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ZDNET's key takeaways
Personal data is widely collected and sold by data brokers, mostly without our knowledge.
Manual takedowns are impractical, which is where data removal services come in.
These services can remove huge amounts of sensitive information from the internet.
There's an uncomfortable amount of our personal information floating around the internet, much of it collected by data brokers. Phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses are just the tip of the iceberg of the data these companies collect, package, and sell.
Much of this information comes from social media platforms, apps, and online services that routinely gather user data, and then feeds into a sprawling ecosystem that profits off knowing everything about you. In some other cases, those details come from major breaches.
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Don't want it out there? Sure, it's possible to remove this information yourself by contacting data brokers directly and requesting its removal. But the sheer number of them makes this a cumbersome task. There isn't a clear starting point or easy way to know how far your data has spread.
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