I'm inherently skeptical that products and companies for this sort of service are springing up left and right and starting to dominate youtube sponsor spots. I generally trust Mozilla, but the...
I'm inherently skeptical that products and companies for this sort of service are springing up left and right and starting to dominate youtube sponsor spots. I generally trust Mozilla, but the idea that our privacy was stolen from us and now it's being sold back to us as a subscription is a bit sickening.
I'm still not sure I even trust the core mechanism these services use to operate, which is sending out your personal information on auto-filled forms to data brokers so they can "remove your data" or "make sure they don't have your information".
Of course they then immediately start gathering new records that need to be deleted again in the future. There's no reason to think that outting yourself to them as privacy conscious with services like this helps whatsoever. I've already read people in privacy communities saying they started receiving more spam after using one of these.
Agreed that sending opt-out requests to secretive companies that profit from exploiting your data may not yield the results you’re looking for. These companies don’t have your best interests in...
Agreed that sending opt-out requests to secretive companies that profit from exploiting your data may not yield the results you’re looking for. These companies don’t have your best interests in mind. Probably more than with any other industry, you are the product and not the customer. These are like credit bureaus on steroids, and because they’re so new and secretive, they have basically no regulatory oversight. They thrive on remaining unknown. I would fully expect them to be SHADY as fuck.
I think a better way to thwart them is to go on the offense with aggressive data poisoning. Flood the zone. Bury the signal beneath so much noise that no one is able to discern anything meaningful about you anymore. Make their data harvest worthless.
I’d consider paying someone (someone I trust, like Mozilla) to do this on my behalf. More than the approach they’re currently selling. I’ll decline for now.
The moment someone asks money in name of privacy I'm out. Is is just me or this part simply means there are more data broker sites then any tool can remove data from? What's the point of deleting...
The moment someone asks money in name of privacy I'm out.
Monitor Plus will let you know once your personal information has been removed from more than 190+ data broker sites, twice the number of other competitors.
Is is just me or this part simply means there are more data broker sites then any tool can remove data from? What's the point of deleting info from 190+ sites when same info is there with others.
I don't understand this logic at all. You trust the free data-harvesting services for privacy instead? Come on, give us a little more to work with. Nothing in life is perfect nor black and white,...
I don't understand this logic at all. You trust the free data-harvesting services for privacy instead? Come on, give us a little more to work with.
What's the point of deleting info from 190+ sites when same info is there with others.
Nothing in life is perfect nor black and white, but that doesn't mean you can't make something better.
Anyways, @kfwyre, I'm a long time paid user of a similar service called Kanary and it is absolutely worth it in my opinion. Searching my name/info brings up almost nothing, just weird SEO articles full of gibberish and relatives far less concerned with privacy.
For myself it's another way to decrease my attack surface, not giving spammers easily accessible info to social engineer their way to a SIM swap or bank transfer over the phone, for example.
While it's not something I'd pay for personally, I understand why it costs money. Even though removal requests are "automatic," there's likely some level of human intervention required. Mozilla...
While it's not something I'd pay for personally, I understand why it costs money. Even though removal requests are "automatic," there's likely some level of human intervention required.
Mozilla also offers quite a variety of software and reference material for free. I'm not mad at them for trying to make some revenue.
This literally reads like those blackmail scams in email. "Pay me $xxxx to remove this stolen intimate photo we got from your phone from our website." except the info is real and "legally" stolen....
This literally reads like those blackmail scams in email. "Pay me $xxxx to remove this stolen intimate photo we got from your phone from our website." except the info is real and "legally" stolen.
The only difference is that revenge porn is illegal and therefore makes the above situation blackmailing, but our info is not our property... yet. So stealing it and being told to pay to "have it back" so to speak isn't illegal yet. And even then, like you said, there seems to be more databases than Mozilla is capable of erasing the info from, so what's the point?
I guess the analogy would be a professional cleaning service. You can clean yourself, but some people would rather pay a company to handle cleaning on some schedule. And, ideally, Mozilla’s...
I guess the analogy would be a professional cleaning service. You can clean yourself, but some people would rather pay a company to handle cleaning on some schedule. And, ideally, Mozilla’s service will keep up to date on what needs “cleaning” better than you or I could without spending a lot of time.
I do think you are being a bit disingenuous -- in your blackmail comparison, the same person stole the material and is asking you to pay to delete it. Mozilla isn't the one who has your data here,...
I do think you are being a bit disingenuous -- in your blackmail comparison, the same person stole the material and is asking you to pay to delete it. Mozilla isn't the one who has your data here, they're charging for a service in which they do the work of demanding people who have it delete it. It's up to you whether you think that's worth paying for, but analogizing it to blackmail is a little unfair.
Can't add tab groups on mobile, but gosh darnit if they aren't coming up with random new crap instead. Obviously they can do more than one thing at a time, but it really feels like their browser...
Can't add tab groups on mobile, but gosh darnit if they aren't coming up with random new crap instead.
Obviously they can do more than one thing at a time, but it really feels like their browser is stagnating instead of working hard to take advantage of the dissatisfaction with Chrome.
While I largely agree there is a bit of nuance to some of this. Mozilla exists by the grace of the search engine deal they have with google. Some of these services they have been introducing have...
