Stalking
Stalkers, known and unknown, use the same broker sites you can search yourself on.
What this is
Stalking is following, surveilling, contacting, or threatening a specific person over a sustained period. Most of it starts from a known relationship: an ex, a former patient, a former defendant. Some of it is anonymous, where the stalker has no prior connection to you and you don't know who's watching.
Either way, the stalker needs to know where you live, where you work, and where you spend time. They get it from the same places anyone else does: data brokers, social media, public records, and, for someone who once lived with you, plain memory.
Stalking laws are real, but they are reactive. They only apply after a pattern is documented. The broker problem sits upstream of that. For most first responders, that home address is already sitting on people-search sites before anyone starts watching.
Why first responders catch this more
Officers, judges, prosecutors, victim advocates, CPS caseworkers, mental-health workers, and home-health nurses all deal with people who later fixate on them. The pattern follows the work: someone you dealt with at work decides to find you at home.
For cops, the fixation is more often retaliatory than romantic. For victim advocates and CPS workers, it is often the perpetrator they were working against. The route to your door is the same: a broker page gives up your address, and the address makes physical contact possible.
What we sweep that prevents the chain
We file opt-outs across the broker sites and keep checking, because listings come back and we re-file when yours does. For a known stalker, such as an ex or a former patient under a restraining order, this is supplemental to the legal protections you already have. For an anonymous stalker, the broker cleanup is often the only upstream protection that works. If a stalker's first move is a Spokeo search, continuous opt-outs across the lookup sites they use shrinks what comes back.
We sweep your household the same way. Brokers list you next to your relatives, so a stalker who can't reach you directly will sometimes reach you through your sister or your parents. We file the same opt-outs for them.