martes, 11 de diciembre de 2012

Online Privacy & Where It's Headed

For anyone interested in maintaining any kind of online privacy, the vast array of information corporations out there is dead-set against your success.

Companies operating two or more personal-information websites, each with a different marque, are not in competition with each other - they're increasing their chances of getting your business.

And when it's time to correct or delete information from these 'services,' you'll have twice the fun trying to get the job done.

And some of them even have further offerings – so-called ‘deletion services’ that will undertake to contact all the other companies on your behalf to remove incorrect or troublesome information about you and your family.  Thing is, many of these deletion services demand even more info about you in order to ‘verify’ that you are who you say you are.  And when you give them that further information (phone number, driver’s license number) who’s to say that they will not actually add that info to your file?

The process, even with a deletion service, is bound to be long and arduous.  I spent a hour on the phone with a bright young lady who was as helpful as she could be, despite the silly rules of the game (seems that, when you hire a deletion service, they are not really acting as your agent; in other words, you can’t verify your identity once with them and be done with it – you have to then call each and every company to pass on even more of your information as a means of ‘verifying’ yourself).

And note that you may have to email or fax them even even more data - but if you are interested in cleaning your online slate, you're going to have to trust them to not use it!
 

So here is a list of the companies to help you take care of that monumental problem.  Good luck!



Contact:              Spokeo        6a-5p PST   877-913-3088
                           Epsilon          see below
                           Private Eye   M-F 7a – 6p PST  800-610-2703
                           Acxiom          877-774-2094
                           Archives         888-896-4442
                           USA People Search   800-248-1544
* People Lookup           see below
                        * US Search         M-F 5a – 6p PST  800-877-3272
                        * Intelius

* Need additional verification info (address, phone number, DL number).
Epsilon:  Privacy
2550 Crescent Dr, Lafayette, CO 80026    888.780.3869  privacy@epsilon.com
4401 Regent Bl, Irving, TX 75063     800.309.0505    972.582.9600    

Private Eye       800-610-2703   M-F 7a – 6p PST, S-S 7a-1130a , 1230-330p PST

US Search        800-877-3272   M-F 5a – 6p PST        S-S 6a-4p

Acxiom            888-322 9466   501-342-7799    601 E 3rd St, Little Rock, AR 72201 

 

© 2012 Hakim - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: use without profit allowed only with author’s express written permission. Please don't wake up my attorney. Please.