Published Published October 14, 2024
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YourControl: A free open-source Chrome extension for managing your data with non-public data brokers

What YourControl does

The YourControl extension enables you to manage your data held by major aggregators and distributors of personal information, including companies like TransUnion, Experian, and others. Unlike public data broker sites such as Whitepages, these large brokers do not publish your information online. Instead, they distribute your data to other businesses for various legitimate purposes, including credit scoring, risk assessment, marketing, background checks, tenant screening, and others.

While most of these uses are harmless and can benefit both businesses and consumers, some brokers sell your information to public data broker sites, also known as people-search sites. 

YourControl informs you how brokers use your data, allowing you to make an informed decision about whether it’s worth your resources to remove yourself from their databases. It also provides clear instructions based on real experiences, as the team behind the tool has followed the same steps they describe.

Who made it, and why

YourControl is an open-source project under the MIT license. It is a free and not-for-profit tool, open to contributions from anyone interested in its development. The team behind it is Onerep, a company committed to safeguarding individuals from the risks associated with the exposure of their personal information online by eliminating that exposure.

Onerep’s commercial data removal service automates the removal of personal information from public data brokers such as Whitepages, Beenverified, and over 200 others. However, Onerep has consciously decided not to send automated opt-out requests to non-public data brokers. This approach would involve sharing users’ data without confirming whether the broker even possesses the user’s data or how they will handle any new information sent by the data removal service for user verification. Instead, we created YourControl to empower users to manage their data with non-public data brokers directly, in a secure and straightforward manner.

Public vs Non-Public data brokers

Data brokers can be divided into two categories based on the accessibility of their databases:

Public data brokers

Also known as people-search sites (e.g., Whitepages, Truthfinder, and over 200 others), these brokers:

  • Pose a direct risk to your safety by making your data easily accessible to anyone, including malicious actors.
  • Publish pages containing your data and let Google index them. While this is concerning, it allows you or a third-party removal service to find these pages and request their removal without providing any additional data of yours to a data broker. Since the broker has published the page with your information, you can:
    1. Know for sure that they have your data;
    2. Use the data from your public profile to verify yourself with the data broker without sending any additional information. This approach excludes the risk that a data broker may enrich your profile with even more of your data instead of removing it.

Non-Public data brokers

These brokers collect and distribute people’s data to other businesses instead of publishing it online:

  • There is no straightforward way to know if a non-public data broker has your profile at all.
  • To find out if they possess your data and to verify yourself for the purpose of opting out or requesting your data removal, you first need to send a significant amount of personal information to these data brokers. The details they may request include your full name, date of birth, current address, your email, your phone number, and sometimes your Social Security Number. This allows the data broker to verify your identity among other individuals.
  • Once any data broker receives your information for verification, they can use it to enrich your profile, even if they opt you out of certain uses of your data along the way. Unfortunately, there is no way to control how they utilize the information you provide.

Why use YourControl for removal from Non-Public Data Brokers?

Because this extension is the safest and most efficient way to manage your data with major non-public data brokers.

  • Comprehensive research done for you: The YourControl team has done the heavy lifting by studying hundreds of pages and navigating through conflicting information about opt-out and removal processes with all brokers listed in the extension. We’ve tested the removal process with our own profiles across these brokers and distilled all this knowledge into clear, simple instructions.
  • Prioritized removal: We’ve selected the brokers that matter most and prioritized where to start, ensuring your effort enhances your safety rather than creating an overload and a false sense of security.
  • Informed decisions: Understanding how each broker uses your data and what removal options are available allows you to decide whether it’s necessary to take action and, if so, to proceed in the most optimal way.
  • Control and selective approach: You send the data required for verification directly to the broker, after carefully considering whether you trust them. Everything is secure—there’s no intermediary between your device and the broker’s site. This prevents the risk of a removal service indiscriminately sharing your data with hundreds of non-public data brokers, potentially putting you at greater risk. With YourControl, you can take a selective approach, deciding which data to share and with which broker. For example, you might choose to provide your Social Security Number to a legitimate credit bureau like Experian, but withhold it from middle- or low-tier brokers.
  • Simple and working guides: All instructions have been tried, tested, and proven to work. They are presented as simple, concrete steps. If there are any hidden challenges or complexities, we’ll inform you and guide you through the intricacies of the removal process.
  • Convenient one-view interface: Everything happens in a single view, without the need to switch between tabs to follow the steps. Watch how you accelerate through the process like a pro.
Onerep team Committed to personal privacy on the Internet.
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