Speaker A
author and talking solution, the simple service that puts control of your personal data back to you.
Examines what data brokers really are, how personal health data is collected and sold, and whether data deletion services like Incogni and DeleteMe are worth paying for.
Key Takeaways
- 'Data broker' is an umbrella term covering very different business types, and deletion services address only a subset of them.
- Health-related data, including browsing and purchase history, is often sold to advertisers with minimal legal protection.
- Many data removal tasks can be performed manually for free, making paid services less necessary for most people.
- Legal regulation, rather than corporate goodwill, often determines whether companies honor data deletion requests.
What the video covers
- The video argues that the term 'data broker' is broad and covers five categories: people search services, marketing brokers, financial/credit bureaus, risk mitigation brokers, and personal health data brokers.
- Personal health data brokers are described as the most concerning, collecting health data, usage data, search and browsing history, and purchase history with few regulations, since such data is not covered by HIPAA.
- Smart devices like the Eight Sleep mattress are used as an example: their privacy policy allows sharing usage data with advertisers, which could lead to targeted health ads.
- Data deletion services are evaluated: they remove listings from people search sites, but the presenter argues that much of the work can be done for free and that services cover only a small fraction of brokers.
- The presenter questions why companies like Office Depot and General Motors refuse deletion requests based on location, suggesting legal requirements drive compliance rather than goodwill.
- Data breaches are presented as a real risk, with the claim that nearly half of US companies experienced one in 2024.
- The video recommends practical steps such as switching to privacy-focused email, blocking trackers, and being patient during the process.
- The video is stated to be unsponsored, and the presenter discloses rejecting a prior sponsorship offer from DeleteMe.
Chapters
- 00:00Intro: Data Deletion Services and Why Brokers Keep Your Data
- 03:06What Is a Data Broker? Five Categories Explained
- 12:00Personal Health Data Brokers and Smart Device Examples
- 19:00Evaluating Data Deletion Services and Their Coverage
- 23:00Free DIY Removal Alternatives and Cost Comparison
- 27:00Regulation, Politics, and Data Breach Risks
- 31:00Practical Privacy Steps and Closing Remarks
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
They intercept the data brokers on your behalf, requesting your data's removal and handle any resistance.
Speaker A
But your data could leave your address, employment history, social media accounts, telephone numbers, and much more.
Speaker A
Instead of you reaching out to data brokers one by one, Agny does it automatically on your behalf.
Speaker A
See 60% off your plan.
Speaker A
So take back control of your personal data today.
Speaker A
To date, they have deleted my personal information from 670 digital.
Speaker A
[Music]
Speaker A
Why would a data broker delete your information?
Speaker A
Think about it.
Speaker A
Isn't the entire point of a data broker to collect and retain your information?
Speaker A
Like, isn't that their whole business model?
Speaker A
When I requested Office Depot to delete my personal information that they had collected about me, like my name and purchase history, they refused to do so because of where I live.
Speaker A
If I were nicely to ask General Motors to delete my data regarding what medications I take, yes, that is a real thing.
Speaker A
They will also refuse for the same reason.
Speaker A
Neither of these companies are considered data brokers, but what?
Speaker A
They care more about retaining my data than an actual data broker?
Speaker A
That doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker A
Is it because they're legally required to comply?
Speaker A
Or do they simply comply out of the goodness of their own hearts?
Speaker A
In this video, we're going to find out what a data broker is, how they collect your data, who they share it with, and whether companies like Incogni and DeleteMe are a scam or not.
Speaker A
This video is not sponsored by anyone.
Speaker A
For full transparency, DeleteMe has tried to sponsor this channel in the past, but I rejected their offer.
Speaker A
That said, I don't know that I would have actually looked into making this video had they not emailed me, so you can thank them for that.
Speaker A
A major selling point of services like Incogni and DeleteMe is that these creepy data brokers collect your data and sell it off to the highest bidder.
Speaker A
In fact, their entire business relies on data brokers existing.
Speaker A
So, let's find out what a data broker really is.
Speaker A
It turns out, like with most things, it's more complicated than you'd probably expect.
Speaker A
The term data broker itself is a pretty loose expression covering all kinds of different companies.
Speaker A
I actually suspect the reason Incogni and DeleteMe use the terminology data brokers is intentional, as it's almost too broad to actually describe what's really going on.
