Online Privacy - Removing Your Name From Online Directories

Have you ever done a search for your name on Google? If you haven’t (Of course you have, we all have.) do one now and browse through the results. It can be an eye-opening experience.

One thing you are going to find is results from websites like mylife.com, beenverified.com, or intellius.com. These websites operate on public records but it can be a bit scary to find out just how many of these sites exist and just how much information they have on you. The key to these sites is that they aggregate public data on people into one profile: real estate transactions, court records, Twitter information, etc. This makes it very easy for anyone to get information about you easily.

From my research, all of these sites charge a fee to get access to the full information they have but the charges are nominal and within reach of anyone. I’m not comfortable with my information being easily accessible so I did some research to find out how to get rid of my information from these sites.

One thing to note up front: all of these sites have the disclaimer that even if you remove your information it might reappear at some point because they’re based on public sources. If you start removing your information be aware that you’ll need to recheck the sites periodically.

If you want to remove yourself from these lists and sites you’ve got two options: pay someone, or do it yourself.

The Pay-for Options

There are options out there for those who don’t want to spend their own time removing their information from these websites. One is DeleteMe from Abine. The standard plan covers one person for one year for $129. They do all of the legwork for you.

Another option is PrivacyDuck. They have more extensive removal lists but they also cost a lot more money than DeleteMe. Currently, the plans are $99, $499, and $999. Looking at their website it's not clear what time period those costs cover but they do cover 2 people.

I've included lists from both sites at the end of this post. When you look at them you'll see why it might not be a bad idea to pay them to do the work for you. There are a lot of websites and it takes a lot of time to go to each one and fill out the opt-out form.

The Free Option

You can also just do the legwork yourself. I’ve provided a list of sites to start with. Essentially every removal is really just two things, one simple, and the other usually simple. First, you’ve got to find the opt-out page for the site/directory. Then you’ve got to either fill out the online form and wait or potentially call a phone number (or even send a letter), and provide the necessary information.

A List To Get You Going

Here is a list of sites that I removed my information from. I started with this list from DeleteMe but found a few others that I’ve added. I found that some of the information on the DeleteMe list was a bit out of date. Some sites they said required phoning in or mailing in an opt-out have since converted to an online form.

• Archives.com
• truthfinder.com
• Addresses.com
• BeenVerified.com
• Intelius.com
• PeekYou.com
• PeopleLookup.com
• PeopleSmart.com
  – Powered by BeenVerified.com
• Peoplefinders.com
  – Powered by BeenVerified.com
• PublicRecordsNow.com
• advanced-people-search.com
• Spokeo.com
• PrivateEye.com
• USSearch.com
• ZabaSearch.com
• Persopo.com
• USA-People-Search.com

More Lists

From DeleteMe:

1. BeenVerified.com
2. Intelius.com
3. LookUp.com
4. LookUpAnyone.com
5. MyLife.com
6. PeekYou.com
7. PeopleFinder.com
8. PeopleFinders.com
9. PeopleLookUp.com
10. PeopleSmart.com
11. PhonesBook.com
12. PrivateEye.com
13. PublicRecords.com
14. Public-Records-Now.com
15. Spoke.com
16. Spokeo.com
17. USA-People-Search.com
18. USIdentify.com
19. USSearch.com
20. Veromi.com
21. Wink.com
22. WhitePages.com
23. ZabaSearch.com

From Privacy Duck VIP Service:

