Originally Posted On: August 26, 2022
Last Updated On: March 17, 2024
Processing over 10 million opt-out requests for customers, we see a lot of disturbing things with respect to consumer data. One of the most disturbing though is the financially incestuous relationship many personal data removal “privacy” companies have with the data brokers they cover. Most of the collaboration is hidden from the public and happens behind closed doors, but here we have posted some screenshots and live video examples to warn consumers and bring attention to the practice.
Update, March 14, 2024: the investigative journalist Brian Krebs broke the story “CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms” on his blog Krebs on Security where many of the details regarding Onerep in this post are corroborated and expanded upon.
Update, August 1, 2023: our research indicates HelloPrivacy, BrandYourself, and DataSeal have all discontinued their practice of utilizing people search sites as affiliate partners in their affiliate programs. We are unaware of the exact dates these practices were discontinued.
Beware of “Double Agents” in the Data Privacy Industry
In this blog post we have evidence that suggests Onerep, HelloPrivacy, DataSeal, and BrandYourself partner with, or in the past have partnered with, data brokers through affiliate relationships – and in some cases, even also simultaneously run or ran data broker web sites. If you’re seeking privacy services, we recommend avoiding data privacy Double Agents, unless you want to fund the very data brokers you’re trying to be removed from. To use an analogy, how would you feel about an anti-virus software company that approved as affiliate partners the creators and distributors of computer virus programs?
As stated in the Optery Privacy Policy, Optery does not sell or rent personal information to any third parties for any purpose. Optery is not a data broker. Optery does not have any financial relationship with any data broker that it covers. Optery is not affiliated with any data broker.
Notorious Data Brokers ThatsThem and PeopleFinders Both Redirect to HelloPrivacy and BrandYourself for Affiliate Partnerships
BrandYourself operates or has operated three data privacy product brands: BrandYourself, HelloPrivacy, and Zoro Privacy. Check out the videos below from March 22, 2022 demonstrating the notorious data broker ThatsThem redirecting to their partner HelloPrivacy.
Update, August 1, 2023: our research indicates HelloPrivacy has discontinued their practice of utilizing people search sites as affiliate partners in their affiliate programs. We are unaware of the exact dates these practices were discontinued.
But there’s more. BrandYourself, the parent company of HelloPrivacy, has also partnered with PeopleFinders directly, who will sell your data to just about anyone in the world, unless you have it removed by their partner BrandYourself, of which PeopleFinders will get a cut of your payment through their affiliate partnership. This video was recorded July 11, 2021.
Update, August 1, 2023: our research indicates BrandYourself has all discontinued their practice of utilizing people search sites as affiliate partners in their affiliate programs. We are unaware of the exact dates these practices were discontinued.
Onerep offers Data Removal Services… with a Catch
Onerep was founded in Belarus in 2015 by an opaque ownership group that has been linked operationally to the people search site data broker Nuwber. In 2018, Onerep utilized International Legal Counsels PC to create an LLC in Virginia, which they now claim as their headquarters.
Update, March 14, 2024: the investigative journalist Brian Krebs broke the story “CEO of Data Privacy Company Onerep.com Founded Dozens of People-Search Firms” on his blog Krebs on Security where many of the details regarding Onerep in this post are corroborated and expanded upon.
A lot of Onerep’s business comes from their extensive affiliate partnerships with, get this, other data brokers. For example, if you opt-out of the data broker ClustrMaps or Nuwber, they will push you to a Onerep affiliate partner link encouraging you to sign up for a Onerep privacy plan so they can both generate a sale from a user in the midst of submitting opt-outs. In other words, if you click through the link and sign up with Onerep, you’re indirectly paying the data broker ClustrMaps money to opt-out. Here’s a screenshot of the data broker ClustrMaps directing you to their affiliate partner and “privacy” company Onerep after your opt-out is complete.
To use an analogy, how would you feel about an anti-virus software company that approved as affiliate partners the creators and distributors of computer virus programs?
PrivacyDuck Raised Concerns About Onerep Connecting Them Operationally to the Data Broker Nuwber Starting in 2016
The late Will McAdam of PrivacyDuck shared his detailed research into the origins of Onerep and its seemingly symbiotic operations with the data broker Nuwber starting back in 2016. Sadly, Will passed away at age 39 on July 18, 2021, but his significant contributions to the privacy community lived on in his YouTube channel for several years where he documented several business practices that Onerep has since ended or concealed from the public.
