Investigator Privacy — Data Brokers

There are hundreds of data broker sites. Most of them are noise. But a handful of them are the sites that actually show up when someone searches your name — and those are the ones worth prioritizing.

Here are the ten that investigators consistently find when they search themselves, ranked roughly by how prominently they tend to appear in search results.

The Top 10 Data Broker Sites to Check

1. Spokeo — One of the most commonly cited people-search sites. Shows home address, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives, and social media profiles. Appears prominently in Google results for most name searches.
2. BeenVerified — Background-check style interface. Aggregates address history, phone numbers, criminal records, social profiles, and vehicle records. Popular with civilians doing “background checks.”
3. WhitePages — One of the oldest and most established people-search directories. Simple interface, widely used, shows current address and phone in the free preview.
4. Intelius — Marketed as a background check tool. Often shows more detailed information including address history going back many years and associated family members.
5. PeopleFinder — Similar to the others in the consumer people-search category. Worth checking because it sometimes surfaces addresses that others have already removed.
6. FastPeopleSearch — Free to search (unusual in this category). Shows address, relatives, and associates without requiring a paid account. High SEO visibility for name searches.
7. TruthFinder — Positions itself as a background check service. Subscription-based. Often contains detailed address histories and associated contact information.
8. Radaris — International broker with a U.S. focus. Sometimes surfaces information that the larger players have already removed. Check it separately from the main list.
9. ZoomInfo — Primarily focused on professional/business data. If you have any professional presence — licensing, business registration, industry associations — ZoomInfo likely has a profile on you.
10. MyLife — Aggressively SEO’d for name-based searches. Often shows up in the first page of Google results for a name + city search. Shows a “reputation score” alongside personal details.

How to Approach Removal

Each of these sites has an opt-out process, but they vary in how straightforward they are. Some require email verification. Some require a copy of your ID. Some will process the removal and re-list you six months later.

Doing this manually across ten (or a hundred) sites is time-intensive. A removal service like DeleteMe or Incogni handles the ongoing opt-out process automatically. Worth the cost if you don’t want to spend a few hours every quarter doing it yourself.