Amidst a series of transformations affecting Mozilla’s suite of services, the turbulence continues with the company’s decision to sever ties with a key partner for Mozilla Monitor Plus, its paid data-broker cleanup service.
This development follows the revelation that the CEO of OneRep, the current provider responsible for removing information from people-finding sites for Mozilla, has previously founded numerous such websites. Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security brought this association to light in mid-March, highlighting the active status of one data broker website linked to Dimitri Shelest, OneRep’s CEO.
Data brokers, notorious for scraping personal information from various sources and compiling detailed profiles for sale, pose significant privacy risks. To address this, Mozilla collaborated with OneRep to offer Monitor Plus, a subscription service priced at $9 per month, aimed at assisting users in removing their data from these platforms—a task that can be arduous and time-consuming when undertaken individually.
In response to Krebs’ discoveries, Mozilla has opted to terminate its partnership with OneRep and is in the process of transitioning to a new service provider for its Monitor Plus subscription. However, specific details regarding the timeline for this transition remain undisclosed.
Mozilla Monitor Plus debuted in early February as an enhancement to the company’s existing free lookup tool. This comprehensive service not only monitors data leaks through integration with Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned but also facilitates the automatic submission of opt-out requests to data broker sites, courtesy of OneRep. Despite Mozilla’s recent adjustments to its privacy and security initiatives announced in mid-February, Monitor Plus stands as the sole service unaffected by these cuts.
