applications. Notably, personal health data brokers collect and sell health-related information, like medication purchases or health-related search histories, to pharmaceutical companies without HIPPA protection.
• 30:00 - 37:00: Audience Action & Recommendations The chapter 'Audience Action & Recommendations' focuses on the topic of data brokers, particularly highlighting the significant portion of data brokers represented in the market. The speaker criticizes services like Incogn for only addressing a small aspect of data deletion. They express a strong negative sentiment toward personal health data brokers, labeling them as the most concerning due to their collection of extensive and sensitive personal health information with minimal oversight.
• 37:00 - 40:00: Conclusion and Call to Action In the concluding chapter, the importance of privacy regulations is emphasized, especially in the context of health data collected by devices like smartwatches and health tracking apps. The chapter discusses the potential for health data, including usage data from smart devices like toothbrushes, to be shared with third parties. The chapter calls for action to implement better privacy protections to safeguard personal health data.
• 40:00 - 42:30: Bonus Content: Spider-Man Skit The chapter discusses the sale of personal health-related data by companies like Amazon and Google. It highlights how Amazon sells health product search history to data brokers, who in turn sell it to advertisers. Similarly, Google sells information on health-related articles read by users. The chapter suggests that while Google functions similarly to a data broker, it is also a major advertising corporation, making the situation more complex.

What DeleteMe and Incogni aren't telling you Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 author and talking solution, the simple service that puts control of your personal data back to you. They intercept the data brokers on your behalf, requesting your data's removal and handle any resistance. But your data could leave your address, employment history, social media accounts, telephone numbers, and much more. Instead of you reaching out to data brokers one by one, Agny does it automatically on your behalf. See 60% off your plan. So take back control of your personal data today. To date, they
• 00:30 - 01:00 have deleted my personal information from 670 digital. [Music] Why would a data broker delete your information? Think about it. Isn't the entire point of a data broker to collect and retain your information? Like, isn't that their whole business model? When I requested Office Depot to delete my personal information that they had collected about me, like my name and purchase history, they refused to do so because of where I live. If I were nicely to ask General Motors to delete
• 01:00 - 01:30 my data regarding what medications I take, yes, that is a real thing. They will also refuse for the same reason. Neither of these companies are considered data brokers, but what? They care more about retaining my data than an actual data broker? That doesn't make any sense to me. Is it because they're legally required to comply? Or do they simply comply out of the goodness of their own hearts? In this video, we're going to find out what a data broker is, how they collect your data, who they share it with, and whether companies like Incogn and Delete Me are a scam or
• 01:30 - 02:00 not. This video is not sponsored by anyone. For full transparency, Delete Me has tried to sponsor this channel in the past, but I rejected their offer. That said, I don't know that I would have actually looked into making this video had they not emailed me, so you can thank them for that. A major selling point of services like Incogn and Delete Me is that these creepy data brokers collect your data and sell it off to the highest bidder. In fact, their entire business relies on data brokers existing. So, let's find
• 02:00 - 02:30 out what a data broker really is. It turns out, like with most things, it's more complicated than you'd probably expect. The term data broker itself is a pretty loose expression covering all kinds of different companies. I actually suspect the reason Incogn and Delete Me use the terminology data brokers is intentional as it's almost too broad to actually describe what's really going on. There are five major categories of data brokers. I'll quickly give you an idea of what they are and what they're collecting and then we will dive deeper into each category. The most common type
• 02:30 - 03:00 of data broker that data deletion services work with are people search services. These are companies that act like modern-day phone books but online. Much like a physical phone book, they're available to pretty much anyone and often have a majority of the important information posted for free. Then there are marketing data brokers. These companies gather large amounts of information about your online activity and put it into pools of certain behaviors, otherwise known as inferred data. We'll dive into more detail as to what this looks like in a bit. If you've
