Mozilla Monitor Will Get Your Stolen Data Off the Internet, for a Price
This new paid plan expands on the service's security benefits.
Mozilla has a solid reputation for preserving user privacy and security on the internet, starting with Firefox, which is all about offering a useful web browser that also block trackers from following you, especially after you start adjusting its settings.
It's fitting the company has a service like Mozilla Monitor (formerly Firefox Monitor) to help find and secure your stolen data. Mozilla Monitor promises to scan over 190 sites across the web for data that belongs to you, usually obtained following data breaches from companies you have accounts with. These sites are known for selling such data, so services like Monitor can help stop those transactions before bad actors can buy up your information.
This data can range from email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses, to financial information and even the names of your direct family members. (A lot of data about you is probably floating around the internet.) If you don't use a service like Mozilla Monitor, you might never know that your data is being sold on one of these sites, especially if you never got the memo that one of the accounts you hold was breached. Once found, Mozilla lets you know which sites have your data, so you can reach out and request they delete it.
Mozilla Monitor Plus automates the process (for a fee)
Mozilla Monitor is a free service that offers a one-time scan of these known sites. However, the company is rolling out a paid version of the service today, called Mozilla Monitor Plus. For $13.99 per month, or $8.99 per month when paid annually, you get monthly scans of these 190+ sites. In addition, when Mozilla does find data that belongs to you, it reaches out on your behalf to get it removed. That places Mozilla Monitor Plus more in line with proactive data monitoring services like DeleteMe.
Speaking of which, there are already quite a few services out there to help you delete yourself from the internet. The aforementioned DeleteMe, for example, asks you to provide an extensive list of information about yourself, so it can better find that information across the web (it costs a bit more, at $10.75 when billed annually). Incogni offers a more affordable option at $6.49 per month, billed annually, while Kanary offers a 14-day free trial before a $14.99 per month plan (billed annually, of course).
Mozilla's paid plan just launched today, so it's difficult to know exactly how it stacks up against these other options. But it might be the right choice for those who already use the free version, since it will free you up from doing the legwork to actually get your data offline.
Check out the data removal tools mentioned in this piece: