Remove Your Info From People-Search Sites (2026)

If you have ever searched your own name and found a page listing your age, your relatives, your current address, and a partial phone number — for sale to anyone with $1 — you have met the people-search industry. This guide shows you exactly how to remove your info from people-search sites, with the real opt-out steps for the six brokers that matter most, how often you have to repeat the process, and how to see your own exposure before you start so you are not opting out blind.

Why Your Data Is on Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified and Radaris

You never signed up for these sites, so how did they get your information? They are data aggregators. They pull from three buckets and merge everything into a single profile keyed to your name:

• Public records: voter registrations, property deeds, court filings, business registrations, marriage and divorce records, professional licenses. All legally public.
• Commercial data: information sold by marketing companies, loyalty programs, warranty cards, magazine subscriptions, and apps that resell what you typed into them.
• Other brokers: people-search sites buy data from each other. This is why the same wrong middle initial or outdated address shows up on five sites at once — they copied it from one source.

Because the underlying records are legal to collect and resell in most of the US and Canada, the burden is on you to opt out. Nobody is going to remove you proactively. The good news: federal and state pressure (and Canadian privacy law) forces every legitimate broker to offer a free removal path. The bad news: there is no master switch, so you do it site by site.

Step 0: See What's Actually Exposed First

Before you spend an afternoon filling out opt-out forms, find out where you are actually listed. Most people guess wrong — they opt out of the two sites they happened to find on Google and miss the eight that rank lower. A quick reverse-lookup on your own phone number, email, or username surfaces the profiles, social accounts, and breach records tied to you.

You can do this manually: open an incognito window and search your full name, your city, and your common username across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Note every people-search domain that appears. Then run your email through a breach checker. To compress all of that into one pass, run a reverse email lookup or a reverse phone lookup on yourself. PrufAgent maps your public digital footprint — reused usernames, social and professional profiles — and adds real email breach and infostealer-exposure data so you know what a stranger paying $1 would actually see. It will not delete the listings for you, but it tells you which doors to knock on.

Honest caveat: if you have a small online footprint, your scan may come back with no strong matches. That is a good result — it means there is less to clean up.

The Top 6 Opt-Outs, With Real Steps

These six brokers feed a large share of the rest of the industry. Clearing them removes your data from many downstream sites too. Do them in this order.

1. Spokeo

Spokeo is one of the highest-traffic people-search engines, so its listing usually ranks near the top of your name search.

• Find your profile: search your name on spokeo.com and open the listing that matches your city.
• Copy the profile URL from your browser's address bar.
• Go to spokeo.com/optout, paste the URL, enter an email address you control, and complete the captcha.
• Open the confirmation email and click the verification link. Removal typically processes within a few business days.

2. Whitepages

Whitepages is one of the oldest directories and shows phone numbers and address history.

• Find your listing at whitepages.com and copy the profile URL.
• Go to whitepages.com/suppression-requests, paste the URL, and confirm it is your record.
• Whitepages requires phone verification: you enter a number and receive an automated call or text with a code. Have your phone ready.
• Once verified, the listing is suppressed, usually within 24 hours.

3. BeenVerified

• Go to beenverified.com/app/optout/search.
• Search your name and state, then select your record from the results.
• Enter an email and complete the email verification link they send.
• Note: BeenVerified, TruthFinder, Intelius, and Instant Checkmate share infrastructure (PeopleConnect). Opting out of one does not automatically clear the others, but the process is nearly identical for each.

4. Radaris

Radaris is one of the stickier brokers and is known for relisting people, so expect to repeat this one.

• Find your profile on radaris.com and open it.
• Click Control Information (or the small link near your name), then choose to remove the information.
• You will be asked to verify by phone or email. Complete the verification.
• Recheck Radaris specifically after 30 days — it relists more aggressively than most.

5. Intelius

• Go to intelius.com/opt-out.
• Search and select your record, then submit your email.
• Confirm via the email link. Because Intelius is part of the PeopleConnect family, also opt out separately at TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate if your scan showed you there.

6. MyLife

MyLife is notorious for "reputation scores" and is the broker people most want gone. It is also the most stubborn.

• Locate your profile URL at mylife.com.
• Email privacy@mylife.com requesting deletion, and call their listed customer service line to confirm — MyLife often requires a phone request to actually process removal.
• Keep a record of the date and any reference number. If it does not come down, you can escalate to your state attorney general or, in California, file a CCPA deletion request.

Don't Forget the Source: DataAxle, LexisNexis and Acxiom

The six sites above are retail brokers — the storefronts. Behind them sit a handful of wholesale data suppliers that feed the whole ecosystem. Suppressing yourself at the source slows down how fast the retail sites can rebuild your profile.

• Acxiom: use their privacy portal to request suppression of your marketing data.
• LexisNexis: submit a consumer disclosure and opt-out request through their privacy page; useful if you are worried about risk and identity products, not just marketing.
• DataAxle (Infogroup): request removal from their consumer marketing database.

These take longer to process and are less visible than a Spokeo listing, but they have outsized downstream impact.

How Often to Recheck (and Why It Comes Back)

Here is the part nobody likes: opting out is not permanent. Brokers continuously ingest fresh public records and purchased data, and when a new record matching you arrives, a new profile is generated — even if you opted out last month. A listing you removed in March can reappear by June with an updated address.

A realistic maintenance rhythm:

• Every 60 to 90 days: re-search your name and re-submit opt-outs for any listings that reappeared. Radaris and MyLife are the usual repeat offenders.
• After any life change: moving, marriage, divorce, buying property, or registering a business creates a fresh public record that brokers will pick up. Recheck a few weeks later.
• Quarterly self-scan: re-run a footprint scan to catch new exposures, including breach data, that a name search alone misses.

If quarterly manual work is more than you want to do, paid removal services like DeleteMe, Optery, or Kanary automate the opt-outs and re-run them for you, typically $100 to $180 a year. The trade-off is cost versus your time. They are worth it if your time is valuable or your footprint is large; for most people the free manual route, done quarterly, is enough.

A Realistic Set of Expectations

Some honesty so you do not get discouraged:

• You cannot reach zero. As long as public records exist, some version of your basic info will be obtainable. The goal is to shrink your exposed surface, not vanish.
• Removal is per-record, not per-person. If a broker has two profiles for you (old address and new), you may need to opt out of both.
• Verification protects you. The phone and email checks are annoying but they stop other people from removing — or maliciously editing — your record.
• Breach data is separate. Opting out of brokers does nothing about your email and passwords already leaked in breaches. That is a different fix: change reused passwords and enable two-factor authentication.

Tie It Together: Audit, Remove, Maintain

The whole workflow in one line: see your exposure, opt out of the retail brokers, suppress at the wholesale sources, and recheck quarterly. If you want to verify what is truly public about you — including reused usernames and profiles that a plain name search misses — start with a self-scan. PrufAgent will not file your opt-outs, but it gives you the honest map of what is exposed so every minute you spend removing data is aimed at a real listing.

For deeper background, read what a digital footprint actually is, the step-by-step deletion guide for the 12 biggest people-search sites, and how PrufAgent compares to other lookup tools. If you want to track down accounts tied to an address, the find social media by email guide walks through the username angle.