• 03:00 - 03:30 ever applied for a car loan or gotten a credit card, you'll be familiar with the next kind of broker, financial information data brokers, otherwise known as credit reporting bureaus. This category is dominated by three companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. They track financial things like payments to your phone bills, utilities, when you pay rent, payments to loans, when you apply to lines of credit, or even when you have your credit checked at all. In a similar vein, there are risk mitigation data brokers. These are companies that track your identity often for preventing
• 03:30 - 04:00 fraud. When you apply for a job or even apply for an apartment, this is how they do background checks. They work with risk mitigation data brokers. The last on our list is personal health data brokers. By far the creepiest in my opinion. These companies track health related data like when you purchase an over-the-counter medication or even your search history of a health rellated topic. None of this data is protected under HIPPA. So, these companies go nuts in collecting and selling this data to pharmaceutical companies. Before we start diving into these categories, I
• 04:00 - 04:30 want to call out the last four on this list are a vast majority of the data brokers that make up the term data brokers. Services like Incogn only scratch the surface when it comes to deleting your data. You know what? I want to mix it up today. We're going to start with a category that just gives me the creeps. Personal health data brokers are, in my opinion, the worst kind of data broker. They collect an obscene amount of highly sensitive information with almost no
• 04:30 - 05:00 regulations at all. To help showcase what I mean, I'm going to use the privacy visualizer. First, they collect health data, which seems pretty obvious. This would be direct health data from something like a smartwatch or an app that tracks health metrics, but they opt to share that information for some reason. We'll explore an example of this in a moment. Usage data depends on the service or tool in question, but how you use it can sometimes qualify as health data. An example of this would be something like a smart toothbrush. The usage of these tools can indicate
• 05:00 - 05:30 certain health patterns, hence the category of usage data. If you've ever searched for a health related product on Amazon, guess what? They will sell that information to a personal health data broker who will then sell it to advertisers. And would you believe it, we have a category for that. It's search history. Similarly, if you've read a few health related articles using Google Chrome, Google will sell that information as well. Though Google is sort of a data broker and all but name, but they're also one of the biggest advertising companies out there. So, this example is a bit more complicated
• 05:30 - 06:00 than what we're going to actually look into for this video. But browsing history is a category, and we can count that. Last, we have purchase history. If you buy a health related item using PayPal as your purchase method, PayPal will happily sell that information to a personal health data broker. Let's look at a more complete example of how personal health data brokers might get this information. There's a sponsor here on YouTube that I've seen a few times before. Hate sleep. If you've never heard of them, they make an overpriced smart mattress that tracks your sleeping patterns and keeps you cool while you sleep. Great. That all sounds cool. How
• 06:00 - 06:30 do they fit into this picture of personal health data brokers? Well, they clearly state in the privacy policy that they sell usage data to advertisers. This means that your usage of the mattress and the attached services are sold to companies who can use that information to show you health related ads. What does that look like? Well, let's say you've been having a hard time sleeping for a few nights. That data could be sold to a pharmaceutical company that makes sleeping pills and then you'll start seeing ads for said sleeping pills. Or let's say your heart
• 06:30 - 07:00 rate is a little elevated while you sleep. They can now show you ads for heart medication. Heck, that heart rate tracking thing can be used for all kinds of weird things like understanding how you interact with other platforms like Facebook. If Facebook shows you an article while you're laying in bed and they know you've been looking at it for a while, they can combine that data with what eight collects and bammy wham, they now know that you had an elevated heart rate while reading it, implying that you were angry. They can use that data to show you more of those articles since it keeps you on the platform for longer. I
• 07:00 - 07:30 know it sounds crazy, but it's clearly spelled out in their privacy policy that they share a lot of this information with Facebook. And we all know how Facebook is with data. Remember, none of this is regulated and doesn't fall under HIPPA guidelines at all. So, to them, it's all fair game. Also, eight charges you a monthly fee to see your health data and cooling and whatever. And if you stop paying, you can't use those features, but they still track all that precious data. Please do not buy one of these. They are a privacy nightmare.
• 07:30 - 08:00 Let's move on to the next kind of data broker. Risk mitigation data brokers are probably one of the most overlooked kinds of data brokers out there. They are most commonly used in scenarios where your identity needs to be validated for, believe it or not, mitigating risk. Like I mentioned earlier, if you've ever applied for a job or sent in an application for an apartment, they often use risk mitigation data brokers to make sure you are who you say you are and you don't have a history of doing quote unquote
• 08:00 - 08:30 unfavorable things. With a job application, that can be things like changing jobs rapidly or in some instances working multiple jobs. With an apartment, it can contain things like rental history, late payments, and other similar items. If we plug this into the privacy visualizer, here's what we get. First, they collect contact info, which would be things like your name, current and previous addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. This doesn't seem to be collected in all cases, but identifiers are still pretty common from what I found. This comes up when the
• 08:30 - 09:00 data is aggregated to identify you under one unique identifier rather than your name. Though, this normally does come in addition to your name and other contact information, but it still counts. Next is location. No, they aren't tracking where you are all of the time, just things like your address and addresses related to you, like your work address. Lastly, there's financial information. This can sometimes contain things that would show up on a credit report, such as a list of debts, payment history, and other similar information, which leads us perfectly into our next data broker
• 09:00 - 09:30 type. You may recognize this category by another name, credit reporting bureaus. If you live in the United States, this is data that you cannot opt out of or have deleted at all. This is all of the information that makes up your credit score, which is captured by the major companies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The information they have is used most often when dealing with creditors. If you want to get a loan for a house or a car, that's all tracked. If
• 09:30 - 10:00 you get a credit card and pay it off every month, that information is reported to these companies. If you get a dozen credit cards and they're all maxed out and you're always late on payments, guess what? They track that, too. This data is considered highly sensitive as if it gets breached, you're at much higher risk of identity theft. What's that? Equifax had a data breach a while ago. 15 million users, you say? Oh, and what's that you say? They're not only still a wildly successful company,
• 10:00 - 10:30 they have also wedged themselves so deeply into our economic system that you're not allowed to opt out of this data collection despite their very traceable history of mishandling it. Dang, that's pretty darn annoying. Anyways, here's what these look like on the visualizer. Financial information contains things like your credit score, the debt you're in, the creditors you've applied to, any late payments, and even how much money you make. Purchase history is generally limited to major purchases, but that still counts as purchase history. Location, once again, is mostly just your address. They don't
• 10:30 - 11:00 really care where you currently are. Identifiers, as they have sort of a profile on you that can have an ID associated with it. Also, your social security number is technically an identifier. Contact info, including your name, address, phone number, and email address. And sensitive info, including things like your birth date, social security number. And I mean, your credit score is something I'd consider to be pretty sensitive information. Next up is marketing data
• 11:00 - 11:30 brokers. This one is fun, I promise. The goal of a marketing data broker is to acquire vast amounts of indirect user data to sell to companies looking to advertise their products. Much of this is done with something called inferred data. Another common misnomer for this is user personas, but those are normally made up people that can guide what inferred data is actually sought after. To help show how this works, I'll need 100 volunteers. Great. Hi, everybody. As it currently stands, I don't know anything about these 100 people. So, to help me identify them,
• 11:30 - 12:00 I'll ask a simple question that might describe something they do. To make it a little more clear, I'll highlight the tile they're standing on to represent if they do the thing in question. Let's start off with a pretty specific example of the people here who has shopped at Target within the last 6 months. Great. So, as you can see here, 54 people in this sample fall under this description. If you imagine the general scale of the amount of people who have shopped at Target within the last 6 months, you can imagine that the number is far too high to properly identify any one person.
• 12:00 - 12:30 This sort of feels like it identifies you, but without actually identifying you. It's sort of like a giant game of Guess Who, but without names. Let's see what other groups we could apply here. So, we have our 54 people who shopped at Target. Let's highlight the people who live in Atlanta, Georgia. Okay, that's 20 people in our sample. What about people who drink coffee? People who listen to punk rock music? People who have a commute between 10 and 15 miles to work? Who here owns a PlayStation? Anyone here love dogs? Who
• 12:30 - 13:00 here has recently watched an educational video on YouTube? What about the people who are concerned about privacy? These groupings by themselves can't identify any one person. But if we add it all up with people who shop at Target that live in Atlanta, Georgia, who also drink coffee, listen to punk rock, have a 5 to 10 mile commute, owns a PlayStation, loves dogs, and watched an educational video about privacy on YouTube. Well, that describes just one person from this sample. But here's the thing. I still can't identify who this person is. I
• 13:00 - 13:30 certainly have enough details to know what I could advertise to this person, but I don't know their name, address, or any personally identifiable information. I can infer a lot about them without actually knowing them. These inferences are just aggregated groups of hundreds or thousands of people. This is the data that is most often used to show you personalized ads. Let's plug this all into the privacy visualizer. Purchases can describe the items that you buy. Going back to our list of examples, this would be people who drink coffee on a PlayStation or even the people who recently shopped at Target. Location
• 13:30 - 14:00 information can be used as well, from something as broad as the people who live in Atlanta to using location services to determine the people who have a commute of 10 to 15 miles. Usage data is information how you use certain services. This would include people who recently watched an educational video on YouTube or even the people who listened to punk rock music. Search history can include things that you search for that can infer certain things. If you search for photos of dogs and puppies often, you're probably a person who loves dogs.
