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Marketplace Tech

Do paid data-removal services pay off?

Marketplace Tech

American Public Media

Technology, News

4.61.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A lot of personal data – stuff like your home address, phone number, marital status and more – is out there on the internet. Anyone can buy it from sites like Whitepages, PeopleFinders or Intelius, which aggregate data from public records and social media. You can contact each of these “people search” sites and request they take down your information, but it’s a bit of a game of whack-a-mole. Naturally, a whole industry of data-removal services has sprung up. For a price, they promise to do the dirty work for you. But do they deliver? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Yael Grauer, a researcher at Consumer Reports, who recently looked into the efficacy of the data-removal industry.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi I'm Kai Rizdahl the host of How We Survive

0:03.4

It's a podcast from Marketplace. In 1986, before I was a journalist,

0:08.3

I was flying for the Navy.

0:09.7

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

0:14.4

It was the cold war, and my first deployments were intercepting Russian bombers.

0:18.6

Today, though, there's another threat out there, climate change.

0:22.5

This could be the warmest year on record.

0:24.6

Climate change is here.

0:25.7

Temperatures here are warming faster than anywhere on Earth.

0:29.5

And while the threat seems new,

0:31.6

the Pentagon's been funding studies on climate change since the 1950s.

0:35.9

I think we will put our troops and our forces at higher risk if we don't recognize the impact of climate change.

0:44.7

This season, we go to the front lines of the climate crisis

0:47.5

to see how the military is preparing for the threat.

0:51.0

Listen to how we survive,

0:52.3

wherever you get your podcasts.

0:55.0

It's really hard to get all your personal data off the internet, even when you throw money at the problem.

1:03.7

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

1:06.7

I'm Megan McCarty Karino. A lot of personal data, stuff like your home address, phone number, marital status, and more is all out there on the

1:27.0

internet.

1:28.0

Anyone can buy it from sites like White Pages, People Finders, or Intellias, which aggregate data from public records and social media.

1:36.8

You can contact each one and request they take down your information, then double check they actually do it, then triple check, it

...

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