Go to Spokeo.com right now. Type in your full name and your city. Press search.
What comes back will probably include your current home address, every address you’ve lived at for the past decade, your approximate age, your phone number, and a list of people listed as relatives or associates — often with their addresses included too. You didn’t sign up for Spokeo. You never agreed to this. Someone compiled this information about you, and they’re selling it to anyone willing to pay a few dollars.
This is the data broker industry, and most people have no idea it exists.
What Data Brokers Actually Know About You
Data brokers are companies that collect, aggregate, and sell personal information. There are approximately 4,000 of them operating in the United States, and the industry generates an estimated $300 billion in annual revenue. Their customers include marketers, landlords, employers, private investigators, and anyone else willing to pay for a profile.
Here’s what a typical data broker profile contains:
Identity information
- Full name and name variations (maiden name, nicknames)
- Date of birth or age range
- Current and previous home addresses — often going back 10–20 years
- Current and previous phone numbers
- Email addresses
Household and financial data
- Estimated household income
- Estimated net worth
- Home ownership status and estimated property value
- Vehicle ownership and registration history
- Utility connections (used to track moves)
Family and social connections
- Relatives and their addresses — this is the part people find most alarming
- Neighbors
- Associates and roommates
Public records
- Voter registration and political party affiliation
- Court records, civil judgments, bankruptcies, tax liens
- Professional licenses
- Business ownership records
Consumer profile
- Purchase history and shopping interests (from loyalty programs and retailer data sharing)
- Subscription services
- Health and medication data (from pharmacy loyalty programs and health apps that sell data)
- Political donation records (public in the US)
The FTC’s foundational report on data brokers documented how this industry operates: data is collected from public records, commercial transactions, social media, and other data brokers, combined into profiles, and sold repeatedly across the industry. A single record gets resold to dozens of buyers.
Who Buys This Information and Why It Matters for You
The marketing pitch from data brokers is that their primary customers are legitimate businesses — background check services, insurance companies, marketers. That’s true. The problem is that the same data is also accessible to:
Stalkers and abusive ex-partners. People search sites charge as little as $1 for a full profile. Your current address, your relatives’ addresses, your phone number, and your daily location patterns from social media are all available. This is a documented harm — domestic violence organizations have campaigned specifically about data broker exposure.
Scammers running targeted fraud. The caller who tells your father that you’ve been in an accident and need bail money has probably looked you up first. Knowing your name, your city, your relatives’ names, and your father’s phone number makes the story dramatically more convincing. The AI voice cloning scams that have been targeting families become much more effective when the caller already knows who your family members are.
Phishing attackers. A spear phishing email that includes your correct name, your employer, your manager, and your home city didn’t require deep research — it required a data broker subscription. Combined with AI-generated phishing emails, data broker profiles make targeted attacks dramatically easier to construct.
Identity thieves. Your address history, date of birth, and relatives are exactly the information used to answer security questions, pass identity verification, and open accounts in your name. According to a 2023 Pew Research survey, 67% of Americans say they understand little to nothing about what companies do with their data — which means most people don’t know their information is already exposed.
Try It Yourself
Before opting out of anything, it helps to see what’s actually there. Here’s how to check your exposure in the next five minutes.
Step 1. Go to each of these sites and search your full name and current city:
Step 2. Also Google: "[Your Full Name]" "[Your City]" — results will often surface data broker listings you wouldn’t find by going directly to the sites.
Step 3. Note which sites have accurate information about you. The ones with your current address and relatives are the priority to opt out of first.
How to Start Removing Your Information
Each data broker has its own opt-out process. The process for the major sites:
| Site | Opt-Out Method | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Spokeo | Email opt-out via profile URL | 24–72 hours |
| WhitePages | Web form, no account needed | 24–48 hours |
| BeenVerified | Online opt-out form | 24 hours |
| MyLife | Phone call or written request | 3–5 days |
| Radaris | Email form | 24–72 hours |
| Intelius | Online form via their privacy page | 72 hours |
| TruthFinder | Online opt-out page | 24–48 hours |
The process for each: find your listing → copy the URL → go to the site’s opt-out page → submit the URL → confirm via email if required. Repeat for each site.
The honest caveat: these removals are not permanent. Data brokers re-aggregate from public records on a rolling basis, and your listing often reappears within 3–6 months. Consistent maintenance or a paid removal service (DeleteMe, Incogni) is required to stay removed. That’s the tradeoff to understand before you start.
What I Actually Found
When I ran my own search across the ten largest people search sites, the accuracy was striking — and not in a good way. My address history going back years was complete. My relatives section included family members who have never shared their information with any data service voluntarily; their addresses were accurate.
What was inaccurate: the income and net worth estimates were off significantly in both directions depending on the site, and one site listed an old roommate as a “possible relative.” The criminal records section, fortunately blank, appeared on several sites anyway as an empty field that still signals “we checked.”
The site I found most difficult to remove from was MyLife. Unlike most brokers that accept an online form, MyLife required a phone call during business hours and pushed back on the request. It took three attempts across two days. This is deliberate — MyLife’s business model is particularly dependent on making data hard to escape.
The most useful single step: starting with your home address on WhitePages and Spokeo removes you from two of the highest-traffic people search sites. If you have limited time, those two have the broadest reach and the simplest removal processes.
Taking control of what data brokers publish about you is one piece of a broader privacy foundation. The tactics identity thieves use rely on exactly the kind of personal detail that data brokers compile and sell — your relatives’ names, your address history, your date of birth. Removing that information doesn’t eliminate risk, but it meaningfully raises the cost of targeting you specifically.
What is a data broker and how do they get my information?
Data brokers are companies that collect personal information from public records (property records, voter registration, court filings), commercial data (purchase history, loyalty programs), social media, and other data brokers, then combine it into profiles they sell to marketers, background check services, and anyone else who pays. You never interact with them directly — your data gets collected without your awareness or consent.
Is it illegal for data brokers to sell my information?
In most US states, it is legal. Data brokers primarily work with public records and commercially obtained data. California (CCPA), Virginia (CDPA), and several other states have passed laws giving residents the right to request deletion of their data, and some states specifically regulate data brokers. Federal privacy legislation covering all Americans has been proposed but not passed as of 2026.
Do data broker opt-outs actually work?
Yes, but temporarily. Each site’s opt-out removes your listing from that specific site, typically within 24–72 hours. However, data brokers continuously re-aggregate from public records, so listings often reappear within 3–6 months. Staying removed requires either periodic manual opt-outs or a subscription removal service like DeleteMe or Incogni that handles ongoing removals automatically.
Which data broker sites should I opt out of first?
Prioritize the highest-traffic people search sites: Spokeo, WhitePages, BeenVerified, and MyLife. These have the broadest reach and are most likely to be used by someone looking up your information. WhitePages and Spokeo have the simplest opt-out processes. MyLife is the most difficult and may require a phone call.
Can I pay someone to remove my data from brokers?
Yes. Services like DeleteMe ($129/year), Incogni ($77/year with annual plan), and Privacy Bee handle ongoing opt-out submissions across hundreds of broker sites and resubmit as listings reappear. For people who want a permanent solution without ongoing manual work, these services provide real value — though they can’t remove data from every broker, particularly enterprise data sources like Acxiom and LexisNexis.