familytreenow.com opt-out

My partner brought a Popular Mechanics article to my attention today that I have cross referenced to this WaPo article

familytreenow.com appears to have sensitive personal info on it's site. It is urgent for any police officers to opt-out under the contact page, verify not a robot, navigate to opt-out, pull up the person's name, then select the red opt-out button at the top. It takes up to 48 hours.

We did this for ourselves because the site lists prior addresses and birthdates which are used by credit reporting agencies for confirmation of identity as well as info enabling people to obtain credit scores. The site had around two decades of old addresses for me. The "possible associates" were wrong on my page which was a relief because my ex-husband's other two former wives were all listed as MY "family". If you have a former last name, you may need to opt-out for both.

Police officers and victims of crimes seem most vulnerable which is why we wanted to share.

This type of information is available on many credit and person-finder sites. The opt-out process itself is a clever way for the company to verify and add information to a profile, which while they may remove from public view, they will likely sell.

This particular site requires no fee and no registration or personal information from the searcher. The search is by name. Only name and year of birth are needed to opt-out. Saw an additional article from Time mag regarding this site a little bit ago. If what you say is true, then please disregard my post. I don't normally see a site popping up in news this much and thought I would share.

dave said:

This type of information is available on many credit and person-finder sites. The opt-out process itself is a clever way for the company to verify and add information to a profile, which while they may remove from public view, they will likely sell.

I think it's a good idea for those groups you suggest to opt out.