Hiding your personal information online is generally quite difficult. Sure, you can remove your social media accounts or use an alternate phone number, but there’s still quite a bit of information about you that might be publicly available.
There are companies that collate all of this information and sell it to other providers. In fact, this industry is worth billions, with companies spending obscene amounts just to gather more data about customers that fall within different demographics.
If you’re wondering how to delete your personal information from the internet and require data removal services that can do that effectively, companies like Abine DeleteMe can help. Their Privacy Information Removal Service can help you in scrubbing your private information off the web.
In this DeleteMe review, we look at how this company can purge your details from the most prolific data broker sites while making sure that you stay off these lists. Here’s our full review.
DeleteMe Review Overview
Feature
Detail
Available in
US
Pricing
$8.71-$34.33/month
Free trial
✖
Money-back guarantee
✖
Number of data brokers in network
750+
DeleteMe is one of the top cybersecurity tools that help you remove personal information from the internet that has been captured by data brokers. As long as data broker websites have your information, you’re unlikely to ever be free from marketing spam. But DeleteMe intends to change that.
DeleteMe also offers a free scan in case you’re interested in trying out the service.
Does DeleteMe work? DeleteMe has several advantages, including being able to access a wide broker network and several data removal plans. However, during our DeleteMe review, we also discovered a few drawbacks, too. Check out below for a summary of what we found out.
What We Like:
Helps remove your personal information from data brokers’ databases
Quarterly reviews, ensuring your data remains purged
Covers 750+ brokers (more than competitors)
Offers a do-it-yourself guide for future reference
What We Don't Like:
Paying biennially is more expensive than the competition
Only available for US residents; other locations are still in beta
Annual payment required – no monthly payment option
Service not automatic
Once you subscribe to the DeleteMe service, you’ll get a quarterly report to ensure that your data hasn’t been picked back up by any brokers.
The company also provides DIY guides, showing you exactly how you can remove your information from different brokers and search engines. With enough time and motivation, you can delete your online data yourself for free. And if you decide to go even further, you can even consider deleting yourself from the internet entirely.
DeleteMe covers 750+ data brokers, which is quite significant, but it’s difficult to verify how effective DeleteMe is in reaching all these brokers. Moreover, the service is only available to US residents, and testing for other locations worldwide is still in beta.
DeleteMe will cost you $129 for the Individual Plan, which includes protection and monitoring for one year. Their most popular plan comes out to $229 and offers protection for two people for a year. Nevertheless, you will be charged annually and cannot pay per month.
Want to give DeleteMe a try yourself? Check out our comprehensive review below!
Pricing and Plans
So, how much does DeleteMe cost? DeleteMe offers different subscription plans based on the number of users and the length of your plan.
You can choose to scrub the data of one to four people under a single subscription. Beyond that, you can opt for either a yearly subscription or a plan for two years. If you choose the two-year plan that covers two or more people, you will get a 20% discount under current pricing.
Length of Subscription
1 Person
2 People
4 People
1 Year
$10.75 monthly $129 annually
$19.08 monthly $229 annually
$27.42 monthly $329 annually
2 Years
$8.71 monthly $209 biennially
$14.54 monthly $349 biennially
$20.79 monthly $499 biennially
The cheapest subscription is $129 annually, while the most expensive costs $499. In general, you get better value for money when you choose a two-year plan and make a single payment biennially (once every two years).
Bear in mind that, at present, you cannot pay monthly. The annual or biennial price you see is what you’ll be charged. To be fair, DeleteMe offers a one-time service with options for fixed reviews of your data while you’re subscribed.
Get a free DeleteMe scan
We recommend starting with a free DeleteMe scan, albeit with a more limited selection of data brokers than the full version. Simply type in your first and last name on DeleteMe’s site, and it will find out which data brokers — from a pool of 40+ brokers — have your information. The full version covers over 750 brokers, but we found our data on some websites, even with the free scan.
Note that if your browser is hiding your location, you may need to disable that protection temporarily. DeleteMe’s website uses location services to determine your location and offer you the most accurate results in their free scan.
