The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: SafeShepherd
Quick Pitch: SafeShepherd finds and removes your information from websites that sell it.
Genius Idea: Automating each of about 25 personal information vendors' removal processes.
Want to know somebody's birth date? Address? Phone number? Whether they're divorced?
There's an entire genre of websites such as Spokeo, Radaris, White Pages and Been Verified that will gladly sell you such information. They pick it up from sources such as government records and public social media profiles.
"Twenty years ago all the information was legally public as well," SafeShepherd CEO Robert Leshner says, "but none of this information was accessible. Unless you lived in the same town as somebody and were willing to go get the records, you probably couldn't get them. The Internet has made it easy."
You may be just checking out someone before your first date, but some of these sites' customers have more malicious intentions — like identity theft.
Most personal information sites allow you to remove listings about yourself, but the process can involve following complicated instructions, emails and other kinds of takedown requests. It's a project.
SafeShepherd aims to make it easier to opt out of personal information site listings. It shows you where you're listed and automates the removal process when you want to opt out.
The startup, which graduated from accelerator 500 Startups in August, will let you remove up to 10 records for free. A free search for my name, however, yielded no results that were actually mine.
It also seems like a wasted effort to remove your information from 10 sites, but leave it standing on 15 others.
To see and remove all records, SafeShepherd charges a monthly fee of $14 or an annual fee of $65. Leshner says the site also plans to introduce a family plan that allows users to protect spouses and children.
So far the site has about 8,000 paying and non-paying users, who have between them removed about 23,000 records.
Would you pay to remove your information from vendors? Let us know in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Darwin Bell
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario