Could data removal services be doing more harm than good?

Questions
1

I was looking into using a data removal service (specifically easyoptouts), and was reviewing their privacy policy when I saw this statement:

“We’ll enter as little information as we think is necessary for each site. Their usage of the data is governed by their own privacy policies. Your data may end up in their control. Your data may end up outside the United States. Please don’t share anything with us that you don’t want us to enter on the sites we’re opting you out of.”

For me personally, I’ve already done a little bit of searching on whitepages and similar sites, and they don’t seem to have much on me. They have my name, age, the city I live in, and my mother. They don’t have either of our addresses, my phone number, or seemingly any of our other relatives or any more of my personal data.

The way the statement in the privacy policy is explained, it sounds like there’s a risk of my data becoming more available on the internet by using the service, as they could potentially enter in too much trying to find stuff to remove that gets linked back to me and such. Am I understanding this correctly, and if so, do you think it’s worth it to use a service like this?

2

You should listen to their interview in Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons for more insight on the two people running this.

While there is always a risk with such services, I would rather trust these people than anyone else seeing how much we know about the service and how to do things.

There really is no reason to worry, easyoptouts don’t care about you but only for what you are paying them for.

Its my opinion that you can use them without any major concerns for all that they promise and you want them to do as a part of their service.

And to answer your title question more directly - No. They do not do more harm than good.

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3

Understood. I’m pretty new to all this, so I guess maybe I’m being too overcautious. I’ll definitely check out the interview, and thank you for the tips!

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4

Yeah I figured.

It’s good that you’re asking the right questions. That’s how you learn.

But you’re fine to use them here. And listen to that interview and watch some of the Techlore videos that also talk about them.

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5

Do these services only work in the US?

6

:united_states: Note: Many of these tools are only available in the United States

7

I see that this is mostly a US-Centric issue. Do we know which other country are not protected by law? Europe seems to be protected by GDRP.

What about other countries? Australia? New Zealand? Canada? UK? etc.