A free, source-checked guide to removing yourself from people-search sites (with a 50-state law map)

People-search sites publish your name, address, phone number and relatives, and most of them offer a free opt-out. The hard part is finding the real opt-out page, knowing which sites are worth the effort, and knowing whether your state gives you any legal right to deletion at all.

We put all of that on one free page: Data broker removal guide + state law map. No sign-up, nothing to buy. You open every link and fill every form yourself. We don't submit anything for you, we don't ask for your details, and no site listed pays us.

How we verified it

• Official sources only. Opt-out links come from each site's own pages. State law rows link to the statute or an official state page.
• Date stamped. Everything on the page says Verified November 10, 2026. Each opt-out link shows what happened when we checked it: loaded, hit a bot or captcha check, showed a court or domain notice, or was unreachable.
• Honest about gaps. Rows whose statute text we haven't re-read yet say so ("statute text not yet re-read by us") instead of guessing.

What's on the page

Seven steps, in order: take stock of the emails, phones and accounts you still control. Delete old accounts while you can still sign in. Confirm a listing is really you. Opt out at the official link in your own browser. Click verification emails right away. Save the receipt. Recheck later.

About verification links: they commonly expire in 24 hours, and some much sooner. One in our testing expired in about 15 minutes.

Opt-out links for 25 sites and tools: 17 with an opt-out path, 3 where rights depend on your state, California's official DROP tool, and 4 to skip for now:

• Radaris and Rehold show a "This Domain Has Been Transferred by Court Order" notice that cites a New Jersey case (default judgment dated August 27, 2026, per the notice). Reporting says the judgment is being challenged.
• PeekYou shows a "Domain Update" notice saying it is now controlled by Atlas Data Privacy Corporation after a settlement.
• ClustrMaps was unreachable when we checked on November 10, 2026.

Three sites (SmartBackgroundChecks, USPhonebook and FastPeopleSearch) publish near-identical privacy notices. They say your rights depend on your state of residence, they point residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws to a supplemental notice, and they take requests through a web form or by phone.

The state law map (50 states + DC)

• 19 states have a comprehensive privacy law in effect with a right to delete.
• Florida's narrower law adds a deletion right that reaches only very large companies.
• 4 more are enacted but not yet in effect: Oklahoma and Louisiana (January 1, 2027), Alabama (May 1, 2027) and Vermont (January 1, 2028).
• California's free DROP tool sends one deletion request to registered data brokers. It is for California residents only.
• Arizona has no comprehensive consumer privacy law, so Arizona residents have no general legal right to make a people-search site delete a listing. They can still use each site's free opt-out form, and many sites honor those as a courtesy.
• Arkansas: some sites cite "Act 549 of 2023" as a privacy law. The official Act 549 is a firearms bill.

The catch: most of these laws exclude publicly available information, such as government records. Many people-search listings are built from those records, so even a legal deletion right may not force a takedown.

Data and tools for AI assistants

The data is published as plain JSON, so you can use it in your own scripts or tools:

• state-law-map.json: 51 jurisdictions, with status, effective date, scope and official sources.
• optout-sites.json: 25 sites, with official link, status and notes.

The page also exposes read-only WebMCP tools, so an AI assistant in the browser can query it directly: get_state_rights, list_states_with_rights, list_optout_sites, get_removal_steps and get_links. They only read data that's already on the page. There's also an llms.txt, and the source is on GitHub.

Not legal advice

This is a research guide built from official sources and the sites' own pages, checked on the date shown. It does not apply any law to your situation. For advice, talk to a licensed attorney in your state.

If a link breaks or a site changes its process, please open an issue on the repo. We recheck the page regularly.

Guide: https://pandafederation.com/data-broker-removal/

From Panda Federation · @PandaFedHQ