Does a good actor actually have a way to prove they are legit?

This comment is a little pointless because almost anything that need your data needs you to trust them.

A good actor doesn't ask for PII in the first place.

In order to opt out of a data broker, you have to submit PII to them to tell them who you are, otherwise, they won't know who to opt out. The exception to this is if the data broker is using an anonymous identifier, like that stored in a browser cookie, in which case you would need to submit that anonymous identifier to them, or somehow give them access to it (e.g. via a browser request).

The People Search Sites we submit opt outs to all transact in raw PII, therefore, if you want to opt out, either you have to submit your own raw PII to them (or a hashed version, where you and the data broker share the key so the underlying profile can be matched) to the data broker so they can identify you, or you can utilize a third-party opt out service (such as Optery) to do this for you. In either case, submitting raw PII to the data broker for them to identify you and opt you out is required.

We only submit to data brokers the minimum amount of information necessary for them to locate your profile, and then remove it, which, in the majority of cases is: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, City, State, and an email address. If you do a few manual searches at data brokers, you'll see all of this information is already out there.

Note that we never share our customers private email addresses with any third party, including the data brokers we submit opt outs to.

Right.

Then you sell your company.

Then the TOS about my PII changes because that TOS is a one way contract subject to the whims of whichever entity owns it at some particular point in time.

And then your company starts selling my PII, despite what you say in a non-legally binding comment on hacker news.

So no thank you.