• 14:00 - 14:30 If you searched for this video, you're probably a person concerned about privacy. In fact, the people who are most concerned about privacy are the people that incognate and delete me are aiming to show their ads to. They know through inferring what my channel is about that my viewers are likely concerned about privacy and they would be an easy sell to you. Do they know who any of you are? No. Of course not. But by watching my channel, they infer that a number of you do care about this stuff. This also contains things like browser history. So all of the websites
• 14:30 - 15:00 you visit can be added to your inferred data. Here's the big question, though. If they collect the inferred data in the first place, and they know they can show you an ad, wouldn't they have to be able to identify you in some way? Well, they do. They normally tie your usage of the internet to something called an advertising ID. This is a randomized string of numbers that is assigned to your Google account or even your phone itself. Heck, even cookies can be sort of an identifier as we explored in my video about cookies. It's worth calling out that these methods of identifying
• 15:00 - 15:30 you are rarely associated to your name or any other personally identifiable information. It's more of a this particular cell phone has a user that does these things. That said, there can be sensitive information attached to this too. Depending on what you look at online, it can be inferred if you are pregnant. If you have a disability, if you're religious, if you're part of a trade union, even your own political opinions can be inferred. What's weird here is that if you tried to request your information be deleted from these data brokers, well, what would they
• 15:30 - 16:00 delete? I mean, if they have personally identifiable information, sure, some will delete that, but a majority of the data these companies have is nonidentifiable. So, they can't exactly delete it because they can't trace it back to you. the only identifier they get is that random string which can be changed or deleted by you. If you clear cookies, that can remove one of these links. If you delete or change your advertising ID, that also removes one of these links. So, while these companies can't really delete this data, you can
• 16:00 - 16:30 at least obscure what data you're attached to. Okay, but on the surface, it seems like there's nothing wrong with this inferred data, right? I mean, it can't really easily be traced back to you. Well, as always, here's where data breaches come in to ruin the fun. Scammers could easily use this inferred data to target people that are more likely to fall for scams with shocking accuracy. This data could be cross referenced with public data. Let's look at one of our dudes here. This guy goes
• 16:30 - 17:00 to coffee shops in the afternoon. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He is looking for a new job. He has a dog and travels once per year. Well, let's say that he also publicly posts to various social media platforms. He posts selfies of coffee shops some afternoons to Snapchat. On LinkedIn, it shows that he lives in Seattle and he's seeking a job. On top of that, he shows photos of his dogs and even his once per year travel event on Instagram. Sure, cross referencing that data could take a lot of time, but this is where spear fishing
• 17:00 - 17:30 campaigns could come in. Scammers could just send in a bunch of automated texts and calls to a massive list of phone numbers that were in a data breach. If the data is attached to any inferred data like companies like Toyota or Facebook would have, they could make a very targeted kind of attack without knowing who they're hitting. The goal isn't to trick everyone. The goal is to effectively trick just a small group of people. Since they know what city he lives in, and they know that he's looking for a job, they'll send out texts to all the leaked numbers in that city and they'll say something like,
• 17:30 - 18:00 "Hi, we were informed that you were looking for a job with 50% travel. We can offer such a position. If interested, please apply here. Shady link. Now, a majority of people would probably ignore this, but someone who is seeking a job who also loves to travel, well, it seems like a dream come true. Remember, the more data that scammers have, the easier it is for them to target you in a very specific way. This perfectly leads us into our last data broker category, people search
• 18:00 - 18:30 services. These are simply the evolution of physical phone books being migrated to the digital realm. If you're too young to remember, there were these companies that would basically track everyone's name, phone number, and sometimes even their address, and they would print it out in a huge book that they would send to everyone in the mail. They'd even attach them to these things called phone booths. How fun. Anyways, all this information was moved online, and they obviously put that directly identifiable information like your name, phone number, and address in there. The
