WHAT THE POLICIES SAY

Optery is a data-broker removal service operated by Optery, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco and backed by seed investors including Y Combinator and Bayhouse Capital. To perform removals, users must supply personal data (full name, birth year, city and state of residence, optionally a government ID), which Optery then transmits to data brokers as the user's CCPA Authorized Agent; its privacy policy warns those brokers are independent controllers Optery cannot control. Optery states it is not a data broker and does not sell or rent personal data for money, but its site runs Google Analytics and retargeted advertising it concedes may count as CCPA "selling" or "sharing." Free-scan data is deleted after 14 days without an account; the company holds a SOC 2 Type II audit, and a 2024 Consumer Reports study measured it as the most effective of seven removal services tested.

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[2026-03-13] · COLLECTION

Optery's Terms of Service, last updated 2026-03-13, make providing personal data a condition of the Removal Services, requiring users to supply personal data such as full name, birth year, and current city and state of residence.

optery.com ↗

[2026-05-17] · COLLECTION

Optery's privacy policy, last updated 2026-05-17, lists collected categories including Profile or Contact Data, Identifiers (optional government ID, also categorized under Sensitive Data), Payment Data, Device/IP Data, and Geolocation Data, and states that free Quick Scan results and personal data are automatically deleted if no account is created within 14 days.

optery.com ↗

OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

Optery publishes a subprocessor list naming its vendors and their roles and data storage locations, including Amazon Web Services (hosting and storage), Stripe (payments), Slack, Google Workspace, and Crisp (support), plus an OpenAI integration described as optional/opt-in for AI-driven analysis of data broker profile matches.

optery.com ↗

[2023-05-08] · OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

The SaaS News reported on 2023-05-08 that Optery raised an additional $2.7 million in seed funding led by Bayhouse Capital, with participation from Global Founders Capital, Goodwater Capital, Pioneer Fund, Soma Capital, TRAC, and Y Combinator, bringing total funding to $6 million; Optery is a venture-backed private company.

thesaasnews.com ↗

[2026-03-13] · OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY

Optery's Terms of Service, last updated 2026-03-13, identify the operating entity as Optery, Inc., a corporation incorporated in the State of Delaware (Delaware File No. 3430687), with a stated address at 2261 Market Street STE 86983, San Francisco, CA 94114, and refer to a public About Us page naming its office bearers.

optery.com ↗

[2026-03-13] · SHARING

Optery's Terms of Service, last updated 2026-03-13, state that by using the Removal Services the user appoints Optery as their Authorized Agent under applicable state privacy laws, and that Optery must send the user's personal data to the data brokers and information aggregators covered by the Removal Services and occasionally to government agencies such as the FTC or State Attorney General offices.

optery.com ↗

[2026-05-17] · SHARING

Optery's privacy policy, last updated 2026-05-17, states that to provide Removal Services it provides pieces of users' personal data to data brokers and information aggregators, that these recipients are independent data controllers whose treatment of the data Optery cannot control, and its disclosure table shows Profile/Contact Data and Device/IP Data disclosed to Advertising Partners; the policy also states Optery is not a data broker and does not sell or rent personal data for monetary consideration.

optery.com ↗

TRACK RECORD

Optery's security page (updated June 2026) states the company has completed an AICPA SOC 2 Type II audit conducted by an independent third-party auditor (the full report is available only to business customers under NDA), conducts annual penetration testing with an independent security firm, and encrypts data in transit with TLS 1.2+ and at rest with AES-256.

optery.com ↗

[2024-08-08] · TRACK RECORD

Consumer Reports' study "Data Defense: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services," announced 2024-08-08, found Optery had the highest measured success rate (68% after four months) among the seven removal services tested, while concluding that such services are largely ineffective overall and that manual opt-outs were more effective, removing 70% of information within a week.

advocacy.consumerreports.org ↗

[2026-03-13] · TRACK RECORD

Optery's Terms of Service, last updated 2026-03-13, disclaim any guarantee that third parties will honor opt-out or deletion requests, state that it is not possible to remove 100% of a user's personal information from the internet, and note that removals by third parties can take many months.

optery.com ↗

TRACKING TECH

Optery's subprocessor disclosure page states that Optery uses third-party analytics tools for internal marketing and website optimization, categorizes these vendors as Third-Party Controllers that determine their own processing for advertising purposes, and points users to a "Your Privacy Choices" link to opt out of third-party marketing trackers on optery.com.

optery.com ↗

[2026-05-17] · TRACKING TECH

Optery's privacy policy, last updated 2026-05-17, discloses use of Essential, Functional, Performance/Analytical (including Google Analytics), and Retargeting/Advertising cookies, states that Do Not Track requests are not supported, and acknowledges that its retargeted advertising with vendors such as Google may be considered "selling" or "sharing" under the CCPA; it also states that Global Privacy Control signals are honored.

optery.com ↗

LAST REVIEWED 2026-08-04 · METHODOLOGY v1.7