McAfee Corp. launched Personal Data Cleanup in the U.S., the newest privacy feature addition to the company's product McAfee Total Protection. Personal Data Cleanup gives consumers visibility, removal guidance, and continuous monitoring to remove their personal data from some of the riskiest data broker sites on the web to protect themselves from identity thieves, hackers, and spammers.

In what's increasingly becoming a more and more virtual world, research shows 59% of consumers have become more protective of their personal data.1 To aid in meeting this increased concern, McAfee's Personal Data Cleanup regularly scans data broker sites for information such as a home address, date of birth, and specified names of loved ones. McAfee will notify users of which of these sites are selling user data and recommend action for removal so consumers can feel more confident that their privacy is protected. Data brokers acquire and sell a vast array of detailed and at times sensitive information about consumers.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is collected from credit card providers, retailers, and publicly available sources like court records, census data, marriage licenses, voter registrations, and more. Brokers might then analyze it to make assumptions about consumers and share them with advertisers, ad agencies, or others. This activity takes place behind the scenes and often without consumers' knowledge and is, unfortunately, often completely legal.

The new feature gives McAfee users the visibility and guidance they need to remove their personal data from more than 40 data broker and people search sites. Removing users' information from data broker sites helps protect the information that is personal to them and their family from being collected, sold, and used to: Advertise products, Fill email inboxes with spam, Give criminals information needed to steal a user's identity.