Keep in mind that this free scan only shows you a (limited) list of data brokers that store your personal data online. If you actually want DeleteMe to send out data removal requests in your name to remove personal information from the internet, you’ll need to get a paid subscription.
So, what exactly do you get with a subscription to DeleteMe? What makes a privacy information removal service worth the investment? Below, we pop the hood and take a look at the process in more detail.
DeleteMe Features and Benefits
While DeleteMe is one of the pricier data removal services out there, it does have a lot of features. It also has one of the largest data broker networks of any data removal tool. But is DeleteMe legit? Here’s a quick look at key features we discovered during our DeleteMe review.
Data broker network
DeleteMe’s data broker network is considerably vast. While competing services like OneRep, for example, have around 200 brokers, DeleteMe boasts 750+ data brokers from which it can remove your data.
While DeleteMe scans online spaces, it can also sweep up a heap of personal information. Here’s our full breakdown of the data that you can purge using this service:
Data point
Removed?
Name
✔
Current address
✔
Previous address
✔
Age
✔
Date of birth
✔
Gender
✔
Occupation
✔
Marital status
✔
Email addresses
✔
Social media accounts
✔
Phone numbers
✔
Photographs
✔
Pictures of your home
✔
Property value
✔
With all of this data out there online, it’s far easier for a criminal to clone your identity. So, grab your free DeleteMe scan to see what information about you is already out there on the wider web!
These corporations scour a range of sources to collect and sell user information. They go through government records, people’s search sites, and social media. They collate personal information and analyze the records before then selling that data to other organizations that use it for advertising purposes.
While this process isn’t illegal, it does have many drawbacks. If your personal information falls into the wrong hands, you could become a victim of identity theft.
Pro Tip:
Be vigilant when signing up for new services or checking out for a purchase online. If you agree to marketing, that’s one way in which data brokers gather and harvest your personal information. Always uncheck boxes that aren’t mandatory to the checkout process.
Continuous threat monitoring
One thing we liked about DeleteMe and its ability to remove personal information from the internet was the inclusion of bonus features like Continuous Threat Monitoring. This is something not offered by Kanary and OneRep, two competing services.
– We implement advanced threat detection tools and intrusion prevention systems to monitor network traffic for anomalies.
– We conduct real-time analysis of logs and alerts to identify potential security incidents promptly.
– We use a Security Operations Center and a Managed Detection and Response platform to monitor and respond to threats, 24 hours a day.
DeleteMe
Security page on DeleteMe's website
What do these points mean? DeleteMe will monitor your personal information for any breaches that threaten to compromise your online security. We think that this is a great addition that helps to justify having more than just a one-off monthly subscription.
Email, phone, and payment card masking
In our opinion, this is one of DeleteMe’s most impressive features and something that’s usually only seen in other software tools, like password managers. DeleteMe can create a temporary, throwaway phone number, email address, or payment card.
Rather than sharing your legitimate details, this masked version will be presented to the website you’re using instead. You’ll still be able to receive calls and emails or pay for something online, but nobody will get their hands on your actual details!
Within your DeleteMe dashboard, you can also create custom requests under the “Custom Requests” tab. Here, you can submit a request if you’ve come across your data online since the initial removal process was completed.
The team will send a deletion request on your behalf and follow up until it’s removed.
Comprehensive reports
Every DeleteMe scan produces detailed reports on where your data has been found. We’ve covered more on this further down in our DeleteMe review, but the information provided struck us as highly detailed. DeleteMe is one of the best data removal services in terms of how many data points it can remove from data brokers’ websites.
DeleteMe’s customer service
For the purpose of this DeleteMe review, we reached out to the support team for assistance. We found the DeleteMe customer support to be a friendly and knowledgeable bunch. Of course, you’re going to want to know more about the customer service options available to subscribers, such as:
Live Chat is available from Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM EST.
There is a Help Center on the website that includes FAQs.
The review feedback online is overwhelmingly positive.
In our experience, contacting customer support shouldn’t be necessary in most cases. Once you’ve signed up, you simply wait for your report to arrive; the process is very simple to understand and use. If you do need to contact them, it’s possible to reach out to customer support via the web form on their website.
