Search your own name and the first page is usually not your social profiles. It is a stack of sites you have never used, each offering your age, your current and previous addresses, your phone numbers and the names of your relatives. You never signed up. There is nothing to delete, because there was never an account — only a profile assembled about you. This is the one part of a digital footprint cleanup that is pure grind, so here is the list, the prep that makes it faster, and an honest account of why it is never truly finished.
Where they get it
Brokers do not hack anyone. Everything in a people-search profile comes from sources that are either public or purchased:
- Public records — property deeds, court filings, marriage and divorce records, business registrations, professional licences, and voter rolls in states that make them public.
- Commercial data — loyalty programmes, warranty cards, magazine subscriptions, online purchases, and anything with a privacy policy mentioning "trusted partners".
- Credit header data — the non-financial part of a credit application: name, current and former addresses, date of birth, phone number. Sold legally and separately from your credit file.
- Scraped profiles — public social media fields collected in bulk.
- Each other — brokers license data between themselves constantly, which is the single reason opt-outs do not stick.
Two kinds of broker, two different fixes
| Type | Examples | How you deal with them |
|---|---|---|
| People-search sites | Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, Radaris | Public-facing, consumer-searchable, and the ones ruining your search results. Each has a self-service opt-out form. Visible progress, fast feedback, and they repopulate. |
| Marketing and risk brokers | Acxiom, LiveRamp, Epsilon, LexisNexis, Oracle, CoreLogic | Invisible to consumers, selling to businesses. No profile to look at, so no way to confirm. Opt-outs are forms or written requests, and under US state privacy law they are obligations rather than favours. |
The people-search tier is where to start — it is the layer a stranger, an ex or a prospective employer actually sees, and the results are immediate.
Prep that saves you hours
before_you_start
- 01
Make a dedicated email alias
Nearly every opt-out needs a confirmation email. Use an alias — iCloud Hide My Email, a Proton or Fastmail alias, or
[email protected]— so this entire process is quarantined in one place and does not feed your main inbox to the next marketing list. - 02
Decide what you will not hand over
Some forms ask for a phone number, a date of birth or a photo ID to "verify" you. Give only what is already visible on the profile you are removing. If a site demands significantly more than it is publishing, that is data collection wearing a privacy costume — skip it and send a statutory deletion request instead.
- 03
Find every listing of yourself on the site first
Brokers routinely hold several profiles for one person: old addresses, maiden names, middle initial variants, nicknames. Search the site thoroughly and note every profile URL before you submit anything. Opting out of one does nothing to the other three.
- 04
Copy the profile URLs, do not just search
Most opt-out forms want the exact URL of the listing. Having them collected in advance turns each removal into thirty seconds instead of five minutes.
- 05
Start a log
One row per site: date submitted, profile URLs, confirmation reference, date confirmed removed. You will be redoing this in six months and the log is what makes the second pass quick.
- 06
Use a private browsing window
Some of these sites are aggressive with retargeting and interstitials once they know you are interested in yourself.
The people-search opt-out list
Start with these. The nine we have written full guides for include the verified opt-out page, the exact steps and how long each takes — those links are below the table.
people_search
| Site | Opt-out route | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Whitepages | whitepages.com/suppression_requests | Needs a phone call or SMS code to confirm. 24 to 72 hours. Reappears periodically. |
| Spokeo | spokeo.com/optout | Profile URL plus email confirmation. 24 to 72 hours. Known for re-creating listings. |
| BeenVerified | beenverified.com/app/optout/search | Search, claim the listing, confirm by email. 24 to 72 hours. |
| Intelius | intelius.com/opt-out/submit | One to two weeks. Same parent company as several others on this list. |
| TruthFinder | truthfinder.com/opt-out | One to two weeks. |
| TruePeopleSearch | truepeoplesearch.com/removal | One of the easiest. Roughly 24 hours. |
| FastPeopleSearch | fastpeoplesearch.com/removal | 24 to 72 hours. |
| Radaris | radaris.com/control/privacy | The hardest of the group. Requires account creation and re-creates listings aggressively. |
| MyLife | mylife.com/ccpa | Email request rather than a form. Around 10 business days, and persistent. |
| Instant Checkmate, PeopleConnect brands | Opt-out link in the site footer | Several brands share one back end, so check whether one submission covers the family. |
| PeekYou, Nuwber, CheckPeople, InfoTracer, USPhonebook, Advanced Background Checks, Clustrmaps, Social Catfish | Opt-out or "Do Not Sell My Info" link in the footer | Same pattern throughout: find your listing, copy the URL, submit, confirm by email. |
step_by_step_guides
The marketing and risk brokers
These sell to businesses rather than to the public, so there is no profile page and no satisfying confirmation. They also hold considerably more than the people-search tier. Worth doing once, in one sitting.
- Acxiom / LiveRamp — one of the largest consumer data companies in the world. Opt-out via their privacy portal; search for the Acxiom consumer choice page.
