Data Broker Opt-Out Guides: Every Major People-Search Site (2026)

Data brokers and people-search sites publish your name, address history, phone numbers, relatives, and often a background-style report for anyone who searches you. That listing is a documented stalking and identity-theft vector, not just a privacy annoyance: profiles like these are how a harasser finds a new address, how a scammer builds a convincing pretext call, and how a fraudster fills in the gaps an existing data breach left open.

This directory covers 26 individual and grouped opt-out guides, plus one appendix guide for nine smaller sites, each one opened and verified directly rather than described from memory or a competitor's writeup. Every listing below states honestly what could and could not be confirmed. Opting out is maintenance, not a single errand: brokers rebuild profiles from new public records on an ongoing basis, so plan to repeat this every few months rather than treating one pass as permanent.

Directory last verified: August 14, 2026. State-law sections updated September 28, 2026.

The Directory

"Unrated" means the live opt-out flow could not be observed this session, so no Easy/Moderate/Hard judgment is offered rather than guessing one. "Via archive" means the live site blocked verification and the guide's description comes from the site's own archived pages instead of a completed walkthrough. Where a guide says "not verified," go to the broker's own site directly. Bot-protection walls and server errors are usually temporary; a guide marked blocked today may load normally for you.

Which Sites Are Actually the Same Company

Knowing who owns what changes how many separate requests you actually have to file.

PeopleConnect Inc. (San Diego) owns TruthFinder, Intelius, Instant Checkmate, USSearch, Zabasearch, and Classmates.com. This directory confirmed directly that TruthFinder's, Intelius's, Instant Checkmate's, and USSearch's own opt-out links all redirect to the same page, PeopleConnect's Suppression Center at suppression.peopleconnect.us. One free request there clears your background report from all four sites at once. Zabasearch is not covered by that tool: it runs on Intelius's own systems and needs a separate request through Intelius's Data Privacy Center. Classmates.com is explicitly excluded by the Suppression Center's own text. USPhoneBook's own opt-out link also redirects to the Suppression Center, though PeopleConnect's own tool description does not list USPhoneBook among the sites it covers, an inconsistency worth knowing if you rely on that single request to clear a USPhoneBook listing.

The Lifetime Value Company (LTVCo) owns BeenVerified and PeopleLooker, confirmed directly on each brand's own privacy policy. Unlike PeopleConnect, LTVCo does not run a shared suppression tool: each brand gates its own opt-out form behind a separate Cloudflare check, and clearing BeenVerified does not clear PeopleLooker. CheckPeople is sometimes paired with BeenVerified and PeopleLooker in secondary writeups, but that pairing does not hold up against primary sources: LTVCo's own public brand list does not include CheckPeople, and CheckPeople's own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy do not mention LTVCo anywhere. Treat CheckPeople as independently operated based on what both companies' own legal pages actually say.

FastPeopleSearch and TruePeopleSearch are addressed as two separate guides because their live opt-out forms could not both be fully verified, but there is strong evidence they share an operator. Security journalist Brian Krebs traced both domains to registration through Alibaba Cloud in Beijing and to the same company, Shenzhen Duiyun Technology Co., each site using a fabricated founder identity. That is useful risk context, not confirmation of a single opt-out that clears both; file separately with each site.

Addresses.com is not an independent broker at all. Its own homepage states it is "powered by Intelius," its footer copyright reads "Intelius LLC," and its own data-rights link goes straight to Intelius's privacy center. A removal through Intelius covers an Addresses.com listing too. PrivateEye describes itself, in its own words, as routing searches through partner sites rather than hosting its own database, so there is no PrivateEye-specific listing to remove; the profile it shows comes from whichever partner site it linked to. Both findings, and the rest of the smaller-site ownership questions, are covered in full in the smaller sites appendix guide.

Which States Have Data Broker Registry Laws

Six states have enacted laws requiring data brokers to register with the state. Four registries are running now; Connecticut's and New Jersey's start in 2027. A registry is mainly a transparency tool: it tells you which companies call themselves data brokers and, in some states, how to opt out of each. Only California's law currently gives you a state-run way to have your data deleted.

California's registry is the most useful for finding brokers: the CalPrivacy page can be filtered by the kinds of data a broker collects and who it sells to, and the full list downloads as a spreadsheet. The Texas and Oregon registries are the place to look up a specific broker's contact and opt-out details if you live there. For the fees, penalties, and history of each law, see US data broker registration laws.

