Startup idea: charge me $149 and handle all these opt-outs for me. Add in a yearly subscription for on-going monitoring.

Reddit comment: >> Employee of Acxiom here. The Direct Marketing Association (the-dma.org) is the legitimate trade group of direct marketing companies. If you opt out at the-dma.org, it will be accepted by almost all legitimate datamining companies. DO NOT USE THE ONLINE SERVICES THAT SAY THEY WILL OPT OUT OF EVERYTHING FOR YOU! These "services" send an opt out on your behalf that will be ignored by all the major marketers/dataminers because they only accept opt-outs from individual consumers. The "services" that send opt-outs en masse will collect your info to spam you later. As far as I know, the DMA is the only external organization that Acxiom will honor an opt-out from.

It's not very clear on the "the-dma.org" site how you actually request them to remove you, and it takes you via 2 other sites to get there, but the url for consumers is:

https://www.dmachoice.org/

Has anyone actually used this successfully? How long does it take to take effect? The site looks like it is supposed to remove you from junk mail lists, not background check sites/public records sites.

I have. After recently moving, I opted out (for several years) and I didn't opt out my wife. Only my wife gets the credit card and offer spam.

Of course, this does nothing for the local grocery ads and "recipient at <your address>" junk mail.

I went through the same sort of experience researching the viability of a service that will stop phone book deliveries to your address. There is an official site, here:

http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/

with a similar disclaimer.

Reputation.com, formerly Reputation Defender, purports to do just that. They advertise pretty heavily on Minnesota Public Radio, of all places.

I heard an ad for them on NPR out here in Utah. I guess they advertise on the national programs. I thought it was interesting that they promised to "delete" potentially embarrassing information.

California, too.

D.C. as well.

As mentioned in the post, looks like someone beat you to it:

http://abine.com/products.php

Needs a much better landing page. If offered the same service, with a solid design (ala life lock) and a product not called "TACO" they'd do well.

The actual service's is fine: http://www.abine.com/deleteme/

I would be a bit careful about sending my scanned ID to a data mining company.

That was my first concern to: To prevent these companies from collecting data about me, i have to send them my ID; the most sensitive of them all?

Would I be right in saying this is an American phenomenon?, or is it used worldwide ?

That's an actual question, not a rhetorical one, thanks for the upvotes, but does anyone know the answer to my question ?

This is very American. That's not to say that other countries don't have some of this information, but from my experience to a lesser extent.

There's a lot of transparency in a lot of contracts / arrangements. A lot of information ends up on public record. Buy a house, get married, poor credit rating etc. Most of this information is accessible in some form and these companies are simply aggregating it.

This information is generally much more difficult to collect in other countries (with my own personal experience being in a few European countries), if it's even accessible at all.

I'm sure there's exceptions but this does seem like a very American problem.

So, I assume that these "background check websites" are are one tool that prospective employers use to research potential hires? If you remove yourself, what answer will the background check company give your prospective employer? Will they just answer "this person is not in our database", or will they say "this person opted out of our service"? How will this affect your chances of getting hired?

Is it just me or is there something logically broken about the idea of giving these websites all your information so that they do not have all that information about you?

im not giving these websites anymore information about me, even if it is to "remove" me from their databases.

What are the possible ramifications of opting out from these companies? Purely positive? Are there any downsides I may come across in the future as a result of opting out?

I was curious, too. From the OP, "I asked LawyerCT about this one and she said that any serious employer would use a real site such as social intelligence to run a background check. The sites listed above are mostly around to make a profit off of selling your information. There are sites like Social Intelligence which are only available for use by organizations/corporations." Seems like a pretty safe move.

Background check sites are the lowest of the low. Worse than Steve Yegge's "cat picture" sites.

EDIT: My only reason for saying the above is that I can only imagine these sites being used for borderline nefarious purposes.

How do people actually know if these companies have data on them? I once searched in Spokeo and started getting a bunch of spam email.

we're privacy advocates working on a free, automated, transparent solution to opt you out of all major personal information search services...coming very very soon

Isn't changing your name an easier & better way?

Changing your name is not an option for many people: 1) In many parts of the world, this is a complex process in and of itself. Often you need to petition a court, and to place notices in local papers. 2) Names have reputation. Just because you want to not be listed in background check sites, doesn't mean that you don't want your professional reputation, that you want the hassle of explaining to an employer why your references are for a different name, etc. 3) Names have meaning. Even for those who have never changed their name, their name will mean something to them. To hear it said can be frightening, or arousing. It can be a mantra of strength, and give a sense of self. And for those who have already changed names, this is even more so.

Even if changing name was an option, there are many means to link an old name to a new one. Many organisations keep both on file, even when they shouldn't. And combining public records with statistics can show that someone still is the same person.

I changed my name when I got married. My maiden name is linked to my current name in a lot of these databases - typically the legal process where you change your name is open, and they just mine that piece of information as well.

I used ussearch.com, they are a scam site, they will autobill you when you only specify a one time charge. They nabbed me for $90 bucks when I only wanted a one time charge of $14.

Using a credit card to do a background check on yourself or others is a VERY bad idea. They make you jump through 5 hoops to stop the autopayments you didn't request. do a google search for ussearch.com unexpected autobilling and you'll see a mountain of complaints. And to top it all off, the information about the target was wrong.

Call your credit card company and explain next time. They can halt that immediately.

just say no to all forms asking to share your information with business.

every place i go they send me one here in Cali.

my bank. my tax guy (ernst&young, btw avoid them). my one building landlord. etc. ...my bank send one every year and if i do not send back they assume they can share my info.

also, never check you credit score. EVER. let 3rd parties do that for you :)