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Whether you're a social media creator like me or someone with a more traditional online presence, a simple name search can uncover an unsettling reality: Your personal information is likely online—and possibly for sale.
This article was made possible in part by Optery. It was written and edited independently without partner oversight.
Data brokers and people-search websites gather personal details from across the internet, compiling them into detailed profiles. These profiles are then sold to anyone willing to pay, exposing home addresses, phone numbers, email accounts, and even sensitive information like Social Security numbers—especially if your data has been part of a breach.
This is where data scrubbing comes in. But should you do it yourself or hire one of the top personal data removal services? Let's break it down.
How Easy Is It to Scrub Your Data Manually?
Like any other cleaning activity, clearing your data from the internet will be a step-by-step process, including discovery, sending removal requests, and maintenance. Here's what each stage requires:
Discovery
At the discovery stage, you'll attempt to locate every piece of personal information that's online. This will mean entering your first name, last name, phone number, or address, individually or in combinations, to find where they've been published.
Noting the results is the next step. We recommend recording the information in a spreadsheet; a spreadsheet log will save you hours of headache and make it easier to manage your discoveries. Keeping site links handy and creating priority, status, and other filters will help you manage the details. You don’t want a whole day's work to go to waste because your system crashed from too many open tabs.
Data scrubbing can be labor-intensive. To give you an idea of what data scrubbing can unearth, a test scan during our search for the best personal data removal services reported over 800 items of personal data across more than 90 websites.
Sending Removal Requests
Once you've found all the bad actors—or feel you've covered enough for the time being—removal requests must be sent. Expect this step to take the longest because data brokers don't have the most up-front systems for removal requests. Be prepared to commit at least five to ten minutes to each site and expect the process to require several steps. These can include confirmation emails or phone calls. Some data broker sites may even ask you to share valid government IDs to process your data removal request.
This part of the data removal process is a cumbersome step to do manually. Should you choose to keep data scrubbing in-house, the Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List (BADBOOL) is a good resource to help with your removal efforts. It offers links to opt-out instructions for many of the biggest data brokers that might otherwise sell your information to those ready to pay.
Follow-Ups and Maintenance
After you've sent out removal requests en masse, the next step is to review the data broker sites you approached to confirm that they've followed through with data removal.
It's hard to pin down how many days a data broker service will take to remove your information, but you can expect this to range from days to weeks. So, keeping an eye out for any confirmation should be on your checklist.
But don't forget to perform periodic maintenance. Running a check once every quarter should help combat any data recurrences.
What Does a Paid Data Removal Service Offer?
If all of the above sounds tedious, that's because it is. But it's also free. Are you willing to spend money to save time? That's where a paid data removal service comes in.
Ironically, using a personal data removal service requires you to share your information. This normally occurs when you first log in, but if details change, you can always update them later. The information you choose to share is at your discretion, but precision helps. The provided information is how the service will match, track, and remove your details from other sources. If you’re still wary about sharing your personal information, be sure to safeguard your data removal service account with the best two-factor authentication apps; if this protection isn’t available, it might not be the ideal service.
Note that data removal services don’t cover everything. They can't remove public data, like court orders and details from government databases, for example.
After you've set up your account, most services will scan the web for your personal details and log their results in a dashboard. They'll then send removal requests to the data brokers they handle.
How much can you expect to pay? It varies from service to service, and many services offer different tiers. Optery, for example, monitors and facilitates data removal across 600-plus sites on its Ultimate tier ($300 per year plus applicable taxes). And Incogni, the most affordable paid service on our list ($96 per year plus applicable taxes), will work to remove data on 400-plus sites. Many services like Optery, Incogni, and Privacy Bee also offer free DIY tiers, with instructions for manually requesting removal from data brokers (otherwise, Privacy Bee falls between Optery and Incogni price-wise, at $197 per year).
The job doesn't end after sending opt-out requests; that’s where these services once again add convenience. They continue to track the status of a removal request and also monitor the web for recurrences. Effectively, your work will be reduced to periodically checking your dashboard and taking action if you see a notification from your chosen service.
Should You Use a Paid Data Removal Service?
If you don't mind paying $100 (or more) annually for data removal, a paid data service is absolutely worth the time it saves you. They work quickly and efficiently, and many even offer family plans, which you can use to keep everyone protected.
However, if free data scans and manual searches don't yield many results, you probably don't need a data removal service and can save money by handling one-off opt-out requests on your own.