• 18:30 - 19:00 thing about the online world is that you can also have an online presence. So, some of them started tracking things like social media profiles. Some of these companies took it in a weirder direction by adding other public records like arrest records, property records, and more. More specific information is normally behind a payw wall. But for everything else, like your name, phone number, address, and even social media profiles can all be seen for free by anyone. Who's looking? Sometimes it can be landlords who don't want to pay for those risk mitigation data brokers. Private investigators are probably
• 19:00 - 19:30 pretty pleased with these kinds of services. Actually, any weirdo on the internet, which has been problematic for supporting things like doxing. And there was even a reality TV show that used these services. I think it was Catfish. Okay, so this can be pretty creepy. Now, we need to ask the scary question. Do people search services comply with data deletion requests? Weirdly enough, a vast majority of them do comply. And not all of them are even required to comply. Many of these companies are based out of states that are not required to comply, yet they comply anyways. From what I
• 19:30 - 20:00 understand, they do this to avoid future regulation, legal pressure, and just bad press. Well, that's a good thing. You can delete information using the forms on the websites normally linked at the bottom. In the description, I've linked an amazing guide on how to delete your information from a bunch of these services for free. Actually, these are the most common types of data brokers that services like Incogn work with. So things are starting to make more sense. In fact, let's finally talk about data deletion
• 20:00 - 20:30 services. These are companies like we've been talking about incognite me. Some other examples would be Mosilla Monitor, Aura, Opry, OneREP, and Atlas Privacy. I'm certainly there are more than that, but they all work in the same way. They offer to delete data that's been collected about you for mostly people search data brokers. Most of them use automated systems to make this possible. However, in the case of Delete Me, it doesn't really seem like it's that much faster than doing it yourself. Let's
• 20:30 - 21:00 break down one of the sponsored spots for Delete Me. Just like my VPN video, I am not being critical of the creator shown in this video. I'm being critical of Delete Me and the script they provide to creators. That's it. It's been a little over 6 months since I first told you about Delete Me, the simple service that gives control of your personal data back to you. In that half a year, Delete Me has reviewed over 4,000 listings from data brokers across the web for me. This is sort of misleading in my opinion. That 4,000 number really makes it sound
• 21:00 - 21:30 like it's from 4,000 data brokers or something, but it's actually 4,000 individual items. So, let's say one data broker has your name, your personal email address, your work email address, your phone number, and your last four addresses. That's seven listings in this example, but just one data broker. They all do this, by the way. Here, I'll use myself as an example. Before researching this video, I used Mozilla Monitor. They showed that from one data broker, there were three email addresses, one phone
• 21:30 - 22:00 number, nine addresses, and four family members. Of that information, only eight of the items were actually correct pieces of information. The others were incorrect emails. The phone number wasn't one that had ever been mine at any point in history. Some of the addresses were wrong, and even the list of family members contained people I have never heard of before. All of these data deletion services will count this as 17 removals, but it was all from a single source, half of which wasn't even my data. Do you see how these numbers feel bigger than they really are? And
• 22:00 - 22:30 it's removed my personal information from almost 80 of them. Let's rewind for a moment back to that screenshot. There are 26 data brokers in this list. Of those, there are over 4,347 pieces of information. And of all of those, delete me has removed 38, which is very likely from a single data broker given how big that other number is. So, they're claiming to have spent 9 hours contacting one data broker. Additionally, according to the voiceover itself from the first part, this was 6
• 22:30 - 23:00 months of paying for Delete Me. I'll admit though, this isn't accounting for search time, but think about this. I don't know about you, but I'm fairly confident that I could send more than 26 emails in a 6-month period. Heck, I know that's true. I regularly send more than that in a standard 8-hour workday. What kind of listings? Well, we're talking private information like my physical address history, my property and court records, even the names of my family members now scrubbed from nearly 80 data brokers archives without me having to do
