Norton Privacy Monitor 2024: Is It Worth the Money?

Data removal services like Norton Privacy Monitor take the legwork out of removing your information from the internet. If you’re already using Norton for antivirus protection, then Norton Privacy Monitor is a helpful addition. It’s a reliable option for basic data removal services, but it may leave some users wanting more.

Read on for all of the details about this data removal service.

Norton Privacy Monitor review at a glance

Price	Deluxe 1 year: $49.99/first yr Deluxe 2 year: $39.99/yr (first two years only) Select 1 year: $99.99/first yr
Money-back guarantee	Yes — 60 days
Family plan	No
# of site removals	19
Recurring removals	Yes — every 3 months
Custom removal requests	Yes
Privacy reports	No
Supported countries	North America, most countries in Central and South America, Europe, and Asia
Extras	Antivirus, malware, ransomware, hacking protection, password manager, VPN, dark web monitoring, identity theft protection
Learn more	Get Norton Privacy Monitor

Our experience

Getting started

Installing our Norton trial was easy and extremely intuitive. We opted for the Select trial. Norton Privacy Monitor is included in Norton’s 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 with Lifelock Select plans.

Norton Privacy Monitor is not the same as Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant, an add-on service (also available as an individual product) to your Norton plan. The main difference? With Norton Privacy Monitor, you’ll only be alerted if your information is found somewhere online.

You’ll need to pay for Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant to enlist in removal requests. Downloading and installing our Norton plan took less than five minutes, with clear, step-by-step instructions.

Information

Norton’s entire protection plan is based on scanning the internet for your personal, sensitive information, so it came as no surprise to us that installation required sharing a lot of personal information, including email addresses, physical address, Social Security numbers, government-issued ID numbers, and phone numbers.

Giving this level of information isn’t abnormal — we’re paying for the service to monitor our information online.

The main dashboard is simple to navigate. You can easily toggle between the user-friendly dashboards that display information about your device, as well as identity protection, privacy monitor, cloud backup, password manager, and parental controls. There is another tab where you can access your protection report.

Once we signed up and input our information, we immediately received an email saying our information was available on the dark web. However, that was the only email we received, which isn’t totally surprising since Norton scans only once every 90 days.

Under the My Protection tab, you can see all your information on data brokers’ websites. From there, you can click a tab requesting your information be removed.

This is a little deceiving, however, because Norton explains only how you can request your information be removed from data broker sites.

If you want Norton to actually request that your information be removed, you have to pay for the upgraded service, Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant.

We did manually opt out of some data broker sites, and it took approximately 15 minutes to verify information, receive a verification code, locate matching records, and finally suppress our information. It’s unclear if our information was actually removed.

Who is Norton Privacy Monitor best for?

• Recommended for people looking for bundled services

Norton’s Privacy Monitor is included in Norton Deluxe and Norton Select. Those plans both include antivirus, malware, ransomware, hacking protection, a password manager, a virtual private network (VPN), dark web monitoring, and some parental control features.

If you’re looking for bundled antivirus services with some additional online privacy features, Norton Privacy Monitor is a valuable option.

Our main problem with Norton’s Privacy Monitor is, well, it’s kind of expensive for what it is.

Norton Privacy Monitor only alerts you that your information is available online. You are responsible for removing that information, which can be time consuming. If you want Norton to handle the removal, you must pay an additional fee.

However, we were pleased with how quickly and efficiently Norton Privacy Monitor found our information and how easy it was to navigate the dashboard.

Norton Privacy Monitor prices and subscriptions

Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant costs $109.99 per year or $12.99 per month. It’s included on two bundle plans: Norton Deluxe for $49.99/first yr and Norton Select for $99.99/first yr.

Norton Privacy Monitor security features

Think you can opt out of WhitePages listings and keep your information secure online? Good luck. Many public sites offer personal, sensitive information, such as your Social Security number, birth date, address, and even government-issued ID numbers, for free or for sale.

