Terrifying. As I read this article, I imagined my grandparents in that situation. That this is happening at all is reason enough to shut down data broker sites that include lists of relatives. We worked very hard to keep our names from being connected to our families, but it happened due to public information being scraped and uploaded in huge databases on these blood-sucking websites.
For this reason, when we purchase or inherit property, it is always titled in the name of a trust or LLC. Property transfers are a primary source of data for broker sites. Many counties and local jurisdictions upload property data to large searchable database– convenient for brokers to copy and paste in their sites.
We will never have a physical location visible online in the future. The fact that websites connect family members who DO have physical locations visible is still potentially a problem. For this reason, after I spent months removing our information from data broker sites, I removed family members where they were connected to us. More trouble, yes, but worth the peace of mind in the long run. Every time I see an article like this, where criminals take advantage of online information to target people, or worse, actually to carry out a violent crime, it makes me sick.
Data brokers violate the privacy of Americans because they can. No American laws protect us from this violation. Many of these companies are foreign and take advantage of public law such as voter registrations, property documents, and other online databases. If one site is shut down, another URL takes its place. Or many more. I have removed our listings from 210 websites as of this date. It’s tremendously frustrating.
Data brokers are evil.
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