Mozilla's new service tries to wipe your data off the web

[neogodless]

See related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274631 (blog.mozilla.org)

Mozilla Monitor Plus: automatically remove your personal info from data brokers

(posted 22 hours ago, 260+ points, 189+ comments)

[ChrisArchitect]

[dupe]

Lots of discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39274631

[Siberium]

"Mozilla partners with a company called Onerep to perform these scans and subsequent takedown requests"

Reputation companies have perverse incentives and often need to pay off offending privacy-invading sites - see https://thewalrus.ca/clean-online-reputation/.

You'd be essentially funding this continued privacy invasion of individuals - even if this service is successful for yourself.

That's a lucrative product for a for-profit company to offer, but seems like a poor fit for the parent foundation's goals of creating a more privacy-respecting internet on a systemic level (rather than just for a few paying customers).

[nottorp]

Yep. If it were a service done by Mozilla I could trust it. But this way, what is it besides a referral program for some company I've never heard of?

Plus the 'It's just a Starbucks latte' pricing...

[pquki4]

Too bad I don't live in Europe, what can I do? (shrug)

[thallium205]

I ran my info through the scanner and it said it found hundreds of matches. I looked through them and exactly 0 of them were me. Trash.

[wildrhythms]

I always wonder how much data these companies have taken down that isn't their client's.

[nottorp]

Antivirus vendor recipe "we have found 2840 possible threats on your computer!"

[chriscampbell]

I am a big fan of Kanary - https://www.kanary.com/

I’ve tried one rep, delete me and a few others. This service goes much wider to delete all public mentions and hidden ones in broker databases that are being sold. It has made a considerable difference for my data privacy IMO.

[chrisandchris]

It's fascinating that I have to pay to get my data removed from datasets into which they got without my consent (well, my consent "is not worth much" IMHO) and somebody else gets paid to put my data into this dataset.

So I need to pay to get something I never wanted in the first place.

[kanary]

Glad to hear it. All we do at Kanary is focus on exposure clean up. We've spent 4+ years refining how we find and match information to show accurate results vs a bunch of mismatched / irrelevant alerts.

We run a free trial & free version too so that it can be accessible for folks who want to run this type of clean up, have the time to DIY, and don't want to pay.

[jdmoreira]

I'm going to go against the trend here and put on my evil hat.

How do I buy this data? Who are these brokers? And how do I buy it?

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

I have a friend that once worked in a tech role within The Political Establishment. He had a file on his computer with personal information about me on it, aggregated from data brokers.

[Kye]

Making these connections is likely part of the value someone somewhere in this ecosystem provides. I doubt they do it for free or accept just anyone.

[yoaviram]

DataBrokersWatch.org

[SushiHippie]

FWIW they use haveibeenpwned.com to find the breaches when you enter the e-mail. So you could just go to https://haveibeenpwned.com to check if you are affected by any breaches.

[herunan]

US-only. What if my EU data is found in US-based data brokers?

[Alifatisk]

Then they got a larger issue

[clankyclanker]

Then you file a complaint with your favorite reordenarías because somebody skirted the GDPR?

[repelsteeltje]

Darn, I looks like someone stole my identity and threw in the $8.99/m to DeleteMe!

...Now I have to start all over training the ad targeting I carefully built over all those years.

But seriously, wouldn't it make more sense if this service were free for everyone except those that opted in? (For example, by not sending the DNT header in all requests?)

[felsokning]

>For example, by not sending the DNT header in all requests?

DNT is all but dead; it never got past the draft specification phase - even though being adopted by the major players in the browser realm. (Most have already removed the feature.)

GPC[1] is supposed to be the new DNT but I doubt it will have as much success.

[1] - https://globalprivacycontrol.org/press-release/20201007.html

[pipo234]

Maybe some EU country would like to step in and offer this as a basic service to all their citizens? (I'm sure Mozilla would be happy to give a discount.)

[glauber]

Google offers something very similar for subscribers of Google One.

[pipo234]

GOOGLE?! So... left hand cleaning up the mess created by the right hand? Isn't that called a Ponzi scheme, or something?

[BrainBacon]

I just looked through the perks on my Google One and don't see this offering. I don't see it in the premium perks either. Do you happen to have a link? Is it some kind of hidden benefit?

[luplex]

Google just checks for your details in known data leaks. They don't talk to data brokers on your behalf.

[wildrhythms]

No they don't; they only offer 'dark web scanning'. https://one.google.com/about/security