Late at night in my Austin home office, the blue light of my dedicated test laptop illuminates my notes on that 2022 HubSpot phishing incident that almost cost me my career. Even four years later, a sharp spike of adrenaline hits my chest every time I see a 'HubSpot Support' notification in my inbox.
Before we get into the weeds of how I’ve spent the last seven months scrubbing my digital footprint, a quick heads-up: links to tools like Incogni and certain password managers in this post are affiliate links. If you sign up through them, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I paid for every one of these services with my own credit card and lived with them long enough to see the good, the bad, and the weird. You can find the full transparency details on my About page.
I’m a marketing operations manager, which is a fancy way of saying I manage about fifty different SaaS subscriptions and spend half my life resetting passwords for people who think 'Password123' is a fortress. After my near-miss with that fake HubSpot domain—the sender was off by a single, tiny character—I became obsessed with login hygiene. I’ve run trials of 1Password, Bitwarden, and RoboForm, but even as I locked down my vaults, I realized a terrifying truth: my passwords were safe, but my identity was still for sale.
The Shadow in the Marketing Stack
I realized that even with a rotating vault of high-end tools, my personal metadata was still floating on broker sites, feeding the scripts used by the very phishers who targeted me. These people-search sites are essentially front-ends for dossiers containing my past addresses, work history, and phone number. It’s like having a state-of-the-art deadbolt on your front door while leaving your floor plans and a list of your fears posted on the community mailbox.
Late last October, I decided to fight back. I had already gone three rounds with my own IT team about why sharing passwords in spreadsheets is a terrible idea, and their blank stares convinced me that if I wanted a clean digital footprint, I was on my own. I started by trying to handle the removals manually. I spent three hours on a Saturday afternoon trying to opt-out of just one broker, only to have them demand a scan of my driver’s license to 'verify' my identity. The irony was so thick I could have choked on it: to stop them from selling my data, I had to give them the most sensitive data I own.
Thinking about how my IT team would react if they knew I was paying for six different password managers just to find the one that doesn't feel like a 1990s spreadsheet makes me laugh, but the data broker situation wasn't funny. That’s when I pulled out my test laptop—the one with the slightly tacky texture of the 'Property of Marketing' sticker I never peeled off—and signed up for Incogni.
The Automation Experiment: Late Autumn to Now
Setting up Incogni felt a lot like setting up a recurring household budget. You put in the parameters, authorize the service to act on your behalf, and then let the automation handle the tedious stuff. Incogni uses legal frameworks like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and GDPR to send 'Right to be Forgotten' requests. Under the CCPA, businesses generally have a 45-day window to respond to a verifiable deletion request, which is exactly the kind of bureaucratic timeline I didn't want to track on a sticky note.
Just before the holiday rush, I started seeing the first wave of 'in progress' statuses. It’s a strange feeling to see a list of companies you’ve never heard of—brokers with names that sound like generic pharmaceutical brands or failed tech startups—and realize they have your home address indexed. It’s the digital equivalent of finding out a stranger has been keeping a log of every time you go to the grocery store.
Why Standard Removal Fails the Truly Vulnerable
While I was testing this, I started thinking about a very specific use case that most marketing copy misses. We often talk about 'privacy' as a luxury or a preference, but for some, it’s operational security. Think about private investigators or undercover law enforcement. For them, the standard 'manual' removal process is a trap. If a broker requires you to upload a photo ID or verify your current address via a public database to 'prove' who you are, you are essentially refreshing their database with your most current, verified info.
Services that automate this without requiring you to hand over more sensitive documents—using power of attorney or legal representation models—are the only way to break that cycle. If you're trying to stay off the radar, you can't use the radar to find yourself. This is why I gravitated toward Incogni; it acts as a proxy, so I don't have to engage in a digital staring contest with people who make money off my transparency.
The Mid-February Turning Point
By mid-February, I received a monthly status report that actually made me sit up. The 'Shadow Brokers'—those who don't have a public-facing search portal but sell data in bulk to other companies—were starting to drop off. My personal dashboard showed dozens of completed removals.
I noticed a shift in my daily life, too. The volume of targeted spam—the kind that knows I live in Austin and work in SaaS—began to thin out. It wasn't an overnight disappearance, more like a cable bill that mysteriously creeps down instead of up. I was no longer getting three calls a day about 'urgent' updates to my business profile from companies that clearly bought my info from a 2021 scrape.
It’s important to remember that this isn't a one-and-done deal. Data brokers are like weeds in a Texas garden; you can't just pull them once and expect them not to come back. They are constantly re-scraping public records. This is why I kept the subscription running even after the initial 'clearing' phase. Much like how I manage my 50+ SaaS subscriptions using Proton Pass vaults, I needed a system that worked while I was busy doing my actual job.
The Verdict After Seven Months
A few weeks ago, I did a fresh search for my name and home address on three of the biggest people-search sites. Two of them came up empty. The third had an old address from six years ago—not ideal, but a massive improvement over having my current front door practically pinned to the top of Google.
If you’re already using a solid vault—and you should be, whether it’s the 1Password family plan which covers up to 5 users, or the RoboForm equivalent—you’re only halfway there. Login hygiene requires both a strong vault and a clean public footprint. A password manager keeps the door locked, but a service like Incogni removes the 'Homeowner is Away' sign from the front lawn.
- Automation is key: Do not waste your Saturdays manually emailing brokers. They will ignore you or ask for your ID.
- Persistence matters: Look for services that re-scan for your data every few months, because brokers certainly do.
- Check the legal leverage: Ensure the service you use specifically mentions CCPA or GDPR, as those are the only reasons brokers actually comply.
Looking back at that 2022 phishing scare, I realize I was an easy target because I was visible. My work history was public, my 'support' needs were predictable, and my data was pennies on the dollar. Today, my digital presence feels more like a quiet house with the lights off and the curtains drawn. It’s not about being invisible; it’s about being expensive and annoying to find. If you’re tired of the spam and the 'Shadow Brokers' having a seat at your table, I’d suggest giving Incogni a try. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to an 'unsubscribe' button for the entire internet.