Your Legal Rights Depend on Where You Live

California residents have the strongest tool. The California Privacy Protection Agency's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) has accepted consumer requests since January 1, 2026, and reaches every broker registered with the state from a single free request. Since August 1, 2026, registered brokers must check DROP at least every 45 days, delete matching records, and keep deleting every 45 days, backed by an administrative fine of $200 for each deletion request for each day a broker fails to delete, under California Civil Code section 1798.99.82(d). The agency is actively enforcing the registration side of the law: its published Delete Act decisions include fines against Rickenbacher Data LLC ($45,000), S&P Global ($62,600), LocateSmarter ($116,490, of which $79,890 was a CCPA fine for demanding partial Social Security numbers before letting people opt out), and Cybba ($52,400). Each case involved a failure to register on time; none concerned DROP processing. DROP only reaches brokers that actually registered with the state, so use a site's own opt-out form as well. Our California Delete Act and DROP guide walks through sign-up, what each DROP status means, and what DROP does not delete. California residents also have individual CCPA/CPRA rights to opt out of sale or sharing and to request deletion, and can use an authorized agent under the CCPA regulations to submit requests on their behalf.

Colorado residents have a confirmed, mandatory Universal Opt-Out Mechanism: the Colorado Privacy Act has required covered businesses to honor Global Privacy Control since July 1, 2024, the only such signal Colorado's Department of Law currently recognizes. California, Connecticut (since January 1, 2025), and Delaware (since January 1, 2026) are among the other states that require covered businesses to honor a universal opt-out signal. Enabling GPC in your browser is a free, legally binding opt-out-of-sale signal, though it is prospective only. It stops new sales going forward; it does not erase a profile a broker already built and is displaying.

Residents of other states with a comprehensive consumer privacy law (roughly 20 states in all, counting California and Colorado; the exact number depends on whether narrower laws such as Florida's are included) generally have some statutory right to request deletion from a covered business, but coverage thresholds vary by state and most of these laws are enforced only by the state attorney general, with no private right of action.

Residents of a state without a comprehensive privacy law are relying entirely on each broker's voluntary opt-out process, and that reliance has a real, documented limit. FamilyTreeNow's own Better Business Bureau complaint record shows a recurring 2026 pattern: the company denying removal requests from residents of states without a comprehensive privacy law, on the stated grounds that no applicable law requires the removal. That is the honest baseline for most readers in this directory, not a hypothetical risk.

Judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and their immediate families have the strongest individual remedy in this entire matrix. New Jersey's Daniel's Law requires a 10-business-day removal after written notice, backed by a minimum $1,000 statutory damages per violation, punitive damages for willful violations, and a private right of action, litigated aggressively by Atlas Data Privacy Corp. against data brokers. The federal Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act adds a nationwide removal-on-request right and a sale prohibition for covered federal judges.

If a broker ignores your request, document the date and the listing URL, then escalate. California residents can file with the California Privacy Protection Agency; any reader can file with the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. See How to File a Data Privacy Complaint for the full escalation process, and How to Opt Out of Data Brokers for the complete DROP, GPC, and state-registry mechanics this directory builds on.

The FCRA Line: Personal Use Only

Every guide in this directory covers the free, personal-privacy opt-out only, never a background-check or screening use case. That distinction is not a technicality. The FTC has twice brought enforcement actions against people-search operators for crossing it: an $800,000 settlement with Spokeo in 2012 over marketing consumer profile data for employment-screening use without meeting the Fair Credit Reporting Act's requirements for a consumer reporting agency, and a $5.8 million settlement with TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate in 2023 over the same theory, plus allegations that their "Remove" and "Flag as Inaccurate" buttons did not actually correct information shown to other users.

Never use a listing or report from any site in this directory, including a paid "background check" product several of them upsell, to make a hiring, leasing, credit, or insurance decision about someone else. If a landlord or employer used a report against you in one of those decisions, that is a separate FCRA dispute-rights problem from the opt-out process covered here.

Where to Start

With 27 guides in front of you, work in this order rather than top to bottom:

1. California residents: submit a DROP request first at privacy.ca.gov/drop. One free request reaches every registered broker at once, and it stays active without resubmitting. Our DROP guide covers each step.
2. Search your own name across the highest-traffic sites first: Spokeo, TruthFinder, Whitepages, FastPeopleSearch, TruePeopleSearch, Intelius, and Radaris carry the most search demand in this category, so they are the listings most likely to surface when someone looks you up.
3. Use the network map above to avoid duplicate work. One PeopleConnect Suppression Center request covers four sites; one LTVCo brand does not cover its sister brand.
4. Work through the rest of the directory by what you actually find, not by exhaustively filing all 27 in one sitting. Search your own name on each site before opting out of it; a broker that has no listing for you needs no request.
5. Set a recurring reminder, every few months, to repeat your name search across this list. Every guide that addresses relisting says the same thing in its own words: a removed profile can come back without notice as a broker ingests new public records.

None of this is a substitute for legal advice on a specific removal dispute, and none of it guarantees permanent removal. It is the honest, verified starting point.

Related Guides

• How to Opt Out of Data Brokers (2026)
• California Delete Act and DROP: How to Delete Your Data From Data Brokers
• US Data Broker Registration Laws & the Delete Act
• How to Submit a Data Deletion Request (2026)
• How to File a Data Privacy Complaint (2026)
• CCPA Opt-Out Rights: Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• How to Report Identity Theft: FTC Report and Next Steps
• Credit Freeze vs. Fraud Alert: What Is the Difference
• How to Freeze Your Credit After a Data Breach (Free)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which data broker should I opt out of first?

If you live in California, start with the CPPA's DROP platform since it reaches every registered broker with one request. Otherwise, start with the sites in this directory that carry the highest search volume: Spokeo, TruthFinder, Whitepages, FastPeopleSearch, TruePeopleSearch, Intelius, and Radaris. Search your own name on each one; a site with no listing for you needs no opt-out.

Does opting out of one data broker remove me from all of them?

No, with two confirmed exceptions. PeopleConnect's Suppression Center clears TruthFinder, Intelius, Instant Checkmate, and USSearch with one request. Addresses.com is powered entirely by Intelius, so an Intelius removal covers it too. Every other broker in this directory, including brands that share a website template or similar branding, requires its own separate request.

Why do I need to keep opting out of the same site?

Data brokers continually acquire new public records and rebuild profiles from them. Several sites in this directory state this directly on their own opt-out pages: removing a listing today does not stop a new one from being built from a fresh data source later. Search your own name across this directory every few months rather than treating a single opt-out as permanent.

Is it legal for these sites to use my information for a background check?

Every broker in this directory states, in its own terms or privacy policy, that it is not a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and should not be used for employment, tenant screening, credit, or insurance decisions. The FTC has fined people-search operators twice for marketing their data for exactly those uses: Spokeo ($800,000, 2012) and TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate ($5.8 million, 2023). Use these sites' opt-out tools for your own privacy only, never to screen someone else.

Does California's DROP tool cover every broker in this directory?

Only brokers that registered with the California Privacy Protection Agency. DROP does not reach an unregistered or noncompliant broker, and registered brokers may keep exempt or publicly available data. Check the CPPA's public data broker registry for a specific site before relying on DROP alone, and use that site's own opt-out form regardless, since it costs nothing extra to do both.

Which states have data broker registries?

California, Vermont, Texas, and Oregon run public data broker registries now. Connecticut requires registration starting January 1, 2027, and New Jersey's registry is expected in 2027. Only California currently offers a state tool that deletes your data from every registered broker; Connecticut must build one by July 1, 2028.

What if a broker's opt-out page is blocked or won't load?

Several guides in this directory were themselves blocked by the same bot-verification walls a reader might hit, and each one says so honestly rather than describing a flow that could not be confirmed. If a site's opt-out page will not load for you, try again later, try a different browser or network, or use California's DROP tool or Global Privacy Control as a fallback where the broker is covered. A blocked page is usually temporary, not permanent.

Should I pay a company to remove my information instead of doing it myself?

You do not have to. Every guide in this directory leads with the free opt-out path each broker actually publishes, and where a site charges for removal or offers no free path, its guide says so plainly. Some guides also mention Aura, a paid service that sends removal requests to many data broker and people-search sites on your behalf. It is optional and it is an affiliate link (RecordingLaw may earn a commission if you sign up); it only makes sense if you would rather not repeat the free requests, and check for relisting, across many sites yourself.