Articles on: Opt Outs & Removals

Does Optery share the email addresses or phone numbers I provide with data brokers when opting me out?

No, by default, Optery does not share the email addresses or phone numbers you provide with data brokers when opting you out.

Most data brokers require an email address to process an opt out request. With an Optery paid plan, we autogenerate custom private email addresses for your opt out submissions that we manage for you behind-the-scenes, so your inbox is spared, so to be clear: **no - the personal email addresses and phone numbers you supply are not shared with any data brokers by default**.

Optery scans the contents of data broker pages and utilizes matching algorithms to determine if we think the page contains a match for your profile. Since many data brokers publicly display emails and phone numbers, either in whole, or in part, on their web pages, Optery utilizes the email addresses and phone numbers you supply to help us match your information to the profiles posted by data brokers more precisely. Put differently, by default, the email addresses and phone numbers you provide are used for server-side matching purposes, and not for submission to data brokers.

If sharing your primary email address and/or phone number is not something you're comfortable with, we recommend withholding them and not providing them to Optery. You can use a secondary email address to sign up and not input a phone number.

What if I actually do want Optery to search data broker sites for my email or phone number?

You can improve your scan results by opting in your emails and/or phone number to be used in Optery scans. Notice the responses above said Optery does not share the email addresses or phone numbers you provide "_by default_", however, you can change the default behavior by Configuring Your Phone and Email Scan Preferences. Visit our Help Desk article on this feature to learn how, why, and what the tradeoffs are.

Are there ever exceptions to this?

Some data brokers post your email or phone number publicly, and then simultaneously require the email or phone number displayed in the profile to be submitted with along with the opt out in order to positively match you to the profile in question. When no other options exist, we will submit the publicly posted email or phone number retrieved directly from the data broker to fulfill the opt out. To be clear though, **the personal email addresses and phone numbers you supply are not shared with any data brokers by default**.

What if I'm on the Free Basic plan?

If you are submitting opt out requests to data brokers on your own, and using the Free Basic tools to assist you, we recommend reading this article on our Help Desk first: Do Not share your personal email or pay any money to data brokers linked to from Optery

Will this work differently with Optery in the future?

Optery's engineering team is actively working on providing more granular configuration options and features in this area. For example, the ability to run scans on demand for multiple email addresses and phone numbers or to disable all scanning functionality for emails and phone numbers. Subscribers to our email newsletter will be the first to be notified when these new features are released.

Updated on: 11/10/2023

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Does Optery share the email addresses or phone numbers I provide with data brokers when opting me out?