GoKawiilAs a journalist and media professional, there are a few inevitabilities about the job I just can't get around. I have to maintain a LinkedIn profile, keep an online portfolio to house my favorite work (and ensure I can always access it), and be comfortable with third-party sites like Muckrack and Cision collecting information about me, such as bylines, work emails, and more.
But that's my public-facing persona. While those online pieces of me have a necessitated need to live on the internet, there's plenty of personal identifiable information (PII) I don't want floating around online -- my current and former addresses, my phone number, my personal emails, and more.
Also: How to delete or hide yourself from the internet - 11 effective ways (and most are free)
But that type of information is much harder to control. Unlike flipping my social media accounts to private, there's no easy way to personally handle making sure my most vulnerable info doesn't linger around the web.
Or that's what I thought -- until I found Optery. Back in December, I was checking out data removal services that my colleague, internet and privacy reporter Charlie Osborne, recommends, and came across the company. I had been considering a service for a while when I noticed Optery was running a 20% off sale. So, I gave it a shot.
Lucky for you, this 20% offer is still valid right now thanks to a new sale. Just apply the code SPRING2026 at checkout. I've been using Optery's service for almost four months now, and I highly recommend it.
Optery is a data removal service that helps you remove and maintain the removal of your information from the internet. The company says its mission is to put consumers in control of their personal data. Optery scans and searches for your information online, helps you identify where it's been exposed, and then offers a way to contact data brokers to have these profiles removed.
It's also a tool for getting a pretty complete picture of the profile data you're exposed to in people-search directories.
Also: Your home Wi-Fi isn't nearly as private as it should be - 6 free ways to lock it down
Before I enrolled in a plan, Optery ran an exposure report for free, which revealed nearly 30 pages of personal information apparently scattered across the web. Some of it was incorrect or outright wrong, but I was terrified to learn that some of it was accurate.
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