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Spokeo

A people searchsite that exposes your name, address, phone, and relatives. Here's what they collect, how to opt out, and why it matters if you're on the job.

Visit Spokeo

What Spokeo collects

  • Full name and aliases
  • Current and prior addresses going back 20+ years
  • Phone numbers (cell and landline)
  • Approximate age and date of birth
  • Relatives, household members, and known associates
  • Email addresses tied to your name
  • Social media profile links

How to opt out yourself

Direct opt-out: https://www.spokeo.com/optout

  1. Open https://www.spokeo.com/optout in a private window.
  2. Search your name and town on the main site first. Copy the URL of the listing that's actually you.
  3. Paste that URL into the opt-out form. Add a working email address.
  4. Solve the captcha and submit.
  5. Click the verification link Spokeo emails you. The removal won't process until you do.
  6. Allow a few days for the listing to drop, then re-check by searching your name again.

What Spokeo knows about you

Type your name into Spokeo and it usually returns the right person fast. Current address. Phone numbers. A list of relatives. Old addresses going back two decades. Email. Approximate age. It pulls from public records, court filings, voter rolls, and property records, plus commercial data sets it buys from other brokers. None of it needed your permission to be there.

The free preview shows enough to point someone at your house. The paid report adds phone numbers, relatives' details, and what Spokeo labels "lifestyle data." Anyone willing to pay can see all of it.

Why it matters if you're on the job

Spokeo is the search someone runs to find where a cop lives. It is free to start, fast, and it puts your home address on the screen in one page load.

For a sworn officer, that is the home address a person you arrested could use to reach you off duty. The same exposure hits firefighters, paramedics, and nurses whose names show up in incident reports and patient complaints.

Old addresses link your listing to the people you have lived with: a spouse, a parent, an adult child. Remove your own entry and those connected listings still tie back to your name. A search for you also points to them.

How to opt out

The Spokeo opt-out works, but it takes two steps. You search the site first to copy your listing's URL, then submit that URL on the opt-out page, then click a verification email. Skip the email and the request will not process.

If you have moved, search every prior address. Spokeo treats each address as a separate listing. Removing the current one does not touch the old ones, and old listings still tie back to your name.

The full steps are listed above. Confirm the current opt-out URL before you rely on it, since brokers change these pages.

How long until you're back

Plan on the listing coming back. Spokeo does not promise a removal stays; it confirms the request was processed. New data feeds rebuild the listing on their own. A one-time opt-out holds for a while, then the record returns.

If your information moves through a court filing, a property transfer, or a voter-roll update, it can reappear sooner.

What we do that's faster

We file the opt-out for you, click the verification email when it lands, and keep checking Spokeo after that. When the listing comes back, we file again. We run the same process across the other data broker and people-search sites we cover, so you are not tracking each one by hand. That is continuous broker monitoring for individuals: we keep checking and refile when your information reappears.

Who owns it

Spokeo, Inc.

Independent and privately held. Founded in 2006 by four Stanford graduates; Harrison Tang is CEO. Headquartered in Pasadena, California. No known private-equity owner.

Lawsuits

  • Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins
    U.S. Supreme Court · 2016 · vacated and remanded

    The Supreme Court held that a technical violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, on its own, does not give a person standing to sue in federal court. The plaintiff has to show a concrete, real-world injury. The ruling shaped data-broker litigation for years.

  • Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. Spokeo, Inc. (consolidated)
    NJ Superior Court, Morris County · 2024 · active; administrative dismissal contested

    The Daniel's Law docket against Spokeo in Morris County is MRS-L-000227-24. It is among the 150+ Atlas filings consolidated under In Re: Daniel's Law Compliance Litigation.

FTC actions

  • FTC settlement$800,000
    2012

    The FTC alleged Spokeo marketed consumer profiles to HR, recruiters, and background screeners without following the FCRA, and posted deceptive endorsements. The consent order permanently bars Spokeo from furnishing consumer reports to anyone lacking a permissible purpose under the FCRA, requires accuracy procedures, and prohibits misrepresenting endorsements.

Where the data comes from

  • Marketing cooperativesAcxiom and Experian Marketing: the same shared pool the rest of the consumer-data industry pulls from.
  • Property recordsCounty assessor offices nationwide.
  • Social media scrapingLinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram public profiles.
  • Voter registration files
  • Telecom white pages
  • USPS change-of-address data

Named in incidents

Doing this for one broker is straightforward. Doing it for 200, on a continuous basis, is what we do.

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