Useful Contacts:
DeleteMe also publishes a public-facing email address on their website, which is [email protected], in addition to a US phone number: +1-833-335-3836.
Setting Up and Using Your DeleteMe Account
Registering on the site is fairly easy and is a matter of a few clicks at most. Just follow the steps below:
Click on “Get Protection All Year” or the “Pricing” tab at the top of the page.
Use the dropdown menus to select the number of people you wish to cover and the length of the subscription that you want.
Click on “Start Protection.”
Fill out the checkout page with your desired login credentials and other personal information. Keep in mind that you’ll need a credit card.
Click “Purchase & Start Deleting.”
Now that you’ve got your account, you’re ready to start scrubbing your information from the web.
Click the “Log in” button in the top-right corner of your browser.
Fill in the email address and password you set up when you subscribed.
Now, you should be able to see your own personal dashboard.
Receiving and understanding your custom DeleteMe report
Once you’ve submitted your initial application data to DeleteMe, you’ll have to give it a little time before receiving your custom report. Since DeleteMe agents search for and remove personal information from the internet manually, it’s understandable that the typical wait for your report is up to seven days.
To really test out this service, one of our US-based editors submitted their own data for consideration. Bear in mind that here at VPNOverview, we are serious about security.
As avid users of VPNs and other privacy software who are constantly reading up on phishing scams and online security habits, we believed our editor’s information was reasonably well protected.
Boy, were we wrong!
The start of the report gives you an overview of the search results found by the DeleteMe team, including:
The total number of records reviewed for your data (16,601)
How many data brokers have your data before removal (53)
The number of records removed from data broker lists (100)
The number of individual data points that make up the records located (650)
Interestingly, DeleteMe also estimates the amount of time saved by using their service. Filling out the application only took a few minutes, while DeleteMe estimated that they saved us around 11 hours.
We were fortunate to receive our report on the same day that it was commissioned. That said, we understand why it might take longer. Some brokers make it purposely difficult to remove your data.
Reading your DeleteMe report
Where DeleteMe matches your data with any broker, they give you a detailed breakdown for each of the companies that have your data. This section of the report highlights approximately how much time each broker takes to process a removal request, and it’ll also give you a breakdown of what details that broker held, such as:
Name
Age
Address
Email address
Relatives associated with you
Marital status
Spouse’s name
Occupation
Property value
Social media accounts
Court records
You’ll also be able to see DeleteMe’s progress toward having your data removed. There are just two status updates, though: “Removal in Progress” or “Clean! – Next scan in 90 days.”
What’s more, the report will be updated when there are changes, as it can be accessed through your dashboard.
We would’ve liked to see a link to each of the respective data brokers’ websites in the report. However, this doesn’t seem to be included at this point, despite being a feature offered by competing service OneRep.
Is DeleteMe Safe?
After our thorough DeleteMe review, we believe that the data removal service is safe to use. DeleteMe doesn’t require you to install any software on your computer, which minimizes the risk to you and your device. Everything is managed through your personal dashboard on their site.
That said, DeleteMe is a privacy information removal service, which means that it specifically deals with your personally identifiable information (PII). It also means that this data removal service will gather more of your personal information than your typical cybersecurity company.
That’s why we looked at DeleteMe’s privacy policy and how it uses your data.
What data does DeleteMe collect and why?
DeleteMe highlights the information collected from you in their privacy policy. Personal information collected as you use their services may include:
Contact information, such as your name and surname, email, phone number, occupation, and employment details
Profile information, including your login credentials and account preferences
Feedback or correspondence, including information sent to the company in any feedback, customer support request, or otherwise
Datasheet information, including your first, middle, and last names, date of birth, gender, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, relatives’ names’, employers, ethnicity, and political affiliation
You’ll be asked for proof of identification from DeleteMe to handle your removal request. According to the DIY guides available on DeleteMe’s website, some brokers require a government-issued identification document.
DeleteMe specifies that the company may also collect data on your usage of the service, marketing preferences, and “other information,” which isn’t explicitly explained further. However, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here in terms of standard privacy statements.
Note:
Remember, while some brokers might have your name, date of birth, and address, others may have more information, including your previous address, and your relatives’ names. No two lists are necessarily the same.
