Between your emails, cookies (the tracking kind, not the delicious kind) and nosy apps, you’re being watched without even knowing it, but don’t despair — you can take back your privacy in a few steps. Tap or click here for five ways you’re being tracked that you can stop immediately. Do you keep a low profile online? That’s great, but it doesn’t completely protect you. People search sites scour the internet for publicly available information and give it to anyone looking for it. For this week’s Opt-Out Tuesday, we’ll show you how to remove yourself from Instant Checkmate.
Avoid people search sites at all costs, especially if it costs you
Don’t ever pay for any people search service. Many of these sites are scammy in nature. You may think you’re paying for one report and find that you’ve been roped into recurring charges. And never pay to remove your information from any site. This process must be provided for free. When trying to remove your data from people search sites, be careful which links you click. They’re often ads that lead you to another site that requests payment. We’ll provide accurate links to remove yourself from these sites with each Opt-out Tuesday report. Do you have older relatives who may not know about people search sites? While you’re opting out yourself, why not do the same for them? Just type in their information as you would your own and follow our steps to completion.
People with bad intentions mostly use people search sites
People search sites exist to gather your name, address, birthday, marital status, education level and financial records, employment information and more in neat little packages. They get this data from publicly available sources and data brokers. These sites advertise their services as an excellent way to locate friends and relatives, though there’s no stopping bad actors from accessing the information. The worst part? This is perfectly legal.
Remove yourself now
Instant Checkmate boasts more than 1.4 billion searches on its website. Well, that’s not good. Let’s go over how to opt out of this invasive site:
Go to instantcheckmate.com/opt-out.Fill in your name, city and state and hit Search.
Select the correct match from the search results and choose Remove This Record (you’ll have to repeat this process for each match).Enter your email address, complete the Captcha and select Send Confirmation Email.Open the confirmation email (check your spam/junk folders if you don’t see it) and select Confirm Opt-Out.
You’ll be taken to a confirmation screen, and you’re done.
Your data should be removed in 48 hours. If it’s still there, try the above steps again. If you need help, contact customer support at 800-222-8985.
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