Speaker A
There are five major categories of data brokers.
Speaker A
I'll quickly give you an idea of what they are and what they're collecting, and then we will dive deeper into each category.
Speaker A
The most common type of data broker that data deletion services work with are people search services.
Speaker A
These are companies that act like modern-day phone books but online.
Speaker A
Much like a physical phone book, they're available to pretty much anyone and often have a majority of the important information posted for free.
Speaker A
Then there are marketing data brokers.
Speaker A
These companies gather large amounts of information about your online activity and put it into pools of certain behaviors, otherwise known as inferred data.
Speaker A
We'll dive into more detail as to what this looks like in a bit.
Speaker A
If you've ever applied for a car loan or gotten a credit card, you'll be familiar with the next kind of broker, financial information data brokers, otherwise known as credit reporting bureaus.
Speaker A
This category is dominated by three companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
Speaker A
They track financial things like payments to your phone bills, utilities, when you pay rent, payments to loans, when you apply to lines of credit, or even when you have your credit checked at all.
Speaker A
In a similar vein, there are risk mitigation data brokers.
Speaker A
These are companies that track your identity, often for preventing fraud.
Speaker A
When you apply for a job or even apply for an apartment, this is how they do background checks.
Speaker A
They work with risk mitigation data brokers.
Speaker A
The last on our list is personal health data brokers.
Speaker A
By far the creepiest, in my opinion.
Speaker A
These companies track health-related data, like when you purchase an over-the-counter medication or even your search history of a health-related topic.
Speaker A
None of this data is protected under HIPAA.
Speaker A
So, these companies go nuts collecting and selling this data to pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker A
Before we start diving into these categories, I want to call out that the last four on this list are the vast majority of the data brokers that make up the term data brokers.
Speaker A
Services like Incogni only scratch the surface when it comes to deleting your data.
Speaker A
You know what?
Speaker A
I want to mix it up today.
Speaker A
We're going to start with a category that just gives me the creeps.
Speaker A
Personal health data brokers are, in my opinion, the worst kind of data broker.
Speaker A
They collect an obscene amount of highly sensitive information with almost no regulations at all.
Speaker A
To help showcase what I mean, I'm going to use the privacy visualizer.
Speaker A
First, they collect health data, which seems pretty obvious.
Speaker A
This would be direct health data from something like a smartwatch or an app that tracks health metrics, but they opt to share that information for some reason.
Speaker A
We'll explore an example of this in a moment.
Speaker A
Usage data depends on the service or tool in question, but how you use it can sometimes qualify as health data.
Speaker A
An example of this would be something like a smart toothbrush.
Speaker A
The usage of these tools can indicate certain health patterns, hence the category of usage data.
Speaker A
If you've ever searched for a health-related product on Amazon, guess what?
Speaker A
They will sell that information to a personal health data broker, who will then sell it to advertisers.
Speaker A
And would you believe it, we have a category for that.
Speaker A
It's search history.
Speaker A
Similarly, if you've read a few health-related articles using Google Chrome, Google will sell that information as well.
Speaker A
Though Google is sort of a data broker and all, but in name only, they're also one of the biggest advertising companies out there.
Speaker A
So this example is a bit more complicated than what we're going to actually look into for this video.
Speaker A
But browsing history is a category, and we can count that.
Speaker A
Last, we have purchase history.
Speaker A
If you buy a health-related item using PayPal as your purchase method, PayPal will happily sell that information to a personal health data broker.
Speaker A
Let's look at a more complete example of how personal health data brokers might get this information.
Speaker A
There's a sponsor here on YouTube that I've seen a few times before: Eight Sleep.
Speaker A
If you've never heard of them, they make an overpriced smart mattress that tracks your sleeping patterns and keeps you cool while you sleep.
Speaker A
Great.
Speaker A
That all sounds cool.
Speaker A
How do they fit into this picture of personal health data brokers?
Speaker A
Well, they clearly state in the privacy policy that they sell usage data to advertisers.
Speaker A
This means that your usage of the mattress and the attached services are sold to companies who can use that information to show you health-related ads.
Speaker A
What does that look like?
Speaker A
Well, let's say you've been having a hard time sleeping for a few nights.
Speaker A
That data could be sold to a pharmaceutical company that makes sleeping pills, and then you'll start seeing ads for said sleeping pills.
Speaker A
Or let's say your heart rate is a little elevated while you sleep.