• 23:00 - 23:30 any work on my own. As we discussed, that is a tiny fraction of the actual amount of data brokers that are out there. Yes, removing this data is good, but you can do this for free. And as shown here, probably more efficiently than Delete Me. Now, this all begs the question, are these data deletion companies legit? Well, for the most part, yes. I'll admit though, I don't like that some of them mess around with dark patterns. Incogn, for example, forces users to contact support to cancel your subscription. They also post
• 23:30 - 24:00 obviously fake reviews to Reddit, but overall they technically do what they say they do. Is it a scam? No. It is pretty clear to me that they do offer the service of deleting your data from a list of data brokers. A scam means to take money with malicious intent of offering nothing in return. That is obviously not the case here. A better question would be, is it a good deal? In my opinion, not really. No. Unless you live in a state with the right to delete law. If you live in one of these states,
• 24:00 - 24:30 services like this could actually be helpful as they will often look into adding other data brokers for you if you ask them to, and that could make the process of cleaning up your online presence a bit easier. That all said though, a majority of the people in the United States wouldn't exactly benefit from this kind of service. Wait, I feel like we've heard this before. Look, everyone, it's friend of the channel, Luch. Hey, I just overheard what you've been talking about, and all of this sounds really similar to what you said about VPN companies. They kind of seem like the same thing. Do you mind elaborating? Well, both data deletion
• 24:30 - 25:00 services and VPNs technically provide the services they claim to, and they do it at a very low cost to them, but charge a much higher price to you, the consumer. Most people also don't really need either service. VPNs provide a solution to a problem most people don't normally face. And in the case of data deletion companies, all of that information you're trying to have deleted will always be replaced unless you're a resident of a right to delete state. Even if you do live in one of these right to delete states, you would still have to manually request that your data be deleted by every other data
• 25:00 - 25:30 broker in the country. And that is a timeconsuming task. There are over 1,700 registered data brokers in the US, which is much higher than the 200 or so that these companies actually delete data from. But it's important to note that only a handful of states have laws requiring data brokers to actually be registered. So in reality, that number may be much higher when we take into account the unregistered brokers. It's estimated that worldwide there are over 5,000 data brokers. Oh, and as it turns out, Incogn is owned by Surf Shark and
• 25:30 - 26:00 Surf Shark is owned by NordVPN. So, at the end of the day, it kind of is just the same thing. Funny how that works. Fantastic points. Thanks for the extra insight. Sure thing, man. I'll let you get back to it. Thanks for stopping by. This has me all thinking. Are we just looking for a new company to hate on? Hear me out. After the honey scandal, people started giving these services the stinky eye because it felt too good to be true. As we just learned, it's not as
• 26:00 - 26:30 wonderful as they make it seem. They have good marketing, but it's just a simple tool that can only do so much about the actual problem. These companies are just taking advantage of the fact that data brokers run freely with no restrictions. It's an infinite money glitch that they're just jumping on before regulations eventually catch up. They're not the source of the problem, nor are they the solution to the problem. The actual problem is the data being collected in the first place. Companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon have been allowed to collect and sell this data with almost no oversight in the United States. Even now, 20 states
• 26:30 - 27:00 have some sort of consumer privacy law, but to this day, there isn't a single law that prevents a company from collecting unnecessary data in the first place. The European Union has restrictions against these companies with their GDPR. They absolutely prevent companies from collecting certain types of data from the start. It's hard to imagine that there would be any kind of federal change anytime soon given the last three presidents have welcomed big tech with open arms. This is not a political jab at either side, but instead at both. Both Democrats and
• 27:00 - 27:30 Republicans have enabled companies to have this kind of power. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed to protect the people they're supposed to represent. I mean, even the CEOs of these companies aren't protected by their own data collection. Mark Zuckerberg's personal information has been breached from Facebook data breaches in the past. Okay, so what can you do? It might feel a little counterintuitive to what I just said, but call your local representative
