
How to remove yourself from all background check websites - suprgeek
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_remove_yourself_from_all_background_check/
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teej
Startup idea: charge me $149 and handle all these opt-outs for me. Add in a
yearly subscription for on-going monitoring.

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aik
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.

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dotBen
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/>

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IgorPartola
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.

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r00fus
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.

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

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rvschuilenburg
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?

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

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

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philjr
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.

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rcthompson
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?

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siphr
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?

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

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atomicdog
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?

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dsmithn
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.

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brimpa
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.

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arthurgibson
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.

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useflyer
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

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

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FeministHacker
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.

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maeon3
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.

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

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gcb
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 :)