While I largely agree there is a bit of nuance to some of this. Mozilla exists by the grace of the search engine deal they have with google. Some of these services they have been introducing have been part of an attempt by Mozilla to have an income stream that makes them somewhat more self reliant.
Having said that, it is frustrating that their focus on Firefox seems to be all over the place these past years.
Absolutely, but the reason Google gives them those payouts is due to their market share. Taking that for granted has not served them well. Mozilla seems like a fairly directionless company....
Absolutely, but the reason Google gives them those payouts is due to their market share. Taking that for granted has not served them well.
Mozilla seems like a fairly directionless company. Stagnating on mobile, behind in browser engines, and just poorly managed in general.
Market share, and also to prevent Chromium from being a monopoly. Google wants to have all the market share it can legally get, then personally give the remaining scraps to Mozilla so they can...
Market share, and also to prevent Chromium from being a monopoly. Google wants to have all the market share it can legally get, then personally give the remaining scraps to Mozilla so they can claim they are competing fairly.
I'm inherently skeptical that products and companies for this sort of service are springing up left and right and starting to dominate youtube sponsor spots. I generally trust Mozilla, but the idea that our privacy was stolen from us and now it's being sold back to us as a subscription is a bit sickening.
I'm still not sure I even trust the core mechanism these services use to operate, which is sending out your personal information on auto-filled forms to data brokers so they can "remove your data" or "make sure they don't have your information".
Of course they then immediately start gathering new records that need to be deleted again in the future. There's no reason to think that outting yourself to them as privacy conscious with services like this helps whatsoever. I've already read people in privacy communities saying they started receiving more spam after using one of these.
Agreed that sending opt-out requests to secretive companies that profit from exploiting your data may not yield the results you’re looking for. These companies don’t have your best interests in mind. Probably more than with any other industry, you are the product and not the customer. These are like credit bureaus on steroids, and because they’re so new and secretive, they have basically no regulatory oversight. They thrive on remaining unknown. I would fully expect them to be SHADY as fuck.
I think a better way to thwart them is to go on the offense with aggressive data poisoning. Flood the zone. Bury the signal beneath so much noise that no one is able to discern anything meaningful about you anymore. Make their data harvest worthless.
I’d consider paying someone (someone I trust, like Mozilla) to do this on my behalf. More than the approach they’re currently selling. I’ll decline for now.
I'm interested to hear the community's thoughts on this. Is this genuinely a valuable service for privacy?
The moment someone asks money in name of privacy I'm out.
Is is just me or this part simply means there are more data broker sites then any tool can remove data from? What's the point of deleting info from 190+ sites when same info is there with others.
I don't understand this logic at all. You trust the free data-harvesting services for privacy instead? Come on, give us a little more to work with.
Nothing in life is perfect nor black and white, but that doesn't mean you can't make something better.
Anyways, @kfwyre, I'm a long time paid user of a similar service called Kanary and it is absolutely worth it in my opinion. Searching my name/info brings up almost nothing, just weird SEO articles full of gibberish and relatives far less concerned with privacy.
For myself it's another way to decrease my attack surface, not giving spammers easily accessible info to social engineer their way to a SIM swap or bank transfer over the phone, for example.
While it's not something I'd pay for personally, I understand why it costs money. Even though removal requests are "automatic," there's likely some level of human intervention required.
Mozilla also offers quite a variety of software and reference material for free. I'm not mad at them for trying to make some revenue.
This literally reads like those blackmail scams in email. "Pay me $xxxx to remove this stolen intimate photo we got from your phone from our website." except the info is real and "legally" stolen.
The only difference is that revenge porn is illegal and therefore makes the above situation blackmailing, but our info is not our property... yet. So stealing it and being told to pay to "have it back" so to speak isn't illegal yet. And even then, like you said, there seems to be more databases than Mozilla is capable of erasing the info from, so what's the point?
I guess the analogy would be a professional cleaning service. You can clean yourself, but some people would rather pay a company to handle cleaning on some schedule. And, ideally, Mozilla’s service will keep up to date on what needs “cleaning” better than you or I could without spending a lot of time.
I do think you are being a bit disingenuous -- in your blackmail comparison, the same person stole the material and is asking you to pay to delete it. Mozilla isn't the one who has your data here, they're charging for a service in which they do the work of demanding people who have it delete it. It's up to you whether you think that's worth paying for, but analogizing it to blackmail is a little unfair.
Can't add tab groups on mobile, but gosh darnit if they aren't coming up with random new crap instead.
Obviously they can do more than one thing at a time, but it really feels like their browser is stagnating instead of working hard to take advantage of the dissatisfaction with Chrome.
While I largely agree there is a bit of nuance to some of this. Mozilla exists by the grace of the search engine deal they have with google. Some of these services they have been introducing have been part of an attempt by Mozilla to have an income stream that makes them somewhat more self reliant.
Having said that, it is frustrating that their focus on Firefox seems to be all over the place these past years.
Absolutely, but the reason Google gives them those payouts is due to their market share. Taking that for granted has not served them well.
Mozilla seems like a fairly directionless company. Stagnating on mobile, behind in browser engines, and just poorly managed in general.
Market share, and also to prevent Chromium from being a monopoly. Google wants to have all the market share it can legally get, then personally give the remaining scraps to Mozilla so they can claim they are competing fairly.
They still don't even support HDR :/