How to Check Which Services Are Selling Your Data 

In the digital age, information can be just as valuable as any currency. Unscrupulous companies are willing to pay big money for your personal information, and others are only too happy to sell it.

The first sign that your email might have been sold is the very annoying wave of spam emails you may start receiving from companies you don’t even remember communicating with. Fortunately, there are many ways to track down data brokers, as well as those responsible for selling your information.

This article will show you one very handy method and offer a few other pieces of advice.

How to Check Sold Email With Your Email Address

If you want to find out exactly which company is selling your data to third parties, then there’s a handy trick you can use that involves (funnily enough) your email address. Email service providers like Gmail allow users to add some extra details to their email address, which can help identify the offending company.

So, if you’re required to give an email address to a company to create an account or register for a promotion, instead of your standard address, add a “+” followed by a phrase to help you identify the company you’re signing up with, e.g., “johnsmith+abcCorp@gmail.com.”

If you then start receiving spam messages addressed to this email address, then you’ll know exactly which offending company that sold your address to these other companies now bombarding your inbox. You’ll then be able to ask them to remove your address from their servers. By law, they are required to comply. Or you can simply block them yourself.

Data Breaches

Another way that your email can be sold is through data breaches. Hacks of the massive databases of large companies can expose the personal information and banking details of millions of users. Sites like Steam, ChatGPT, and Canva have all been victims of data breaches.

 This information can then be sold to data brokers and other parties on the dark web. While it’s recommended to change your password as soon as news of the hack is known, you still might start seeing spam messages popping up in your inbox.

A very useful, and free, way to see if your email has been compromised is to check the site “haveibeenpwned.com.” Simply enter your email address, and you’ll be shown whether or not your address was part of any major data leak in the past.

Personal Data Removal Services

Once your personal information has been sold to third parties and data brokers, it can be a monumental effort to stop them. While various laws worldwide (CPA, GDPR, etc.) force companies to remove information from their lists to comply, the fact remains that there are thousands of these brokers globally, and even the most credible of them won’t remove it unless asked.

This is where personal data removal services come in. They’ll act on your behalf, scouring the web and dark web for your personal details and demanding that the companies that have them delete them.

Special services like Incogni, Privacy Bee, Optery, and IDX Complete offer subscribers a convenient way to keep their personal details out of the wrong hands and their inboxes free from spam. While you won’t be able to see who sold your information in this way, you will be able to take action against those who have it.