Your Identity is Being Traded on The Internet Every 2.5 Minutes

You're flooded by ads every time you visit a website: small banners, big rollovers, annoying pop-up ads, colorful ads, video ads, you name it.

But to be effective, those ads must address your needs and wants. Let’s say you’re a 42-year-old man from Chicago with a passion for cars and extreme sports. You’re likely interested in different things than a 23-year-old woman from Germany, who’s into makeup and travel. But how can they tell who’s who?

Read the full article below to find out:

https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/your-identity-is-being-traded-on-the-internet-every-2-5-minutes/

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Comments

Scott

The first thing that came to my mind, and another reason to use Bitdefender VPN. And as the article says, to consider using Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection.

Is it ever to late to start with that protection, if you've already been on the internet for years? Is to much of our information already out there, that we can't get back? Or, is it never to late as more and more websites, ISP's etc. are now mining/trading our information, to start protecting ourselves in this way? Maybe the last question is a bit rhetorical, as it's probably never to late.

Alexandru_BD

To be honest, I was asking myself the same question. Considering the countless occasions where I was asked to fill in my e-mail address or other data for that matter, I find it really difficult to know where to start. And it can be a time consuming operation and this probably deters people to start this process. It's quite possible that entities who collect and trade data rely exactly on this perspective. And then you wake up with ads, text messages and all sorts of unwanted content in your inbox.

However, I think it's never too late to regain control over personal data. An ideal place to start with would be to check if your e-mail addresses have been leaked. I use and recommend https://haveibeenpwned.com/

The second step would be to unsubscribe from any unuseful newsletters or service providers. Again, this can be a cumbersome task.

Then, it would be indeed a good idea to use something like Digital Identity Protection, because this not only helps with monitoring the web surface in and out and also the dark corners, but it also offers the possibility to remove your personal data from Data Brokers. These are companies that collect personal information about us from multiple sources, they process that information, and then sell it to other companies that have an interest in knowing more about us, usually for marketing or risk mitigation reasons.

Here's more info on this:

The law obliges data brokers to delete your data if requested.

Digital Identity Protection is the only privacy service that offers the official list of registered data brokers.
Digital Identity Protection helps you see what data brokers know about you - where possible.
Digital Identity Protection offers you all the tools and knowledge needed to remove your data from data brokers.
Usually data brokers respond to your requests between 15 and 45 calendar days.
Some data brokers may ask you for money to show you the data, but you aren't obliged to pay; All you have to do is fill in the form given by the respective website/system to make a Verifiable Consumer Request. A “verifiable consumer request” is defined by the CCPA as “a request that is made by a consumer, by a consumer on behalf of the consumer’s minor child, or by a natural person or a person registered with the Secretary of State, authorized by the consumer to act on the consumer’s behalf, and that the business can reasonably verify."

I think it's worth it. It can be a little harder at first, as there many places to check, but once you get going and develop a habit of not sharing data when unecessary, or ask for immediate deletion from records when the purpose of the data has been served, you can have more control over your personal data and enhance privacy.

The main concern is that you can never know for what purposes will such companies use the leaked or sold data (except where stated?)

Speaking of data, it's no secret that it has become the gold of this era and here's a very interesting and insightful documentary I saw a couple of years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX8GxLP1FHo

Scott

Very helpful and informative post, Alexandru, including the video trailer. Thank you for the time and thought you put into it, I appreciate it.

Withoutfurtherradu

I think protecting your privacy on the Internet is a never-ending battle. It's a mindset really, but we also have better tools, like DIP, that make things much easier. The fact that you can now ask data brokers to erase you, and they have to comply is a game changer. Hopefully we'll have a better regulated RTB system in the near future.

Alexandru_BD

Oh, and here's the author of the article himself! 😀

Math_Matei

I am sad .... 😔

On the chat I received the following answer:

The new Identity Theft Protection product is designed only for the US, unfortunately. It will not be launched in Romania, because some information is required for its configuration that exists only for US customers.

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Math_Matei,

I'm sorry for the dissapointment, It's true, Identity Theft Protection is powered by IdentityForce and currently available for the US market only, as registration requires a valid Social Security Number and recovery services are offered by US-based Certified Protection Experts.

Gjoksi

@Alexandru_BD

Too bad it is not available for the rest of the world. But, let's hope that some day it will be available for the other markets as well.

Regards.

Alexandru_BD

And who knows, maybe something similar for the rest of the world? With Bitdefender you never know what comes next, as the development teams are ALWAYS busy working on the latest and most innovative things 😊

Flexx

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/310360#Comment_310360

Forget about the rest of the world, the thing which I found weird is that it is not available for the people of Romania also, bitdefender having its headquarters in Romania introduced identity theft protection for the people of U.S whereas they should have done it for their own home country first.

Let's see, what future awaits for rest of the world.

Regards

Alexandru_BD

Well, it is my understanding that the two services, Digital Identity Protection and Identity Theft Protection were designed with the same purpose in mind, but for different markets, as they are quite similar.

Identity Theft Protection is based on US identification data such as the Social Security Number and this cannot be replicated for other locations. This is where the similarities end, because credit monitoring, identity theft restoration services and the Identity Theft Insurance cannot be provided in Romania by the IdentityForce partner.

Alexandru_BD

Hi guys,

Jump on this one: https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/91897/poll-what-is-the-issue-that-a-product-such-as-identity-theft-protection-can-solve-for-you

Cheers

Giryoku

@Alexandru_BD ,

So Identity Theft Protection is only available for the US. But what about Digital Identity Protection? I had it, but asked a refund for it, just because it hadn't found any information about me. I know that it's good news, but it felt as if it wasn't complete.

What I am wondering is if you can you use Digital Identity Protection fully in other countries? And then I mean without restrictions? If so, it would probably be a good idea to think about it again.

Scott

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/310487#Comment_310487

Voted, as with the rest so far, All of the above. They were kind of loaded questions, as all of them would seem to be of concern 😉😊

Alexandru_BD

Thank you @Scott 🙂👍️

The statistics on identity theft are really alarming. I found this article recently and it gave me a better perspective and reasoning behind the decision to launch this service in the U.S. first:

https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-identity-theft-and-cybercrime

@Giryoku Digital Identity Protection may not find any concerning exposure or data breach during onboarding, but it provides continuous identity monitoring, which means that it acts like a watchdog and alerts you in the event data breaches, account take-overs, and social media impersonations take place at any given time over the course of the subscription. I get a regular, but not too pushy "newsletter" on my e-mail address as well. It does offer peace of mind, I must say.

Currently, Digital Identity Protection is available for US, UK, France and Australia.

Giryoku

@Alexandru_BD ,

Thank you for that! But there aren't any restrictions when you use Digital Identity Protection in another country?

I bought it 2 months ago and asked for a refund too 😕. Maybe I'm coming back on that decision. But I bought it on the general Bitdefender website (Bitdefender.com) and could use it without any problems (in The Netherlands) for as far as I know.

Or is it actually not intended for other countries at all?

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Giryoku,

I'm glad you asked, as I forgot to mention this in my previous comment 🙂

Digital Identity Protection is a service that can be used world wide, now it is also translated into all languages, except alerts and articles that are in English. The service can be purchased from .com .co.uk .au .fr websites and does offer the full functions, regardless of the location.

Cheers

Giryoku

@Alexandru_BD ,

Thank you, that makes it clear.

But I do have a following question. Does it protect your family? As far as I can tell is the service only focussed on 1 person. Or am I wrong?

Alexandru_BD

Hi @Giryoku,

The service is designed to support a single identity, but you can add up to 5 email addresses and 3 phone numbers to have the identity monitored. The thing is, if you add information about multiple people, then your identity will be inaccurate and this would also affect the monitoring and results. It is recommended to add only information about your identity. If you need to protect another identity, I would advise the purchase of a secondary Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection subscription, to activate it in a separate Bitdefender account.

Regards