California, Privacy, State Judges, Technology

How Can a Worried Judge Go Off the Grid -- Without Actually Going Off the Grid?

A technology company introduces an interesting strategy for protecting judges' privacy.

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It’s hard out here for a judge. Deciding people’s fates is fraught with serious ethical and moral questions, as well as occasional risks to personal safety. Some convicted criminals don’t take kindly to prison, and judges can face the wrath of a prisoner’s family.

So what can a judge do to protect his privacy and safety? Use technology of course! The whiz kids at Abine, the company that came up with Do Not Track Plus, have a new product that fills that need, or more generally, the need of anyone who wants to get their private data off the internet. The company recently announced a partnership with the California Judges Association….

Mashable reported earlier this week on Abine’s nifty new tool:

Some judges fear retaliation from the families of defendants they sentenced to long terms in prison.

That’s why companies such as Abine devised a solution specifically to protect judges’ online privacy.

Abine, an online privacy company, is partnering with the California Judges Association to offer its DeleteMe service to the association’s members.

DeleteMe erases personal information from people search websites, and ensures that information does not get re-posted.

“DeleteMe will delete the judges’ personal information, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, familial members and other data, from the largest online databases and people search websites, including Spokeo.com and WhitePages.com,” the company said in a statement.

The DeleteMe technology isn’t just for judges. The company says it is for anyone who wants more control over their personal information. But there is a certain target demographic — people like “judges, stalking victims, or victims of identity theft”:

“Through marketing databases, social networks, credit bureaus, and public records like birth certificates and marriage licenses, the judges’ most personal information can often be found online,” Abine’s statement reads. “Their names, ages, current addresses, and family members’ names are a few of the pieces of information up for sale.”

DeleteMe targets the top 50 most popular people search websites. Its operators, who are experts on those sites’ terms of service and privacy policies, “ensure that all personal information is properly and swiftly removed.”

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According to the company website, DeleteMe costs 100 bucks a year. That doesn’t seem too steep, I guess. Still, you would have to be pretty worried about a specific person or incident happening to pay for a service like this. Otherwise there is no real point in spending money to scrape your information from sites like Spokeo or WhitePages as a general precautionary measure. It might be overkill. Because let’s face it, if someone really wants to find you, there are plenty of other ways to do it than just Googling your name compulsively.

Why California Judges Partnered With Online Privacy Protection Service [Mashable]

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