Incogni Review: Can It Really Remove Your Data?

Are you receiving too much spam these days? Feeling like advertisers know you a little too well? That could be due to data harvesting, which happens far too often because many platforms don’t really protect our contact information but rather sell it to companies that end up spamming our inboxes.

Luckily, there are ways to remove your data from people search engines and other platforms. You can either do this manually or use a specialized tool like Incogni. That’s what we’ll be doing today in our Incogni review – testing the platform and analyzing whether it really can give us back our online privacy.

What is Incogni?

Incogni is a relatively new data removal tool that can help you regain your privacy online. Launched at the beginning of 2022 by Surfshark, it is designed to help people who do not want their personal information floating around the internet to contact data brokers with data removal requests.

Data privacy has become a big concern in recent years, especially with the rise of sites for background checks and social media that harvests our data. Therefore, using a tool like Incogni is one of the ways to get data broker companies to comply with your local data privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

How Does Incogni Work?

Incogni’s main purpose is to send data removal requests on your behalf. That’s something that you can also do manually, but it’s an incredibly time-consuming process, especially if you’re not familiar with companies that may have gathered data on your surfing habits.

You don’t really need to do much to make the best out of Incogni. The tool has already been fed a list of data brokers and companies that deal in data processing, so it requires minimal input from the user once they create an account.

Here’s what the process looks like:

1. You create an account on the website and select one of the Incogni plans.
2. Enter your contact information – email, phone, first and last name, and zip code. This is the data Incogni will try to remove from data brokers.
3. Proceed to sign the power of attorney document, which is required if Incogni needs to represent you legally.
4. Sit back, relax, and watch the magic unfold.

Surfshark Incogni is currently available for citizens of the United States and European countries compliant with the GDPR. The system is, as mentioned above, fully automatic and requires no further input from the users after the initial sign-up.

The way Incogni works at this point is by analyzing the data you’ve provided and filtering its internal list of data brokers to only include those that do gather data types matching your input. It’s worth mentioning that your data is not stored on Incogni’s servers, and the tool won’t snoop for the information when contacting data companies.

Once Incogni’s data removal process starts, you’ll see a list of companies that gather sensitive data on your Incogni dashboard. Each case is marked with a rating from 1 to 10 to indicate the severity of data gathered at that particular company. You can also click on those items and read up on each data broker, the type of data they gather, and how they usually process it.

At this point, Incogni contacts data brokers by sending each of them official data removal requests based on what type of personal data they may gather. You won’t be included in this back-and-forth, but you can monitor the status of each data removal request.

Currently, Incogni features a list of nearly 150 data brokers and marks the status of each case by using one of the following status messages:

• Not Started – the process has yet to begin.
• In Progress – Incogni has sent the official removal requests.
• Rejected – the request for data removal has been rejected by the broker, usually due to matches in the database.
• Completed – the personal data removal request was successful and the broker notified Incogni about it.

In rare cases when data brokers do not reply within the allotted time frame, Incogni will resend the takedown requests and try to get the case resolved. Of course, some of the companies might not have any data on you at all, which Incogni will mark accordingly in the dashboard.

It’s also worth mentioning that Incogni doesn’t guarantee you’ll be removed from search engines and similar sites, but it will try to get your data removed from such platforms.

Incogni Pricing Plans

Like many similar services, Incogni is a subscription-based platform. That means you’ll have to decide on a pricing plan as you register for an account. The payment is immediately processed.

We liked that the pricing and the plans are kept straightforward at Incogni. In fact, there are no tiers, bundles, or anything like that – all customers at Incogni.com are getting the same deal and access to all the features. It’s really refreshing to find a service that’s not trying to upsell you or unnecessarily make purchasing too complicated.

You only have to choose whether you’d like to pay for Incogni on a monthly or annual basis. If you go with a monthly plan, your subscription will cost $11.49 per month.

However, choosing the annual plan drops the monthly price down to just $5.79, meaning that you’ll get a full year of data removal services for $69.48. You might also come into promotional codes that will drop the Incogni price even further, so be on the lookout.

Alongside the streamlined business model, Incogni offers several payment methods. You can use your debit card, a credit card, or a PayPal account. Additionally, you can select between paying in USD, EUR, GBP, or CAD as your currency of choice.

While the service has no trial offer, there is an option to cancel your subscription at any point. You’ll have to contact customer support for that, though, as the dashboard still doesn’t offer this feature.

Also, if you’re not completely satisfied with the service provided and you bought the annual plan, you can request a refund within the first 30 days. Incogni reviews each request manually, so it takes some time to process them, but you will get your money back if Incogni is not to your liking.

Ease of Use

Another big surprise with this tool is just how easy it is to use. The dashboard takes almost no time to figure out and pretty much everything will be working on automation once you complete the Incogni setup process.

The central point of the UI is the pie chart, showing the progress of the data removal requests. You can then go into a more detailed view where, besides the sent, completed, and in-progress requests, you can see the list of all the data brokers Incogni has contacted or will be contacting to get your data deleted.

Each row shows the name of the data broker, how sensitive the data it collected is, what type of company it is, and the status of the removal request. Clicking on this part of the Incogni user interface expands the description, allowing you to learn more about each of the companies involved.

This all may be a little bit too streamlined for some folks, especially more advanced computer users who like to know what’s actually going on under the hood. But that’s really the point of Incogni – to require as little input as possible while it’s handling data removal requests.

Customer Support

Continuing our review of Incogni, we need to discuss the company’s customer support and contact methods. Right now, the only way to reach the support team is by sending an email using the web form. There’s no live chat on the site or a phone number, and no work hours are listed, so you can’t be sure whether there will be someone to help you right away. However, we have to point out that their support is reliable, they’ve responded in less than 24 hours to our emails.

Additionally, the website contains a comprehensive Help section which does contain helpful tips and will provide you with answers to most questions regarding how it all works. It’s not an ideal replacement for live chat, but it’ll do.

Alternatives

Here’s how Incogni stacks against its competition:

This data, and our Surfshark Incogni review, can give you pointers for finding the ideal tool for removing your data off servers of data brokers and search engines. Looking at the value here, Incogni looks like the best choice right now, especially when taking its annual plan into account. While it doesn’t cover more than one person per account, it’s still more affordable than similar services.

Conclusion

To wrap it up – is Incogni worth your money? If you’re living in one of the supported regions and you’re worried about how marketers handle your private data, then yes, it’s absolutely worth investing in an Incogni subscription right now.

With a starting price that’s lower than those offered by competitors, an ever-growing list of data brokers it can contact, and a hands-off experience for the customer, it’s a tool worthy of a recommendation.