Speaker A
They can now show you ads for heart medication.
Speaker A
Heck, that heart rate tracking thing can be used for all kinds of weird things, like understanding how you interact with other platforms like Facebook.
Speaker A
If Facebook shows you an article while you're lying in bed and they know you've been looking at it for a while, they can combine that data with what Eight Sleep collects, and bam, they now know that you had an elevated heart rate while reading it, implying that you were angry.
Speaker A
They can use that data to show you more of those articles, since it keeps you on the platform for longer.
Speaker A
I know it sounds crazy, but it's clearly spelled out in their privacy policy that they share a lot of this information w
Speaker A
can also have an online presence. So some of them started tracking things like social media profiles. Some of these companies took it in a weirder direction by adding other public records like arrest records, property records and more. More specific information is
Speaker A
normally behind a payw wall. But for everything else, like your name, phone number, address, and even social media profiles can all be seen for free by anyone. Who's looking? Sometimes it can be landlords who don't want to pay for
Speaker A
those risk mitigation data brokers. Private investigators are probably pretty pleased with these kinds of services. Actually, any weirdo on the internet, which has been problematic for supporting things like doxing. And there was even a reality TV show that used
Speaker A
these services. I think it was Catfish. Okay, so this can be pretty creepy. Now we need to ask the scary question. Do people search services comply with data deletion requests? Weirdly enough, a vast majority of them do comply. And not
Speaker A
all of them are even required to comply. Many of these companies are based out of states that are not required to comply yet they comply anyways. From what I understand, they do this to avoid future regulation, legal pressure, and just bad
Speaker A
press. Well, that's a good thing. You can delete information using the forms on the websites normally linked at the bottom. In the description, I've linked an amazing guide on how to delete your information from a bunch of these
Speaker A
services for free. Actually, these are the most common types of data brokers that services like Incogn work with. So things are starting to make more sense.
Speaker A
In fact, let's finally talk about data deletion services. These are companies like we've been talking about incognite me. Some other examples would be Mosilla Monitor Aura, Opry, OneREP, and Atlas Privacy.
Speaker A
I'm certainly there are more than that but they all work in the same way. They offer to delete data that's been collected about you for mostly people search data brokers. Most of them use automated systems to make this possible.
Speaker A
However, in the case of Delete Me, it doesn't really seem like it's that much faster than doing it yourself. Let's break down one of the sponsored spots for Delete Me. Just like my VPN video, I am not being critical of the creator
Speaker A
shown in this video. I'm being critical of Delete Me and the script they provide to creators. That's it. It's been a little over 6 months since I first told you about Delete Me, the simple service that gives control of your personal data
Speaker A
back to you. In that half a year, Delete Me has reviewed over 4,000 listings from data brokers across the web for me. This is sort of misleading in my opinion.
Speaker A
That 4,000 number really makes it sound like it's from 4,000 data brokers or something, but it's actually 4,000 individual items. So, let's say one data broker has your name, your personal email address, your work email address your phone number, and your last four
Speaker A
addresses. That's seven listings in this example, but just one data broker. They all do this, by the way. Here, I'll use myself as an example. Before researching this video, I used Mozilla Monitor. They showed that from one data broker, there
Speaker A
were three email addresses, one phone number, nine addresses, and four family members. Of that information, only eight of the items were actually correct pieces of information. The others were incorrect emails. The phone number wasn't one that had ever been mine at
Speaker A
any point in history. Some of the addresses were wrong, and even the list of family members contained people I have never heard of before. All of these data deletion services will count this as 17 removals, but it was all from a
Speaker A
single source, half of which wasn't even my data. Do you see how these numbers feel bigger than they really are? And it's removed my personal information from almost 80 of them. Let's rewind for a moment back to that screenshot. There
Speaker A
are 26 data brokers in this list. Of those, there are over 4,347 pieces of information. And of all of those, delete me has removed 38 which is very likely from a single data broker given how big that other number
Speaker A
is. So, they're claiming to have spent 9 hours contacting one data broker. Additionally, according to the voiceover itself from the first part, this was 6 months of paying for Delete Me. I'll admit though, this isn't accounting for search time, but think about this. I
Speaker A
don't know about you, but I'm fairly confident that I could send more than 26 emails in a 6-month period. Heck, I know that's true. I regularly send more than that in a standard 8-hour workday. What kind of listings? Well, we're talking
Speaker A
