Some Well-Known People-Search Sites
Are Bogus, Providing Fake / Irrelevant Info
Data-Removal Tactics Tantamount to Extortion
COMMENTARY 5/29/2024
JK Sage Editor has independently investigated several people-search sites which I found to be mostly fake or irrelevant results (especially including people with the same name).
Similar observations were made by Brian Krebs.
In fact, 90 – 99 % of the information reported on Sage himself was totally fraudulent, false, and not related to the person searched for (myself).
Some reports even included salacious information on people without the same name and totally not associated with Sage.
The incentives to pay for reports includes salacious pop-ups warning of “shocking photos,” “arrest records,” “social profiles,” etc.
In fact, even when Sage paid for reports on himself, it NEVER contained anything remotely related to such scurrilous scam promises like social profiles, private photos, etc.
And public data like court records can never be suppressed unless you had your records officially expunged by the Court before the scam sites obtained it.
So why would you pay someone who claims they can remove that which cannot be removed?
Rather, claim it, own it, and tell everyone you crossed a bridge over troubled water, but don’t subject yourself to extortion scams.
Kim Komando is sponsored by a popular site promising to remove you from such search engines for a monthly fee (and according to Kim, it works). Kim is right, there are hundreds of people-search sites so this may be the best reason to pay a reasonable monthly fee to have an automated system perform removals.
Sage Editor does NOT recommend paying for any such service, no matter how effective the service appears to be, based on the fact that the various people-search sites apparently publish fabricated, irrelevant similar-named people’s information, or public information that can never be removed.
One man says, “It’s exciting to me if I find a beach vacation photo of me from college days, because it makes me feel like a celebrity; and, I’m very comfortable in my own skin. Unless I saw something that was flagrantly over-the-top, false, and potentially affecting my financial positions, I’d probably just yawn. Or, I may just print it and frame it as a dinner-party conversation piece. Privacy is one topic that never bores a guest.”
A Better Approach Costs Less
The better practice is to search for yourself online and if you find what appears to be a hit:
- use a temporary gift cash debit card to pay for a trial (don’t pay more than a couple of dollars) and
- cancel before the trial end-date after you have downloaded your own report.
- use your browser’s settings to delete all cookies right after you set up an account with a people-search site and use a VPN and DuckDuckGo so they cannot track you.
- See what’s in your report from that site;
- and, if it upsets you, then use that site’s tools for removal of your name and information.
- use the “do not sell my information” button, if available.
- At some point, you may consider officially withdrawing / quitting / deleting your account with a site in order to terminate any right they acquired to place tracking cookies, beacons, etc., on your phone or pc.
However, they are not required to remove your public information (arrests, court, and other public records).
You can always do a “duckduckgo” search on yourself, your monikers, etc., to see if any people-search sites claim to feature you. Those results have invariably proven to be totally bogus in Sage’s investigation.
See:
The Not-so-True People-Search Network from China, by Brian Krebs, KrebsOnSecurity.com, 3/20/2024
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/03/the-not-so-true-people-search-network-from-china/
