Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. There has already been numerous massive data breaches this year already. And its only July. What this means for you is that your personal data has been leaked, compromised or stolen and probably by cyber criminals who plan to steal your identity or your money or both!
Have you done business with any of these companies?
- Landry’s
- Hanna Anderson
- Microsoft
- Marijuana Dispensaries
- Estee Lauder
- Fifth Third Bank
- Health Share of Oregon
- MGM Resorts
- PhotoSquared
- SlickWraps
- Walgreens
- Carnival Cruise Lines
- JCrew
- T-Mobile
- And about 30 more companies you can see here.
All these companies and many others have been hit a by data breach of kind kind or another. Either the data was stolen r left unprotected.
Let me give you and example of how bad the problem of data breaches has become using just three examples from the above list.
- Everybody uses Microsoft software and computers. But did you know that in January of this year a customer support database containing over 280 million Microsoft customer records was left unprotected on the web. Microsoft’s exposed database disclosed email addresses, IP addresses, and support case details. Microsoft says the database did not include any other personal information.
- Estee Lauder admitted that an unsecured database exposed 440 million customer records.
- MGM Resorts lost the data of over 10.6 million hotel guests who stayed at the resorts. The personal data was later posted on a hacking forum. The data dump exposed names, home addresses, phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth of former hotel guests.
The bottom line is that the personal information of hundreds of millions of people is floating out there in cyber space in the hands of cyber criminals, foreign governments and even some legit businesses that buy this stolen data on the down-low to beef up their marketing efforts. It happens.
But privacy is becoming a business now. And that means that you can now buy the privacy you want. Both Privacy Bee and Jumbo are in the business of scrubbing your information from the data bases of companies you do business with. These companies are in the business or legally forcing companies to delete your information or blocking them from collecting it or selling it to other companies.
Privacy Bee
Based out of Atlanta Privacy Bee has launched service designed to remove users’ data en masse from thousands of databases across the internet.
Privacy Bee scrubs consumers’ personal information from company’s databases preventing them from selling it or losing it to a hacker. This limits the places your data is stored thus reducing the possibility of it being stolen or lost in a breach. The price for the service is about $9 a month or you can get a full year for $86.
You might be surprised to learn that according to IBM data privacy practices are often lacking and antiquated. The average time for companies to even discover a data breach in 2019 was 206 days. Imagine a hacker having your personal information for nearly six months before you or the company even know its gone?
Privacy Bee works by having you will sign the legal documents necessary. This is basically a limited power of attorney to communicate with companies on your behalf. You will need to provide the company with some other personal information for verification purposes so that the company knows that Privacy Bee is legit. As a customer you will be able to see what companies Privacy Bee has contacted on your behalf.
Privacy Bee automatically submits removal requests on your behalf. This is a powerful time saver since it could take years to track down every company with your information and engage their legal machinery to get your information deleted or secured. That is if you could find all those companies in the first place. Privacy Bee saves you the time and headache of following up with the company to be sure they have granted your request.
The Privacy Bee team has compiled a database of companies that comply with rapidly evolving and varied privacy legislation that is forming across the fifty states. In addition it has created a semi-automated system to work on deleting user’s data, company-by-company.
Jumbo
Social media. That part of the internet that lets connect with just about anybody for just about any reason or interest. But social media, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the others, are nothing more than information black holes. Whatever you do on them is now in the data base of that company. Everything you do, say, post, share, buy, sell, donate to or think, they suck in.
But there is an app that can help you to control what data social media sites collect on you. Jumbo syncs with your online accounts and checks your privacy settings. The app alerts you to which privacy setting you should consider changing. Jumbo guides the user through things like locking down your Facebook profile, deleting your Alexa recordings and archiving your old tweets. Jumbo itself does not collect any personal information or login data.
Jumbo kicked off about a year ago and is already extending its privacy-protecting service to Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. The feature can block ad trackers while you browse the web and use other apps.
Jumbo offers two paid service levels, Jumbo Plus and Jumbo Pro. Jumbo Plus offers support for Instagram and Messenger and monitors data breaches that may affect you. Jumbo Pro does that and adds LinkedIn and ad-tracking prevention. Pro also comes with an integration with Spycloud, which can detect credit card information and other personal details that show up on the dark web.
What’s interesting about Jumbo is not its privacy features but how it will charge you for the service. How about “pay what you think is fair.”
Users of Jumbo can pay anywhere from $2.99 to $14.99 a month for Jumbo’s premium features. According to CEO Pierre Valade Jumbo needs about 100,000 paying customers in the next two years in order to stay in business. Valade seems to believe that enough people will want their privacy back that they will pay for the service. He may be right.
Privacy has become a stolen and trampled upon right in this country. There is a thriving information industry that is seeking to strip mine every bit of personal data from every breathing human and the dead ones too. Now we are entering an era where if you can afford it you can disappear from those data bases. But is that fair? Can we expect politicians to enact laws to protect our most sensitive information? California’s new privacy law went into affect today. But that is one state out of fifty.
If you can pay to keep you affairs private then great. If you can’t afford it then you are just S.O.L! From the lyrics of the rock band Pink Floyd; “Welcome to the machine.”
Now you know.