These sites, called data brokers, collect personal data to sell to other companies. Norton Privacy Monitor scans 19 different data broker sites and alerts you if any of your information is found.

Types of data removed

Data brokers mine all sorts of sensitive information to sell to third-party companies. While some of the information they collect may seem harmless, it could pose a serious security threat when compiled with other identifying information.

Norton’s Privacy Monitor scans for information like:

• Name
• Birth date
• Email addresses
• Physical addresses
• Related family members
• Government-issued IDs

Data brokers and people-search sites covered

• # of sites covered: 19

The first step in using a data removal service is identifying which data broker or people finder sites your information is on. Some data removal services will automatically request opt-outs on your behalf. Norton Privacy Monitor identifies where your information lives, but removal requests are up to you unless you enroll in the Norton Privacy Monitor Assistant.

Reports

We didn’t receive a comprehensive report in our testing, and according to a customer service representative, reports aren’t sent regularly.

Alerts

On the dashboard, there is a tab where you can receive alerts with information about where your information has been found. Norton Privacy Monitor scans every 90 days, so you’ll only receive alerts quarterly.

If your information is found, you’ll receive an email alert and an alert reflected in your dashboard.

Recurring and custom removals

Data brokers constantly compile information, so Norton scans every 90 days to ensure your data doesn’t appear anywhere you don’t want it to.

Bonus features

Norton offers some bonus features to enhance your online safety, such as email masking, which keeps your personal email private. The Private Email feature removes URL tracking parameters.

Norton also provides AntiTrack, a browser extension that helps keep your online activities private.

Does Norton Privacy Monitor keep your data safe?

Historically, Norton is effective at safeguarding data. It has a strict no-logs policy for browsing history, traffic information, or IP addresses used to access the Internet.

Norton does collect some information about you, mostly for account creation processes:

• Personal data
• System information
• Operating system, network, and application information

But we expect this type of data collection from services that monitor your online activities. Norton offers heightened security features like two-factor authentication and AES-256 encryption.

Norton Privacy Monitor customer support

Norton offers several ways to contact customer support, including a phone number, a chat option, the ability to submit a form, as well as articles and guides. The articles are helpful, but finding the right one to solve your issue can be challenging.

We chatted with customer support three times. One time, they answered our question and even provided a link to a support article for us to verify. The second time, the customer care representative answered our question, and we were satisfied with the answer.

The customer care rep answered our question the third time, but we didn’t feel it was accurate and left us with more questions than answers.

Top alternatives

Data privacy is important, and it’s more than just removing your information from Google. There are more comprehensive services if you’re looking for a robust data removal service that takes the guesswork and legwork out of removing your data online.

• DeleteMe: DeleteMe boasts that you will receive fewer spam calls and texts by offering additional features like email, phone, and credit card masking. It scours over 750 data broker sites for your information and provides recurring removals and custom removal requests.

  Read DeleteMe Review | Get DeleteMe

• Incogni: Incogni offers a “set it and forget it” approach to removing your information online. It scans over 170 data brokers and follows up every 90 days. Incogni doesn’t offer custom removal requests at this time, nor are there additional bells and whistles, but it is a good data removal service option at a moderate price.

  Read Incogni Review | Get Incogni

• Aura: Aura is an ideal option for users looking for data removal services and a variety of identity protection features, such as SSN and bank account monitoring and identity theft insurance. A caveat with Aura is that it monitors only a small fraction of data broker sites, compared with other services, so your information could live online without your knowledge.

  Read Aura Review | Get Aura

FAQs

Bottom line: Is Norton Privacy Monitor good?

Norton Privacy Monitor is helpful, but really only if you use it with Norton’s other services. Norton Privacy Monitor does exactly what it claims to do — scans 19 different data broker sites for your information.

When it finds your information, it consolidates it in an easy-to-read dashboard and sends an email. But it doesn’t assist in opting out of data broker sites, so if you’re looking for a comprehensive data removal service, you’ll want a different option.

Our guide to the best data removal services can help you find the right fit.