private information like my physical address history, my property and court records, even the names of my family members now scrubbed from nearly 80 data brokers archives without me having to do any work on my own. As we discussed
Speaker A
that is a tiny fraction of the actual amount of data brokers that are out there. Yes, removing this data is good but you can do this for free. And as shown here, probably more efficiently than Delete Me. Now, this all begs the
Speaker A
question, are these data deletion companies legit? Well, for the most part, yes. I'll admit though, I don't like that some of them mess around with dark patterns. Incogn, for example forces users to contact support to cancel your subscription. They also post
Speaker A
obviously fake reviews to Reddit, but overall they technically do what they say they do. Is it a scam? No. It is pretty clear to me that they do offer the service of deleting your data from a list of data brokers. A scam means to
Speaker A
take money with malicious intent of offering nothing in return. That is obviously not the case here. A better question would be, is it a good deal? In my opinion, not really. No. Unless you live in a state with the right to delete
Speaker A
law. If you live in one of these states services like this could actually be helpful as they will often look into adding other data brokers for you if you ask them to, and that could make the process of cleaning up your online
Speaker A
presence a bit easier. That all said though, a majority of the people in the United States wouldn't exactly benefit from this kind of service. Wait, I feel like we've heard this before. Look everyone, it's friend of the channel
Speaker A
Luch. Hey, I just overheard what you've been talking about, and all of this sounds really similar to what you said about VPN companies. They kind of seem like the same thing. Do you mind elaborating? Well, both data deletion
Speaker A
services and VPNs technically provide the services they claim to, and they do it at a very low cost to them, but charge a much higher price to you, the consumer. Most people also don't really need either service. VPNs provide a
Speaker A
solution to a problem most people don't normally face. And in the case of data deletion companies, all of that information you're trying to have deleted will always be replaced unless you're a resident of a right to delete state. Even if you do live in one of
Speaker A
these right to delete states, you would still have to manually request that your data be deleted by every other data broker in the country. And that is a timeconsuming task. There are over 1,700 registered data brokers in the US, which
Speaker A
is much higher than the 200 or so that these companies actually delete data from. But it's important to note that only a handful of states have laws requiring data brokers to actually be registered. So in reality, that number
Speaker A
may be much higher when we take into account the unregistered brokers. It's estimated that worldwide there are over 5,000 data brokers. Oh, and as it turns out, Incogn is owned by Surf Shark and Surf Shark is owned by NordVPN. So, at
Speaker A
the end of the day, it kind of is just the same thing. Funny how that works.
Speaker A
Fantastic points. Thanks for the extra insight. Sure thing, man. I'll let you get back to it. Thanks for stopping by.
Speaker A
This has me all thinking. Are we just looking for a new company to hate on?
Speaker A
Hear me out. After the honey scandal people started giving these services the stinky eye because it felt too good to be true. As we just learned, it's not as wonderful as they make it seem. They have good marketing, but it's just a
Speaker A
simple tool that can only do so much about the actual problem. These companies are just taking advantage of the fact that data brokers run freely with no restrictions. It's an infinite money glitch that they're just jumping on before regulations eventually catch
Speaker A
up. They're not the source of the problem, nor are they the solution to the problem. The actual problem is the data being collected in the first place.
Speaker A
Companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon have been allowed to collect and sell this data with almost no oversight in the United States. Even now, 20 states have some sort of consumer privacy law but to this day, there isn't a single
Speaker A
law that prevents a company from collecting unnecessary data in the first place. The European Union has restrictions against these companies with their GDPR. They absolutely prevent companies from collecting certain types of data from the start. It's hard to
Speaker A
imagine that there would be any kind of federal change anytime soon given the last three presidents have welcomed big tech with open arms. This is not a political jab at either side, but instead at both. Both Democrats and
Speaker A
Republicans have enabled companies to have this kind of power. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed to protect the people they're supposed to represent. I mean, even the CEOs of these companies aren't protected by their own data collection. Mark
Speaker A
Zuckerberg's personal information has been breached from Facebook data breaches in the past. Okay, so what can you do? It might feel a little counterintuitive to what I just said, but call your local representative and demand for better privacy laws. Even
Speaker A
the states that have good privacy laws can be greatly improved. Be loud, be annoying. You have to pretend like these local representatives have never heard about what you're talking about before.
