People-search sites publish your home address, phone number, relatives and past addresses to anyone who types your name. Unlike credit bureaus, they are not covered by the FCRA, but you still have an opt-out right — and most of them must honour it. This guide covers the exact removal steps for the biggest sites, how to automate the process, and what to do when your data comes back.
The problem: your address is public and indexed
People-search sites — also called data brokers or people finders — aggregate public records, voter files, court documents, property deeds and commercial data, then publish a profile page for nearly every adult in the United States. Type your own name into Google and you will likely find your current address, previous addresses, phone numbers, age and the names of your relatives, all on sites you never signed up for.
These pages rank well in Google because they match exactly what someone searches: your name. That means an ex-partner, a former employer, a scam caller or a casual acquaintance can find where you live in under ten seconds. Removing yourself is legal, free in most cases, and does not require a lawyer.
What US law actually says
There is no federal equivalent of the EU's right to erasure for private companies. The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) covers credit bureaus, not people-search sites, so those sites are not required to verify accuracy. However, you have two real levers.
- CCPA/CPRA (California): if you are a California resident, you can demand deletion and opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. Covered businesses must respond within 45 days.
- State privacy laws: Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana and others now grant similar rights. Most people-search sites extend the CCPA deletion process to all US residents to avoid maintaining fifty different workflows — so it is always worth submitting.
- Google's own policy: Google removed the right to request removal of personal contact information (address, phone, email) in Search results. You can file this directly with Google.
- FTC enforcement: the FTC has taken action against data brokers for selling sensitive location data. Complaints to reportfraud.ftc.gov add to the pressure.
The exact opt-out for the biggest sites
Every major site has a hidden opt-out page, usually in the footer. The process is similar: find your profile, copy its URL, paste it into their suppression form, then confirm by email. Here are the main ones.
- Whitepages: optout.whitepages.com — search by name and state, copy the profile URL, submit, then confirm by email. Removal takes up to 24 hours.
- Spokeo: spokeo.com/optout — requires the exact profile URL. Free for the basic listing.
- BeenVerified: beenverified.com/app/optout/search — email confirmation is mandatory.
- TruePeopleSearch: has a removal form that does not require an email address. One of the fastest.
- FastPeopleSearch: removal page requires solving a captcha and confirming by email.
- Radaris: radaris.com/control/privacy — creates a control account so you can manage submissions yourself.
- MyLife: notoriously persistent. Requires phone verification and often a written request.
- Intelius, TruthFinder, PeopleLooker, Instant Checkmate: same parent company (PeopleConnect), one suppression request covers several brands.
Why your data comes back — and how to stop it
Removing yourself once is not enough. These sites re-scrape public records on a schedule, and a single new court filing, address change or utility record can regenerate your profile within weeks. This is the single biggest reason people pay recurring services.
The realistic options are: set a calendar reminder to re-check every three months, use a paid removal service that monitors continuously, or handle it yourself through one of the automated tools that run opt-outs on a schedule. What does not work is doing it once and assuming it is over.
Google results vs. the source site
There are two separate battles. Removing your profile from the people-search site itself is step one. But Google may keep showing a cached snippet or a scraped copy hosted elsewhere, sometimes on a mirror site that copied the original data.
If the source page is gone but Google still links to it, you can request the removal of outdated content through Google's tool. If a third-party site republished your data, that is a new removal request against that specific site — and it needs its own opt-out plus a Google delisting demand.
If you are in a sensitive situation
If you are a survivor of domestic violence, a stalking victim, a public-facing professional or someone whose address leaking creates a real safety risk, the standard opt-out process may not be fast enough. Several US states run Address Confidentiality Programs that give you a substitute address for public records, which stops new data from entering the ecosystem in the first place.
Once the profile pages exist, most people underestimate how many are live and how many copies exist across mirror sites and archives. A documented, prioritised audit of what is actually published about you is almost always the fastest route — you fix what is searchable first, not what you assume exists.