Just because a data aggregation site does not show your data on the front-end, does not mean they deleted it from the back-end. So now you can charge 50$ for people to search in the "special" data pile, where people took the effort to remove it from the front-end.
These data brokers crawl publicly available information. Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all, since the data was already shared. It is not plugging the leak, it is mopping up some of the water. A false sense of security and a clear sign to the doxxer that you care about your anonymity (so more "lulz" to be had).
A proper doxxing is also much more than entering a name in some search engines. Especially hackers do not like to be doxxed. For internet civilians who already put this data out there (on social media) a simple data broker doxxing is a mere reminder that such data is public to everyone, not just friends.
Doxxing defense is guarding your anonymity online. Everywhere. Doxxing defense is knowing when to change persona's, and when to log off. That is: If you care about it at all. If you care about keeping your identity a secret online, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaYdCdwiWU (The Grugq - OPSEC: Because Jail is for wuftpd).
> Just because a data aggregation site does not show your data on the front-end, does not mean they deleted it from the back-end. So now you can charge 50$ for people to search in the "special" data pile
Do you have evidence of aggregators doing this? It's plausible, but I haven't heard about it happening.
> Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all
I think you have a good point overall but let's not dismiss the solution in the ComputerWorld article, which is valuable. All security solutions do the same thing: They increase the attacker's costs, which stops attackers unwilling to pay the price. There is no perfect security.
For example, we tell users to use strong passwords on their Windows logons, but that only raises the cost of an attack and does not completely secure the machine.
The simplest defense is to completely separate any online persona from your "real" offline persona. Obviously, how separate you make them has to be proportionate to many enemies you expect.
But you are an actual public person who is public with their real name, I do not envy you.
These data brokers crawl publicly available information. Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all, since the data was already shared. It is not plugging the leak, it is mopping up some of the water. A false sense of security and a clear sign to the doxxer that you care about your anonymity (so more "lulz" to be had).
A proper doxxing is also much more than entering a name in some search engines. Especially hackers do not like to be doxxed. For internet civilians who already put this data out there (on social media) a simple data broker doxxing is a mere reminder that such data is public to everyone, not just friends.
Doxxing defense is guarding your anonymity online. Everywhere. Doxxing defense is knowing when to change persona's, and when to log off. That is: If you care about it at all. If you care about keeping your identity a secret online, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaYdCdwiWU (The Grugq - OPSEC: Because Jail is for wuftpd).