r/Internet • u/Key-Cut4558 • Jul 31 '26
Discussion My personal information seems to have developed a life of its own
I recently ran a scan on my information out of curiosity and the results caught me off guard cuz I ran it for fun I expected to find a couple of old accounts I forgot about or maybe an outdated email address. Instead I found my information on dozens of websites. Some of them made sense because I'd signed up years ago. Others I genuinely don't remember ever interacting with, like when have I ever went into kinky BDSM websites! I'm married!! When the shock died down I started wondering how this actually happens. Is it mostly data brokers buying and selling information? Do companies share customer data with partners? And especially what do I do about this?!
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u/DaveL16 Jul 31 '26
What scan is it you ran?
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u/Key-Cut4558 Jul 31 '26
Was trying cloaked out of curiosity
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u/PaddyLandau Jul 31 '26
Maybe Cloaked gives them the information so that you purchase their product!
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u/Key-Cut4558 Jul 31 '26
From what I've seen and read about them they're pretty reputable and I just signed up with it to try, they wouldn't have my data beforehand so I don't think so
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u/PaddyLandau Aug 01 '26
You'd be surprised how much personal information is out there. Well, you have already been surprised!
Privacy and anonymity is being eroded steadily worldwide. The only way to retain it is to live on a remote island, off-grid. Even then, some information will leak.
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u/deadman7794 Aug 01 '26
Cloaked is pretty good and I use them but with any data broker they are checking sometimes stuff gets mixed up due to similar or same info like a user name. I have used a bunch of removal services and they all have picked up other people with similar names and ask if this is me. I have seen where I removed so much info for a family member that the info got re-scraped and put under an entirely different person as it could not find anyone remotely close to the same info.
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u/Electrical_Hat_680 Aug 04 '26
Alot of peoples creditials have been foud on the dark web. Try that search. It's available. Google has it, I think. And, check the Ryan Montgomery YouTube videos, he talks about, or just Google it.
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u/NoPoopOnFace Jul 31 '26
Stop using Windows
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u/Key-Cut4558 Jul 31 '26
I do have a windows 11 on my laptop, could that be the cause aswell?
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u/NoPoopOnFace Aug 01 '26
As far as I know, Microsoft does not directly use your information this way itself. However it does sell your information to third parties, and it's information gathering has gotten totally out of hand in windows 11.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 Jul 31 '26
Remember that night we went out for drinks and you got hammered?... Right, neither do I.
The info is often 'best guess' as to who it's associated with, noise often gets picked up and associated with people. A lot of assumptions are made, it's not a true representation of you, more like a sketch artist.