- Epsilon — marketing data at similar scale. Consumer preferences page on their site.
- LexisNexis Risk Solutions — insurance and identity risk data. They operate a consumer portal, and in the US you can also request your own file, which is worth seeing once.
- CoreLogic — property and tenant screening data.
- Oracle Advertising, Experian Marketing Services, Equifax marketing — each runs its own opt-out, separate from any credit freeze you have placed.
- Thomson Reuters CLEAR — investigative data, with a privacy opt-out form.
- B2B contact brokers — ZoomInfo, Apollo, RocketReach, Lead411, Lusha. These publish your work email and direct dial. Each has a self-service removal, and these are the ones to prioritise if you are getting cold-called.
Using the law instead of the form
Where you have statutory rights, a formal request outranks an opt-out form — it goes to a compliance queue with a deadline attached rather than a support inbox.
- California — the CCPA and CPRA give you rights to know, delete and opt out of sale. The DELETE Act goes further and requires registered brokers to honour deletion requests submitted through a single state-run platform, rather than you filing with each one. Check the current status and coverage at the California Privacy Protection Agency site before relying on it, since the obligations phased in over 2026.
- Other US states — Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Oregon and a growing list have comparable rights. A request citing your state law is harder to ignore than a form submission.
- UK and EEA — GDPR Article 17 erasure and Article 21 objection to processing for direct marketing. The objection right is absolute for marketing: they must stop, with no balancing test. Most large brokers have a UK or EU entity precisely because of this.
- Authorised agents — in California and several other states you may appoint someone to submit requests for you. This is the legal mechanism the paid removal services run on.
Why it comes back
This is the part most guides skip. An opt-out suppresses the profile that exists now. It does not stop the next one being built, because the underlying sources have not changed: the property deed is still public, the voter roll is still public, and the broker still buys refreshed feeds every quarter.
- Expect profiles to reappear within three to twelve months on the more aggressive sites.
- A new address, a new phone number or a house purchase regenerates you almost immediately.
- Brokers license data from each other, so a site you removed yourself from can rebuild your profile from one you missed.
- Set a six-monthly reminder and use your log. The second pass takes a fraction of the time of the first.
Should you pay someone to do it?
Removal subscriptions are a legitimate product and the honest case for them is simple: this is recurring form-filling that never ends, and paying someone to do it monthly buys back real hours. The honest case against is equally simple: they are doing the same free opt-outs you would, with no special access, and coverage claims in the hundreds of sites include a long tail of brokers nobody has ever searched for.
Either way, be clear on the boundary. A broker removal service handles profiles assembled about you. It does not find or delete the accounts you created, because that requires authenticating as you on each service. The two jobs do not overlap, and a product claiming to do both deserves a second look.
Where Tracebase sits
Plainly: we are not a data broker removal service, and we do not scan people-search sites. Our scan works from email addresses and usernames, and broker profiles are keyed on your name and address — not something we search on, so not something we could honestly claim to find.
What we do is the other half of the problem: finding the accounts you created across supported platforms, including the ones you no longer remember, checking your verified addresses against the public breach corpus, and handing you the removal steps for the platforms we have documented. If brokers are your main concern, work down the list above or buy a removal subscription. If you do not know where your accounts are, that is the part we are built for.
common_questions
How do data brokers get my information if I never signed up?
From public records such as property deeds, court filings and voter rolls; from commercial sources including loyalty schemes, warranties and purchases; from credit header data, which is the non-financial part of a credit application and is sold separately from your credit file; and from each other. No consent from you is required for most of it, which is exactly why there is a profile without an account.
Is opting out of data brokers free?
Yes, at every site worth your time. Paying a people-search site to remove your listing is both unnecessary and counterproductive — and under Google policy, charging for removal is itself grounds for having their pages dropped from search results.
How long do data broker opt-outs take?
Between 24 hours and a few weeks depending on the site. TruePeopleSearch and FastPeopleSearch are quick; Intelius, TruthFinder and MyLife run one to two weeks; Radaris is slow and actively re-creates listings. Expect to re-check everything in six months regardless.
Do opt-outs work permanently?
No, and no honest service will tell you otherwise. The suppression applies to the profile that exists today. The public records it was built from are unchanged, so new profiles get generated — especially after you move, change your number or buy property. This is a recurring task, not a finished one.
Is it safe to give a broker my email to opt out?
Use a dedicated alias and it is a reasonable trade. Give only what the listing already shows. If a site demands a photo ID or a date of birth it is not publishing, decline and send a statutory deletion request citing your state law or GDPR instead.
Will opting out remove me from Google?
Indirectly, once the broker page actually comes down and Google re-crawls it, which takes days to weeks. You can speed it up with the outdated-content tool. See how to remove your personal information from Google.
How many data brokers are there?
Hundreds, and the exact number depends on where you draw the line between a broker and an ordinary company selling data as a sideline. The California registry lists registered brokers publicly and is the best available count. Practically, a dozen or so people-search sites account for almost everything a stranger will find about you.