Spokeo is one of the first places your name shows up when someone searches for you online. It aggregates your home address, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives, and even social media accounts into a single profile, and sells access to anyone willing to pay a few dollars.
The good news: Spokeo has one of the more straightforward opt-out processes among people-search sites, it's completely free, and Spokeo says requests are usually processed within 24 to 48 hours. This guide walks through the entire process, including the parts that trip people up.
What is Spokeo?
Spokeo is a people-search engine based in Pasadena, California. It compiles profiles from public records (property deeds, court records, voter registrations), marketing databases, social networks, and other data brokers. A typical Spokeo profile includes:
- Full name and aliases
- Current and past home addresses
- Phone numbers (landline and mobile)
- Email addresses
- Age and birth month
- Family members and associates
- Social media profiles
- Wealth and home-value estimates
Anyone can see a preview of this data for free. Paying subscribers see the full report. That means anyone (an ex, a stalker, a scammer, a nosy coworker) can pull up a dossier on you in seconds.
Before you start
Two things will make this go smoothly:
- Use an email address you can check right now. Spokeo requires email confirmation. Many people use a masked or secondary email for opt-outs so their primary address doesn't end up in another marketing database.
- Search for every version of yourself. If you've lived in multiple cities or gone by different names (maiden name, middle name, nicknames), you likely have multiple Spokeo listings. Each one must be removed separately.
How to remove yourself from Spokeo, step by step
Step 1: Find your listing
Go to spokeo.com and search your full name. Narrow the results by city or state if you have a common name. Click through to the profile that matches you, check the age, location history, and relatives shown to be sure it's actually your record.
Step 2: Copy your profile URL
Once you're on your profile page, copy the full URL from your browser's address bar. This URL is how Spokeo identifies which record to remove.
Step 3: Go to the opt-out page
Navigate to spokeo.com/optout.
Step 4: Submit the removal request
Paste your profile URL into the form (Spokeo also accepts the URL of a purchase page for your listing, the kind that starts spokeo.com/purchase), enter your email address, complete the CAPTCHA, and click Opt Out.
Step 5: Confirm via email
Spokeo sends a confirmation email (check spam if it doesn't arrive within a few minutes). Click the link in it; the request doesn't go through until you do. If you get stuck, the opt-out page offers Spokeo's customer care team, or you can email privacy@spokeo.com.
Step 6: Repeat for every listing
One submission removes one listing. If you found multiple profiles in Step 1, go back and repeat the process for each URL.
What Spokeo's privacy policy says about removal
The steps above were checked against spokeo.com/optout on October 17, 2026; we read the page and did not submit it. The points below are from Spokeo's privacy policy (last revised June 25, 2026), read October 16, 2026.
- Spokeo calls the tool Remove A Public Listing, at spokeo.com/optout. It covers public listings on Spokeo.com and Spokeo's other websites, except ThatsThem.com, which Spokeo also operates but which has its own opt-out at thatsthem.com/optout (see our ThatsThem guide).
- It removes listings shown to the general public. It does not cover listings available to customers of other Spokeo products, and it cannot remove your information from the public sources it came from, such as phone books, social networks or government records.
- Court records are not removed through the tool. Spokeo says it suppresses them only for an order of expunction or sealing, emailed to expungement@spokeo.com, and only the records the order names.
How long does removal take?
Spokeo's opt-out page says requests are usually processed in 24 to 48 hours, depending on the request and the amount of data. Its privacy policy says the tool removes the listing in real time once the request is complete. Either way, plan to check after two days. Search engines can keep showing an old copy for a while longer.
Verify it actually worked
After two days, search your name on Spokeo again, ideally in a private/incognito browser window so you're not seeing cached results. Check name variations and previous cities too. If a listing is still there, submit a fresh opt-out for that specific URL.
Why your Spokeo listing can come back
This is the part most guides gloss over: opting out of Spokeo is not permanent.
Spokeo continuously ingests new data from public records providers and marketing lists. Your opt-out suppresses the profile that existed at the time, but if a new data batch arrives with your information attached (say, after you move, register to vote at a new address, or appear in a new marketing list), Spokeo can generate a fresh profile that isn't covered by your previous opt-out.
Practically, this means you should re-check Spokeo every few months. Or let Defynta do it: the free scan checks Spokeo and the other people-search sites we read, and Silver subscribers can turn on monitoring, which rescans them every 30 days by default and emails you when a listing comes back.
Who runs Spokeo. California's data broker registry (read October 18, 2026) lists Spokeo, Inc. with spokeo.com, PeopleWin, AnyWho, ThatsThem, FreePeopleDirectory and Family.me. Section 1(f) of Spokeo's privacy policy says spokeo.com/optout covers Spokeo.com and its other websites except ThatsThem; it does not list those sites by name, so check FreePeopleDirectory and Family.me yourself if they list you.
Related sites to check next
Removing yourself from Spokeo doesn't touch the dozens of other brokers selling the same data. If you're on Spokeo, you're almost certainly also on:
- Whitepages, the largest people-search directory
- TruePeopleSearch and FastPeopleSearch, free sites that expose your data to anyone, no payment required
- BeenVerified, a major paid background-check service
- PeopleWin, which is actually powered by Spokeo's own database
- AnyWho, now a Spokeo site whose opt-out forwards to this same tool
- ThatsThem, run by Spokeo but left out of Spokeo's removal tool, so it needs its own opt-out
See our master list of data broker opt-out guides for the full set.
Frequently asked questions
Does removing myself from Spokeo cost anything?
No. The opt-out is free, and you don't need an account. Anyone who asks you to pay for a basic Spokeo removal is selling you something you can do yourself in five minutes.
Do I need to be the person in the listing?
Spokeo's opt-out form doesn't verify identity beyond the email confirmation, but its terms are built around people removing their own records or records they're authorized to manage. If you're helping a family member, get their OK first, and note that each listing needs its own submission.
Will opting out remove me from Google?
Removing the Spokeo listing removes the source page, but Google's cached result can linger for a few weeks until it recrawls. If the dead link still shows in search results, you can use Google's "Refresh Outdated Content" tool to speed things up.
I confirmed my opt-out but the listing is still up. What now?
Give it a day, since cached copies can lag. If it's still live after that, submit the opt-out again for the exact profile URL, and double-check you clicked the confirmation link in the email, because the request doesn't process without it.
I live in California. Can I use DROP instead?
Don't count on it for Spokeo. California's free DROP platform lets a California resident send one deletion request to the more than 600 data brokers registered with the state, and Spokeo, Inc. is registered with the six sites listed above. But Spokeo's own registry entry (read October 18, 2026) says the information it sells is "publicly available information" that the CCPA excludes, and the state lists public records among the data a broker may keep. So use the opt-out above, which Spokeo says usually takes 24 to 48 hours, and ThatsThem's own form. More in our California Delete Act guide. (DROP details checked against privacy.ca.gov on October 18, 2026.)
*Spokeo is one of dozens of sites exposing your personal information. Run Defynta's free Web Watcher scan to see where your name, address, and phone number appear across the sites we track.*
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