Mozilla has found another way to make money by launching a new service called Monitor Plus. It can auto-delete your personal information, such as name, current and previous home addresses, and phone numbers, along with your info on data broker sites "selling it for profit" or exposed in known data breaches.
Mozilla Monitor Plus builds on top of a free service previously known as Firefox Monitor (now Mozilla Monitor), which lets you know if your personal information was involved in a data breach. Mozilla said in its announcement that over 10 million people have signed up for the free service.
A privacy survey conducted by Cisco suggests there is a growing interest among 42% of adults, aged 18-24, who want to know what types of information companies have about them. Moreover, data breaches in 2023 affected over 233 million people, outpacing the previous year's numbers.
With the paid version that costs $8/mo, Mozilla claims it can remove your personal information from over 190 data broker sites, which is twice the number of other competitors. On top of that, Mozilla Monitor Plus will perform regular monthly checks to "make sure your personal information stays off data broker sites."
Meanwhile, users of Mozilla Monitor will get a one-time free scan, for which they need to provide their name, current city and state, date of birth, and email address. Mozilla said that this information will remain encrypted, and it's "the least amount of information we need to get the most accurate search results for you."
"We also include high risk data breaches – exposures that may include social security numbers, credit card information, your bank account and pin numbers – that you’ve been exposed to and show how you can fix and resolve it," it added.
In addition to the tool's data removal and continuous monitoring, you can initiate a removal request manually as well. The free scan and the Mozilla Monitor Plus paid subscriptions are currently available to users in the US.
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