While the data collected might seem excessive, DeleteMe needs this information to offer you its services. The more information that you provide in their form, the more data points that DeleteMe can search against.
If you’d rather go for a data removal service that doesn’t collect all of this information about you, we suggest giving Incogni a try.
DeleteMe’s privacy policy
DeleteMe’s privacy policy is fairly standard as far as most companies’ policies go. Such policies usually follow a similar format across the board, and DeleteMe has covered the usual bases with regard to the use of customer data.
That said, it’s worth bearing in mind that their privacy policy also highlights how some brokers may “suppress” your data instead of deleting it. We reached out to the DeleteMe team for clarification on what exactly this meant, though we’ve not yet received any explanation.
What Are the Best Alternatives to DeleteMe?
Our team of cybersecurity experts is always on the lookout for new online safety and anonymity tools regarding big data and privacy online. That is why we’ve carried out extensive testing and reviews on old and new data broker sites, including:
Optery: Cheaper than DeleteMe and basic features offered.
Incogni: The cheapest and overall best data removal service that we’ve reviewed.
Kanary: Very simple to use and reasonably inexpensive by comparison to others.
DeleteMe Pricing Comparison
DeleteMe is the most expensive data removal tool compared to other data brokers online. That said, the price is somewhat justified. With features like Continuous Threat Monitoring and with over 750 data brokers in the network, paying for a DeleteMe subscription feels worth it to us.
Still, we also think that Incogni is an excellent data removal tool, and it’s far, far cheaper to boot. Below, we’ve highlighted the approximate costs involved with various other popular data removal services.
$14.99/month (annual plan) and $16.99/month (monthly plan)
✔ (14 days)
Do We Recommend DeleteMe?
VPNs, antivirus, and password managers are becoming more popular as people try to shore up their defenses against cybercriminals. But they can’t remove information that’s already out there. That’s where DeleteMe comes in.
There are some companies that use a fully automated process, but some leading data brokers require manual intervention to remove your data. So, is DeleteMe legit? DeleteMe’s combination of automation and manual intervention makes it a good solution for people who want to remove their data from the web.
Does DeleteMe work? It sure does, but to prevent information leaks and keep yourself safe online, we recommend using a VPN when you browse the web. It encrypts your data and makes it virtually impossible for websites to track where you’re logging in from. Currently, the best VPN in the market is NordVPN.
Methodology
Our cybersecurity experts regularly review the best online cybersecurity tools. We aim to fully vet any service, making sure not only that it’s fit for purpose but that it won’t put you at any additional risk.
For this DeleteMe review, we took a deep dive into the features available and found that it’s a solid data removal service. However, in terms of balancing value for money and functionality, we prefer Incogni.
Want to know more about this alternative data removal tool? Check out our Incogni review for more information! Looking for another alternative? We’ve reviewed OneRep, another data removal tool, extensively.
DeleteMe Review: Frequently Asked Questions
Below, you’ll find frequently asked questions about our DeleteMe review or the service itself. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, drop us a comment, or check out the Help Center on DeleteMe’s website.
How good is DeleteMe?
As a privacy information removal service, DeleteMe is a strong contender with excellent customer feedback. Our experience has been positive too, and we got our data collection report back the same day. It is our best data removal service.
How much does DeleteMe cost?
The cheapest DeleteMe subscription costs $129 per year while the most expensive subscription costs $499 per year. The former is for one person subscribing for one year, while the latter is for four people over two years.
Bear in mind that while DeleteMe shows you the monthly cost for each subscription, you can only pay annually or biennially. There’s also an option to get a free, scaled-back report so that you can see how the service works.
How long does it take for DeleteMe to work?
DeleteMe promise to provide you with your custom report within seven days. You’ll then receive a new report every three months for the duration of your subscription. In some cases, depending upon the number of records, it may take slightly longer.
What does DeleteMe remove?
DeleteMe is one of the most comprehensive data removal services we’ve reviewed and can purge information that includes:
Chris is a tech journalist with many years’ experience covering online privacy and cybersecurity. He’s also a published author and works as a Product Manager for some of the most innovative software development companies.