1. 411.com
2. 411Locate.com
3. AccountancyCA.com
4. Addresses.com
5. AddressSearch.com
6. AdvancedBackgroundChecks.com
7. AlarmsCalifornia.org
8. AllAreaCodes.com
9. AmericanListCounsel (ALC)
10. AmericaPhoneBook.com
11. AmeriDex.com
12. AncientFaces.com
13. AnyWho.com
14. Archives.com
15. Arivify.com
16. AutoRepairCA.org
17. Acxiom.com
18. BackgroundAlert.com
19. BackgroundReport360.com
20. BeenVerified.com
21. BlockShopper.com
22. BRBPublications.com
23. CaliforniaBrokers.org
24. CaliforniaEngineering.org
25. CaliforniaLicensing.org
26. CaliforniaNursing.org
27. CaliforniaPharmacists.org
28. CaliforniaSecurity.com
29. CellPhoneRegistry.com
30. Check-Caller.com
31. CIS (Customer Information Systems)
32. ClassFinders.com
33. Centerex.com
34. City-Data.com
35. ContractorsCalifornia.org
36. CourtRecords.org
37. CourtRegistry.org
38. Criminal-Records.org
39. CriminalRecords.com
40. CriminalPages.com
41. DeathRecords.org
42. DentistsCalifornia.org
43. DataLogix / Oracle
44. DexKnows.com
45. DirectMail.com
46. DMAChoice.org
47. DogPile.com
48. DoNotCall.gov
49. EBureau.com
50. EMailFinder.com
51. EMailTracer.com
52. EveryDayLookUp.com
53. FamilyTreeNow.com
54. FindMyPast.com
55. FireArmsCalifornia.org
56. FLVoters.com
57. FreeBackgroundCheck.us
58. FreeEmailTrace.com
59. FreePhoneTracer.com
60. FreePeopleDirectory.com
61. GovBackgroundChecks.com
62. GovernmentRegistry.org
63. GovRegistry.us
64. Homemetry.com
65. Identity.com
66. IDStrong.com
67. IDTrue.com
68. Inflection.com
69. InfoPay.com
70. InfoRegistry.com
71. IntelRegistry.com
72. InstantCheckmate.com
73. InstantPeopleFinder.com
74. Inteligator.com
75. Intelligence @ TowerData.com
76. Intelius.com
77. IQData.com
78. LexisNexis.com
79. LookUp.com
80. Lycos.com
81. MarriageRecords.org
82. MashPanel.com
83. MelissaData.com
84. MyHeritage.com
85. MyLife.com
86. MyRelatives.com
87. Neighbor.Report
88. NDB.com
89. NJParcels.com
90. NotariesCalifornia.com
91. Number2Name.com
92. Nuwber.com
93. OKCaller.com
94. OptOutPreScreen.com
95. PCH.com (Publisher’s Clearing House)
96. PhoneDetective.com
97. PhoneRegistry.com
98. PeekYou.com
99. PeepDB.com
100. PeopleByName.com
101. PeopleFinder.com
102. PeopleFinders.com
103. PeopleLookUp.com
104. PeopleSearch14.com
105. PeopleSearchNow.com
106. PeopleSifter.com
107. PeopleSmart.com
108. PeopleSpy.com
109. PeopleVerified.com
110. Persopo.com
111. Pipl.com
112. PhoneBook.com
113. PhoneBooks.com
114. PhoneDetective.com
115. PhoneOwner.com
116. PublicRecords.com
117. PublicRecords360.com
118. PublicRecordsChecks.com
119. PublicRecords.Directory
120. PublicRecordsNow.com
121. PublicRecordSpy.com
122. PublicWhitePages.com
123. PrivateEye.com
124. Premium.WhitePages.com
125. Profilogical.com
126. Pub360.com
127. Radaris.com
128. Records.Estate
129. RecordsAuthority.com
130. RetroSleuth.com
131. Reunion.com
132. ReverseGenie.com
133. ReverseMobile.com
134. ReverseNumberDatabase.com
135. ReversePhoneLookUp.com
136. ReversePhoneCheck.com
137. SalesSpider.com
138. StateRecords.org
139. SearchBug.com
140. SuperPages.com
141. Spokeo.com
142. SpyFly.com
143. TennHelp.com
144. TelephoneDirectories.us
145. ThatsThem.com
146. TheIdentityPages.com
147. ThePublicRecords.com
148. TowerData.com
149. TrueRep.com
150. TruthFinder.com
151. Trustoria.com
152. USA.com
153. USABackground.com
154. USA-People-Search.com
155. USAProfilePages.com
156. VisualWho.com
157. VeriSpy.com
158. Veromi.com
159. Vin.Place
160. WhitePages.com
161. WhitePagesGoesGreen.com
162. WhitePages.Plus
163. WhoWhere.com
164. YellowBook.com
165. YellowPages.com
166. YellowPagesGoesGreen.com
167. YourPublicProfile.com
168. ZabaSearch.com