Marketing vs. Reality: Debunking Digital Executive Protection Claims

The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson created a surge of demand for digital executive protection services. It also created a surge of vendors making claims that don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Every OSINT vendor now positions as an executive protection platform. Every data broker removal service claims to be a comprehensive protection solution. The marketing has outpaced the capability.

If you’re evaluating digital executive protection, here’s how to separate what works from what’s just well-packaged marketing.

Claim: “We Monitor the Dark Web for Executive Threats”

What it actually means: The vendor checks some dark web sources for mentions of your executive’s name or email.

What to ask: Which specific dark web sources? Operated by first-party collection or purchased from a third-party data feed? How often is the data refreshed — real-time, daily, weekly? What percentage of known dark web forums and marketplaces does the coverage include?

Most vendors use third-party dark web data feeds with limited source coverage and delayed refresh. A vendor claiming “dark web monitoring” but purchasing stale data from an aggregator provides a fraction of the coverage that first-party dark web collection delivers.

Claim: “AI-Powered Threat Detection”

What it actually means: The platform uses some form of natural language processing. Often this is basic sentiment analysis — positive, negative, neutral.

What to ask: Show me the classification taxonomy. What specific threat scenarios does the AI detect? Sentiment analysis isn’t threat detection. A customer complaint (“I’m so frustrated with this company”) and a genuine threat (“someone should teach their CEO a lesson”) may both register as “negative sentiment.” Only one requires security attention.

Effective executive protection classification detects direct violence indicators, fixation and target-specific language, leakage of violent intent, doxxing and PII exposure, impersonation, and operational planning. If the vendor’s taxonomy doesn’t include these specific categories, their “AI” isn’t solving the right problem.

Claim: “We Remove Your Data from 500+ Sites”

What it actually means: The vendor submits automated opt-out requests to data broker websites.

What to ask: What’s the actual removal success rate? (Industry average is 35-48%.) How quickly does removed data reappear? (Usually weeks to months, as brokers re-aggregate from source records.) Does the service address government records, court filings, and property records? (Almost certainly not.)

Data broker removal is a useful component of an executive protection program. It is not a comprehensive solution. The “500+ sites” number is a vanity metric. What matters is whether removed data stays removed and whether the data sources that can’t be opted out of (government records, cached content, archived web pages) are addressed through monitoring and other protective measures.

Claim: “24/7 Monitoring and Response”

What it actually means: The platform generates alerts 24/7. Whether anyone reviews those alerts at 2 AM is a separate question.

What to ask: Is this automated alerting (the platform sends notifications around the clock) or staffed monitoring (human analysts are reviewing alerts 24/7)? What’s the average time from alert generation to human review? What happens when a critical alert fires at 3 AM on Saturday?

There’s a meaningful difference between a platform that generates alerts continuously and a service that has trained analysts evaluating those alerts continuously. Both have value — but they’re not the same thing, and they’re not priced the same way.

What Actually Matters

Classification depth — not “AI” as a buzzword, but a published taxonomy with specific threat scenarios relevant to executive protection.

Collection breadth — 750+ platforms with first-party collection, not “social media monitoring” backed by a single Twitter API integration.

Transparency — published pricing, published taxonomy, verifiable capabilities.

DigitalStakeout publishes its classification taxonomy, its platform coverage, and its pricing. Evaluate the claims against the evidence.

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See what we actually detect. View the taxonomy or compare with alternatives.