• 27:30 - 28:00 and demand for better privacy laws. Even the states that have good privacy laws can be greatly improved. Be loud, be annoying. You have to pretend like these local representatives have never heard about what you're talking about before. Be loud, but be clear in your language. Be specific. For example, I don't like that companies are allowed to collect data that is solely used for targeted advertising. It is oftentimes greatly mishandled and results in getting leaked to scammers, which costs Americans hundreds of billions of dollars every
• 28:00 - 28:30 year. If you want to learn more about how data breaches lead to scams, watch my video about that here. When talking to your local representative, give clear examples. Identify what companies are doing this and show it in their own privacy policies. Here's an example. Spotify shares data with these 94 companies by default. And I think it's unnecessary for a company that streams music to have all of this inferred data. Data that is retained for any period of time is at risk of a data breach, which hurts consumers. When these 94 companies are also given access to this
• 28:30 - 29:00 information, it stops being a question of if there will be a data breach. Rather, when will one of these 94 companies get hit with a data breach? In 2024, nearly half of all companies in the United States experienced a data breach. Using that information, we can reasonably assume that 47 of these companies will experience a data breach. If there were regulations in place to prevent Spotify from collecting this information in the first place, the risk of a data breach would be greatly reduced as the unnecessary user data wouldn't be there to begin with. Hackers
• 29:00 - 29:30 wouldn't have as much incentive to hack Spotify. Here's another example. General Motors knows what medications I take, and they infer my intelligence through various sources of data collection spelled out in their privacy policy. This is an inexcusable abuse of power, and they do not need to know any of that for me to be able to drive my car. In the European Union, General Motors sells vehicles that work exactly like they do here in the United States. But laws like the GDPR protect their citizens, and this kind of data isn't collected at
• 29:30 - 30:00 all. Here's the EU version of the privacy policy for General Motors. And here's the US version. It's clear why they collect as much as they do here. There are no regulations to protect consumers. If you want something more actionable on your end, fight back with your wallet if you're able to. For example, stop using Gmail. For years now, they've read every single email that you get, which means that every purchase you make is now valuable data that they can sell to advertisers. I'll note that this can take a very long time to fully transition away, though. It
• 30:00 - 30:30 took me an entire year to move from Gmail to Startmail, and even then I faced minor inconveniences with services that I forgot to move over. It takes time, so be patient. Another thing I'll always advocate for is to block all the ads. A big point of this data being collected is to sell to advertisers. So, start blocking them from making their money. Show that we don't want to be tracked like this. I've heard other creators compare this to piracy, but I disagree. Blocking ads is not piracy. I understand that it can hurt small creators in the crossfire. So, if you're
• 30:30 - 31:00 able to support your favorite creators directly. Another thing that can help prevent cross referencing your data can be to avoid public-f facing social media, at least where your name is shown. This can range from things like Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Steam. Be cautious about where you publicly show your name. Most platforms have a privacy setting that you can use to hide some of this information. If you want more information on what you can do about feeling powerless to data collection, I highly suggest you watch my video on that here. Believe me, there is always
• 31:00 - 31:30 an option. As always, thank you for watching. Please be kind and patient with each other. I want to give a special thanks to everyone supporting this channel through memberships and Patreon. Considering that a lot of my channel is about showing the truth behind a lot of common sponsors, it doesn't feel right for me to start taking them on like most growing YouTubers do. However, I would love to make these videos for you all full-time. So, if you have some money to spare and want to help make that dream become a reality, consider either becoming a member or subscribing to my Patreon page. By doing so, you'll get early access to videos, exclusive access to a
• 31:30 - 32:00 supporters onlyly Discord server, and more. The link to Patreon is in the description or at patreon.com/rejectconvenience. Peace. Heads up, boss. Spider-Man's headed your way. [Laughter] Excellent. I'll get you this time, Spider-Man. Doc, you're looking more medicine than usual. Do something with your hair. Get over here, you pest.
• 32:00 - 32:30 O, yoza, you got a punch there, Spider-Man. Thanks. I've been working on a new move. Want to see? Ah, you've defeated me once again. Better luck next time. Wow. Yeah, Spider-Man. Yeah.