ContactOut is not a people-search site in the usual sense. It sells contact data to businesses: its home page says it returns verified work and personal emails and direct-dial phone numbers for professionals, and it markets itself to recruiters and sales teams. Its privacy notice lists what it holds on people (name, company, office address, phone number, email address, job title and function, education and social media URL) and says the data goes to its customers and partners for sales, marketing and recruiting.
If your personal email or cell number is in there, the opt-out is short. It is also not the form many older guides describe.
Checked against ContactOut's live opt-out page and its privacy notice for data subjects on October 19, 2026, with archived copies of the opt-out page for comparison. We read the pages; we did not submit the form, so we can't show the verification email or where its link leads.
The opt-out changed
Archived copies of contactout.com/optout from September 2025 show an "Opt-Out Form" asking for your full name, your email and the URL of the ContactOut page to remove, with processing "within one week". By May 2026 the same address showed the current email-verification page. Instructions that ask you to paste a profile URL are describing the old form.
How to remove yourself from ContactOut
- Go to contactout.com/optout. The page is headed Verify your email.
- Enter your email address and complete the security check.
- Click Send verification link, then open the email and follow the link.
- The page says ContactOut uses your details only to identify your record, and deletes your profile within the next 24 hours.
We stopped before sending, so step 4 is what the page states, not something we watched happen.
Which email address to use
The email is how ContactOut finds you, so start with an address it is likely to hold: your work address, or the personal address you use on professional profiles. You need access to that inbox, because the link goes there. The page doesn't say whether one verified address also clears the other emails and numbers on your record, so if you have several, use the support address below to list them all.
You don't need to find your record first
ContactOut's data reaches its customers through tools such as its Chrome extension, search portal and API, so you may never see your own entry. The current form doesn't ask for a profile link or a search result: your email address is the starting point.
If it doesn't work
- Email support@contactout.com, the address the privacy notice gives for privacy requests, with every email address and phone number you want removed.
- Be ready to show it's you. In its section for California residents, the notice says only you or someone authorized to act for you can make a request, that the request must give enough to verify you are the person concerned, and that requests can be refused, for example when they can't be verified.
- Allow a month. The notice says ContactOut has one month to respond to a request about your data.
- Know your rights. The same notice lists rights to access, correct and erase your data and to restrict or object to its use, and points complaints to the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Why your details can come back
The privacy notice says ContactOut combines data from publicly available sources such as websites and government records, from its customers and their users, and from third-party providers, and that it may not be able to say where any one piece came from. A new job, a new work email or a new number can create a fresh record. Check again after a job change, and file again with the new address.
Defynta's free scan looks at people-search sites, and ContactOut is a business-contact database, so it isn't in the scan. Run the scan to see where your home address and personal number turn up on the sites we track.
Who runs ContactOut. The privacy notice names ContactOut Limited. California's data broker registry (read October 19, 2026) lists ContactOut Limited with a San Francisco address and gives the same privacy notice as its rights page. If you live in California, the state's free DROP tool sends one deletion request to the brokers on that registry; see our California Delete Act guide.
Related sites to check next
- AllPeople, a free business-contact directory
- BeenVerified, whose guide covers PeopleSmart, now a professional-contacts search tool
- Social Catfish, which runs reverse email searches
Full list: the master opt-out guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is the ContactOut opt-out free?
Yes. It asks for an email address, a security check and a click on the verification link. For California residents, the privacy notice also says you don't need a ContactOut account to opt out of the sale of your information.
Why do other guides describe a different form?
They were written for the old page. Until at least September 2025 it asked for your name, email and a profile URL; it now starts with email verification.
Does this remove my LinkedIn profile?
No. ContactOut's notice lists your social media URL among the data it holds, but its opt-out deals with ContactOut's own record. Your profiles elsewhere are managed on those sites.
Your work email and your cell number can sit in the same record. See which of the sites we track list your personal details with a free Defynta scan.
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Web Watcher checks the people-search sites we track for your name and links you to the ones it cannot read itself. You see the results before you create an account.