Remove Yourself from People Listing Sites
Whitepages, Peoplesearch, Spokeo—whatever they call themselves, get off their lists.
Hi friends, happy Thursday!
Today, we’re talking about something that is especially dangerous in terms of your personal information being available publicly. Often, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other personal information is freely available online on websites often called “data brokers” or “people finders,” and we’ve covered this a little before in an older post called “Google Yourself”.
KL
I think most women already understand the risks that are posed when your home address and phone numbers are posted online. Stalking, doxing, and harassment are all dangers that come specifically from having this information out on the wide internet. Women are disproportionately at risk of doxing, especially women of color, those in the LGBTQIA+ community, and other marginalized minority groups. Doxing is intended to silence women, especially women in public roles like politics, journalism, and activism.
Unfortunately, getting this sensitive information removed from these data broker sites (and keeping it removed) is a tricky undertaking. It’s possible to make individual requests to these sites to remove your information (most of the time), and Incogni has a great set of guides for how to do it on various sites here: https://blog.incogni.com/opt-out-guides/ (scroll down to the bottom to find their opt-out guides list).
I want to be clear, however, that removing your information from these sites today will not guarantee it won’t pop up there again in a few months. You know I love to do things the free way, but this is a game of Whac-a-Mole.
The best option, imho, is to just pay for a service to handle this for you, typically via a subscription (since they will continue to monitor and request removals on your behalf). That’s what I’m going to cover here.
EasyOptOuts
One great option is EasyOptOuts. They cover a TON of these data broker sites and they don’t require too much personal information from you to do that on your behalf. Plus, they’re easily the cheapest option I’ve seen at only $20/year. This is the one I’m going with fwiw.
DeleteMe
Another great option is DeleteMe. This one’s a little more expensive at $129/yr or $209/2 years if you pay annually, but it is a really popular option. I don’t think it covers quite as many sites, but they do have a big user base ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Incogni
The one that has the list of how-to articles that I mentioned above, Incogni, also has their own paid subscription service. They clock in at about $180/year for their Unlimited plan, or about $100/year for their Standard plan.
Aura
If you’re looking for something a little more comprehensive, in addition to data broker removals, Aura also provides Identity Theft Protection and Insurance, credit locking, VPNs and some other great privacy services for as low as $144/year for their Individual plan.
Find yourself on a site that’s not covered by your chosen service?
As I mentioned, I’m going with the cheap option (EasyOptOuts) personally, but I did come across my personal information on a site that’s not included on their list. For this situation, I’ve got one more excellent resource for you: YourDigitalRights.org has a great tool where you can search for the data broker site, and they will compose an email for you including where to send it, and optionally to receive follow up instructions from them in case there are further actions you need to take.
A Quick Note About Paid Services
In the interest of protecting your privacy (because it’s literally what we’re doing here!), I do not use affiliate links. I gain nothing if you decide to use one of these services or any other service I didn’t mention here. I suggested these because they’re respected and vetted options, that’s all. If you use one of these, I’d love to hear your experience with it, or if you use something else that you love, I’d love to hear about those too!
I have no skin in this game—I just want you to have the best protection possible.
Keep on keepin’ on,
KL
