There are hundreds of “People Finder” and “White Pages” sites online that provide your personal information to anybody with a web browser. These sites often give away your: Name, Address, Phone numbers, Previous addresses, Age and date of birth, Names of relatives and roommates, Google “Streetview” photos of your house, Your approximate credit score, Satellite and aerial photos of your house, and more!
People often ask “how do I remove my name from Spokeo” or “how do I delete my photo and address from a whitepages site?” We think that you should be able to control the information that appears on these sites–and you should be able to delete information if you want to. Our goal is to help you take control of your online privacy by allowing to remove or update information that appears in these “whitepages” sites. We do not provide data to “white pages” sites; instead, we remove it. (If you are curious, Spokeo, a popular “white pages” site, explains their data sources in their blog here and here)
There are two methods to remove your name from whitepages sites like Spokeo, Rapleaf, Pipl, and others.
Method One: Manual
Step One
Find all the sites you care about. For example, you might be concerned about sites like Spokeo, Pipl, Intelius, Rapleaf, and others. You will need to find each site that lists your personal information, which could be hundreds of sites.
Step Two
Find the opt-out procedure used by each site. Each site’s privacy policy is different. For example, Spokeo’s opt-out form is here and it can be completed online. ZabaSearch’s opt-out policy is here, and it requires verification by mail. Intelius’s opt-out policy is here, and it requires faxing a copy of your driver’s license.
Step Three
Verify that each site correctly processed your opt-out request. Some sites might have multiple copies of your current address as well as mis-spellings, typos, and other errors. You may need to repeat the process several times to get complete coverage.
Method Two: Automatic
Step One
Sign up for the MyPrivacy service from ReputationDefender.
Step Two
MyPrivacy will automatically scour the Internet looking for references to your personal information.
Step Three
Through a simple point-and-click interface within MyPrivacy, you can remove information from many of these sites at once. We will continuously monitor online and automatically alert you if your information appears in a new people search database.
MyPrivacy is a powerful tool that removes your information from many sites all at once. It also empowers you to choose what catalog mailings you want to receive at your house; with the new “Control Your Mail” feature, you can request that hundreds of companies stop sending you direct mail. I personally used MyPrivacy to remove my name from Spokeo. I also used MyPrivacy to remove my address, phone, and photos from several other databases.
As we’ve said before, ReputationDefender would never provide data to these sites. Our mission is to help consumers control their personal information online.
If you need complete online privacy, we have special customized services that go beyond MyPrivacy. Contact us by phone or email for information.
If you are a law enforcement officer or judicial officer, we also have free MyPrivacy programs for you; contact us for information.