Speaker A
Be loud, but be clear in your language. Be specific. For example, I don't like that companies are allowed to collect data that is solely used for targeted advertising. It is oftentimes greatly mishandled and results in getting leaked to scammers, which costs Americans
Speaker A
hundreds of billions of dollars every year. If you want to learn more about how data breaches lead to scams, watch my video about that here. When talking to your local representative, give clear examples. Identify what companies are doing this and show it in their own
Speaker A
privacy policies. Here's an example. Spotify shares data with these 94 companies by default. And I think it's unnecessary for a company that streams music to have all of this inferred data.
Speaker A
Data that is retained for any period of time is at risk of a data breach, which hurts consumers. When these 94 companies are also given access to this information, it stops being a question of if there will be a data breach.
Speaker A
Rather, when will one of these 94 companies get hit with a data breach? In 2024, nearly half of all companies in the United States experienced a data breach. Using that information, we can reasonably assume that 47 of these
Speaker A
companies will experience a data breach. If there were regulations in place to prevent Spotify from collecting this information in the first place, the risk of a data breach would be greatly reduced as the unnecessary user data wouldn't be there to begin with. Hackers
Speaker A
wouldn't have as much incentive to hack Spotify. Here's another example. General Motors knows what medications I take and they infer my intelligence through various sources of data collection spelled out in their privacy policy.
Speaker A
This is an inexcusable abuse of power and they do not need to know any of that for me to be able to drive my car. In the European Union, General Motors sells vehicles that work exactly like they do
Speaker A
here in the United States. But laws like the GDPR protect their citizens, and this kind of data isn't collected at all. Here's the EU version of the privacy policy for General Motors. And here's the US version. It's clear why
Speaker A
they collect as much as they do here. There are no regulations to protect consumers. If you want something more actionable on your end, fight back with your wallet if you're able to. For example, stop using Gmail. For years
Speaker A
now, they've read every single email that you get, which means that every purchase you make is now valuable data that they can sell to advertisers. I'll note that this can take a very long time to fully transition away, though. It
Speaker A
took me an entire year to move from Gmail to Startmail, and even then I faced minor inconveniences with services that I forgot to move over. It takes time, so be patient. Another thing I'll always advocate for is to block all the
Speaker A
ads. A big point of this data being collected is to sell to advertisers. So start blocking them from making their money. Show that we don't want to be tracked like this. I've heard other creators compare this to piracy, but I
Speaker A
disagree. Blocking ads is not piracy. I understand that it can hurt small creators in the crossfire. So, if you're able to support your favorite creators directly. Another thing that can help prevent cross referencing your data can be to avoid public-f facing social
Speaker A
media, at least where your name is shown. This can range from things like Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Steam. Be cautious about where you publicly show your name. Most platforms have a privacy setting that you can use to hide some of
Speaker A
this information. If you want more information on what you can do about feeling powerless to data collection, I highly suggest you watch my video on that here. Believe me, there is always an option. As always, thank you for
Speaker A
watching. Please be kind and patient with each other. I want to give a special thanks to everyone supporting this channel through memberships and Patreon. Considering that a lot of my channel is about showing the truth behind a lot of common sponsors, it
Speaker A
doesn't feel right for me to start taking them on like most growing YouTubers do. However, I would love to make these videos for you all full-time.
Speaker A
So, if you have some money to spare and want to help make that dream become a reality, consider either becoming a member or subscribing to my Patreon page. By doing so, you'll get early access to videos, exclusive access to a
Speaker A
supporters onlyly Discord server, and more. The link to Patreon is in the description or at patreon.com/rejectconvenience. Peace.
Speaker A
Heads up, boss. Spider-Man's headed your way. [Laughter] Excellent. I'll get you this time Spider-Man.
Speaker A
Doc, you're looking more medicine than usual. Do something with your hair. Get over here, you pest.
Speaker A
O, yoza, you got a punch there Spider-Man. Thanks. I've been working on a new move. Want to see? Ah, you've defeated me once again.
Speaker A
Better luck next time. Wow. Yeah Spider-Man. Yeah.
Topics:data brokerspersonal data privacydata deletion servicesDeleteMeIncognihealth data privacypeople search sitesdata breachonline trackingdigital privacy
![[YBA] frosti — Transcript](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KAH0o3xSL3w/maxresdefault.jpg)
