This guide shows you exactly how to erase yourself from data broker sites and shut down the commercial surveillance networks that profile you. You’ll remove your data from people search engines, marketing brokers, and location data harvesters while resetting identifiers so they can’t regenerate your file. If you want to wipe your footprint and stop these companies from selling your identity, this is the complete sequence.
Data brokers are the silent middlemen. They scrape, stitch, and auction off your life to anyone with a credit card. They don’t care who buys it. Marketers. Insurers. Employers. Stalkers. Doesn’t matter. The system is built to extract.
Erasing yourself from data brokers is the fastest way to choke off commercial profiling. It won’t handle state surveillance. It won’t fix platform level tracking like Google but it wipes the “identity exhaust” that feeds credit files, people search engines, background check reports, and targeted ads.
This is the guide for eliminating yourself from dozens of brokers quickly.
Step 1 – Know what you’re deleting
Data brokers fall into three categories. Treat each differently but you target all three.
Category 1: People Search Engines
These are the ones that show your name, cell number, past addresses, relatives. They’re the most dangerous because they create stalking vectors.
- Examples: Whitepages, Spokeo, TruthFinder, Intelius, BeenVerified, PeopleFinder, Instant Checkmate, US Search.
Category 2: Marketing Data Brokers
They sell behavioral and demographic profiles to advertisers and analytics firms.
- Examples: Acxiom, Oracle Data Cloud, Epsilon, Experian Marketing, Lotame, KBM Group.
Category 3: Location, Device, and App Data Brokers
They ingest app telemetry, GPS logs, WiFi pings, and purchase histories.
- Examples: Cuebiq, Near, SafeGraph, Verisk, Gravy Analytics.
Step 2 – Prep your clean assets
If you use your main inbox or real phone number the cleanup just loops back into new exposure, reinfecting yourself. Set up clean channels before you touch anything.
Use:
• A burner email that isn’t tied to your name
• A masked phone number (MySudo, JMP, Silent Link, or VoIP with no real ID)
• A fresh browser container or VM
• A VPN to mask IP
• A password manager for tracking confirmations
This is an “opt out burn stack.” Use it only for removals. Never mix with personal accounts.
Step 3 – Attack the people search engines first
These are the biggest threat. They expose phone numbers, address history, workplaces, relatives. They enable harassment and doxing. You remove yourself manually. It’s slow, but it’s often the best way. Be aware that about half of them block site access if you are on a VPN.
Go in this sequence:
1. Whitepages
Their opt out page: whitepages.com/privacy/consumer-rights
Submit removal. They’ll call your phone number to verify. Use your masked number, not your real phone number.
2. Spokeo
Their opt out page: Spokeo.com/optout
Search your name. Every listing gets its own removal. Confirm via email.
3. BeenVerified
Their opt out page: Beenverified.com/app/optout/search
They block VPNs because of course they do.
4. Intelius / Instant Checkmate / TruthFinder / US Search
These share the same backend. Opt out at: intelius.com/privacy-center
This kills multiple listings with one request.
5. MyLife
Their opt out page: mylife.com/ccpa/index.pubview
The hardest one. They over index your work history and relationships and the site access is also blocked to VPNs. Pain in the ass. They’ll try to upsell you. Stick to your request
6. Radaris
Their opt out page: Radaris.com/privacy
Exhausting and not VPN friendly. Search yourself, find each record, remove one by one.
7. PeopleFinders
Their opt out page: Peoplefinders.com/opt-out
Needs email confirmation.
8. FastPeopleSearch
Their opt out page: Fastpeoplesearch.com/removal
They block VPNs but do give immediate suppression. Check back monthly because they like to repopulate without warning.
Take screenshots of every confirmation.
Step 4 – Kill the marketing brokers next
These companies maintain “consumer profiles” used by advertisers and analytics systems. i.e. You’re deleting demographic, behavioral, and purchase based records.
1. Acxiom
Their opt out page: Acxiom.com/optout
They require identity verification. Use your burner email.
2. Experian Marketing
Their opt out page: consumerprivacy.experian.com
This is NOT your credit report. It’s your ad profile. Delete it.
3. Epsilon
Their opt out page: Epsilon.com/consumer-information/
Removes your address linked marketing file.
4. Oracle Data Cloud
Their opt out page: Oracle.com/legal/privacy/privacy/rights
Remove advertising profiles tied to cookies, device IDs, and inferred attributes.
5. Lotame
Their opt out page: Lotame.com/opt-out
Cookie and device based. Do this inside a fresh browser container.
Step 5 – Wipe the location brokers
This is the layer that buys app GPS data and sells your movements. You’ll never know they existed until you’ve been targeted. Be aware that if you are filtering your DNS half these links will 404.
1. SafeGraph
Their opt out page: Safegraph.com/do-not-sell-my-info, for California. Their privacy policy lists email as another method safegraph.com/privacy-policy
2. Cuebiq
Their opt out page: Cuebiq.com/consumer-choice
Submit their form. They remove historical GPS data tied to your mobile ad ID.
3. Gravy Analytics
Their opt out page: Gravyanalytics.com/privacy
Fill out the removal form. Delete your device’s movement profile.
4. Near (formerly UberMedia)
Their opt out page: Near.com/privacy
Kill the ad tech profile tied to your ad ID.
After completing this:
- Reset your mobile ad ID
- Turn off ad personalization on your phone
- Block app-level location access except when needed
Step 6 – Reset your identifiers
Even after wiping your profiles, you must break the link that allows new ones to form. Bascially everything I have told you to do over and over in the past.
Do these immediately after finishing broker deletion:
- Reset your phone’s advertising ID
- Rotate your IP with VPN
- Replace your browser profiles
- Purge cookies, local storage, and trackers
- Switch to privacy first apps
- Update your alias email and masked numbers for any future clean interactions
- Lock down your home address using a PMB or mail drop
- Use alias data for retailers, loyalty programs, and online checkouts
Deleting is step one. Preventing regeneration is step two.
Step 7 – Verify the erasure
Data brokers republish. You verify manually. Once a month for the first three months.
Your checklist:
- Whitepages still erased
- Spokeo listings gone
- Intelius backend cleared
- BeenVerified empty
- FastPeopleSearch hasn’t respawned
- Radaris completely wiped
- Marketing brokers haven’t re-indexed
- Location brokers haven’t repopulated
If any repopulate, wipe again using your burner email and opt out stack.
Step 8 – Scale with automation (optional)
Services like DeleteMe, Incogni, Kanary, and Privacy Bee exist. They’re helpful but not complete. They miss several people search engines and almost all location brokers.
Use them for maintenance or as the primary wipe IF this is good enough to meet your threat assessment. The steps above build a stronger manual stack than they provide.
Step 9 – Lock in your long term prevention
You stay erased by starving the system.
Stop giving them fresh data:
- Stop using loyalty cards
- Pay cash more often
- Don’t attach your cell number to receipts
- Avoid online checkout using real data
- Use burner emails for every signup
- Do not use your legal name unless forced
- Lock your home address behind a mail forwarder
- Strip identifiers before posting anything online
- Don’t sync contacts or calendars with cloud services
- Harden your phone to block telemetry, analytics, and ad networks
The less you generate, the less they can collect.
Final Word
The profiling industry thrives on silence and apathy. When you erase yourself from their systems, you cut off the oxygen line feeding the commercial surveillance economy. This is just maintenance.
Erase yourself. Then stay erased.
-GHOST
Written by GHOST, creator of the Untraceable Digital Dissident project.
This is part of the Untraceable Digital Dissident series — tactical privacy for creators and rebels.
Explore more privacy tactics at untraceabledigitaldissident.com.