Will McAdam’s PrivacyDuck YouTube channel provided video evidence demonstrating that when Onerep originally launched, it displayed consumers’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in plain text to the public in a strikingly similar fashion as the data broker Nuwber. In his YouTube videos, Will also documents and points out that the Onerep and Nuwber websites were seemingly mirror images of themselves, run from the same origin code base.
Sadly, Onerep was able to successfully erase their entire website history from the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine and was able to claim copyright violation and have all of Will’s videos removed from YouTube. Without Will to defend his work, the videos were removed by YouTube in 2023. Below are links to each of the videos that now display a message like the one you’ll see further below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTP4DaT0_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YScy5iFzeo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaJNyzx6a0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zASi7RZ7zrc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGOl9ehEkqA
The PrivacyDuck website is no longer operational since Will McAdam’s passing, and another privacy service named Privacy Pros scooped up the expired domain name to harvest the residual SEO traffic after Will’s death for a different privacy service. Note that it is unclear who runs the Privacy Pros web site. The Internet Archive maintains a copy of Will’s original Onerep review. In the review, PrivacyDuck states:
OneRep is the newest of the data opt out / privacy companies, having come online in late 2015. It is also one of the most disturbing when it comes to the handling of your personal information and data. This reason is two-fold:
- The company seems entirely operated and managed out of Belarus, a country in Eastern Europe. There is no verifiable operation and handling of your data, or business address, in The United States.
- OneRep has already been caught red-handed displaying your Personally Identifiable Information (P.I.I.) on the Internet, and continues to do so via their sister site Nuwber.com
Click Here to Read the Full Archived Article
Does Your Data Removal Privacy Service Use the Onerep API Behind the Scenes?
Those of us in the personal data removal industry were quite shocked when news broke that Mozilla had partnered with Onerep to power their data removal product Mozilla Monitor. While the general public was not aware of Onerep’s ties to people search sites like Nuwber, most professionals in the industry were.
Onerep offers an API that powers opt-outs for Mozilla Monitor and several other data removal privacy companies. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of Onerep processing your personal information, and are unsure if your data removal privacy company might be using the Onerep API to perform your opt-outs behind the scenes, we encourage you to send a quick note to your data removal service asking them something like “Does your company exclusively fulfill all of its own data broker opt-outs and removals, or do you utilize any third parties such as Onerep to fulfill some of, or all of, your data broker opt-outs or removals? If you do utilize a third party, can you please reply with the name of the company(s) you use so I can evaluate if I am comfortable with your use of that service?”
Optery offers a data removal API (https://www.optery.com/api/), and we would be happy to speak with any Onerep API customers interested in switching over.
DataSeal is Run by the Same Team as the Data Broker ThatsThem
Whereas Onerep has gone through great lengths to conceal its relationship with the data broker Nuwber, the data privacy service DataSeal was completely open to sharing that they are run by the same team as the data broker ThatsThem. The parent company’s name is “Durt Holdings” and their tag line is “Diggin’ up Dirt on the Web”, which they post to their website ThatsThem.com … apparently, unless you pay them to have it removed. We can only imagine they saw how successful the Onerep + Nuwber symbiosis worked and tried to replicate that success with a ThatsThem + DataSeal “protection” business.
Update, August 1, 2023: our research indicates DataSeal has discontinued their practice of utilizing people search sites as affiliate partners in their affiliate programs. We are unaware of the exact dates these practices were discontinued.
Here you can see the ThatsThem + DataSeal partnership in action. If you find your profile exposed on ThatsThem, you can pay their sister company DataSeal to have the profile removed. However, in this case, it’s not an affiliate fee changing hands between two different parties because the two companies are one and the same run by Durt Holdings. This video was recorded September 3, 2022.
If you are concerned with the financially incestuous relationships between some data removal privacy companies and data brokers, please carefully consider whether or not you should do business with Onerep, HelloPrivacy, DataSeal, or BrandYourself. Instead, please warn others and share this post online. And if you know of any other incestuous relationships between data privacy companies and data brokers, please send us a note through the Optery Help Desk – we’d love to highlight them in this post!
Finally, and to re-iterate, as stated in the Optery Privacy Policy, Optery does not sell or rent personal information to any third parties for any purpose. Optery is not a data broker. Optery does not have any financial relationship with any data broker that it covers. Optery is not affiliated with any data broker.
Update, August 1, 2023: our research indicates HelloPrivacy, BrandYourself, and DataSeal have all discontinued their practice of utilizing people search sites as affiliate partners in their affiliate programs. We are unaware of the exact dates these practices were discontinued.