Changed Your Name? How DeleteMe Can Help Protect All Versions of Them

1. Changed Your Name? How DeleteMe Can Help Protect All Versions of Them One of the main ways to protect yourself against identity theft is to have your personal information that thieves use to steal your identity in the first place removed from Whitepages, PeopleFinders, and other data broker sites. Fortunately, DeleteMe, an online privacy leader, has completed more than 10 million successful consumer opt-outs, including information removal from Whitepages. There are many additional benefits of contracting with DeleteMe, however, that close information-gathering loopholes the data broker sites can utilize to continue buying and selling your personal information to anyone who pays for it. For example, have you ever changed your name? If so, there’s a chance your previous name(s) may still be used by spammers, scammers, and identity thieves. Data Broker Sites For the unfamiliar, data broker sites collect the private and (often very) personal information of pretty much everyone. There is virtually no limit to the kind and quantity of information they gather about you, your career, hobbies, finances, medical history, friends and family, and anything else they can glean. The Threat to Your Name(s)

2. Data broker sites are as indiscriminate about who they sell your information to as they are about what information they collect. Unfortunately, that means everyone from advertisers and corporations to spammers, scammers, stalkers—pretty much anyone who will pay for it. It’s not a very reassuring dynamic. Fortunately, DeleteMe is committed to contacting data broker sites and insisting that they erase your personal information on your behalf. Requesting Opt-Outs One of the many benefits offered by DeleteMe is the information they provide on how to remove personal information from Google searches by requesting those opt-outs. They provide a list of over 200 data broker sites and information on how to contact them for opt- outs. The data broker sites, unsurprisingly, often do not make this process easy. Contacting data broker sites and following the steps necessary for an opt-out can take a significant amount of time. But you don’t have togo at it alone. With a DeleteMe subscription they’ll do the legwork for you, removing your personal information from 30-plus data broker sites and keeping it private year-round. They’ll even send reports of their progress. When Your Name Changes As much of a hassle as it can be to contact each of the dozens of data broker sites and follow whatever process they’ve set up to request an opt-out, it can get even more complicated and time-consuming than that. If you’re married, for instance, particularly if you’re recently married and have chosen to change your last name, requesting an opt-out for your current name doesn’t cover your maiden name. The same applies if you have been divorced. A previous name can still be used by spammers, scammers, and identity thieves. Thankfully, if you contract with DeleteMe, they’ll have you covered and will keep your personal information as it should be— private. Variations Are Protected Too In addition to helping you remove personal information from Google by requesting an opt-out from the data broker sites for your current name, DeleteMe requests they delete your private information under any name you’ve had. That includes name changes from marriage and divorce, and variations. Those variations include full names, commonly-used nicknames, aliases, common misspellings, and even alternate spellings of a name. So whether it’s Brooklyn, Brooklynn, or Brook-Lynne, DeleteMe will have your personal information removed from data broker sites. Protect your name(s), your personal information, and your privacy with DeleteMe, at https://joindeleteme.com/