There's an entire industry built around knowing everything about you. Data brokers — also called information brokers or people-search sites — are companies that make money by collecting, compiling, and selling your personal information. Most people have no idea these companies exist, let alone that they're being profiled and sold.
This guide explains exactly what data brokers are, where they get their data, who buys it, and most importantly — what you can do about it.
What Are Data Brokers?
Data brokers are businesses that aggregate personal information from hundreds of public and private sources, create detailed profiles on individuals, and sell access to those profiles to marketers, employers, landlords, law enforcement, private investigators, and anyone else willing to pay.
They operate in the background of the modern internet — most people never interact with them directly, yet virtually every American adult has a profile on multiple broker databases.
The scale: The data broker industry generates over $200 billion per year in revenue. There are over 4,000 data broker companies operating in the United States. The average adult has records on at least 200 of them.
What Information Do They Collect?
Data broker profiles are shockingly comprehensive. A typical profile includes:
- Identity: Full legal name, aliases, nicknames, maiden name
- Location: Current address, past addresses (going back 20+ years in some cases)
- Contact: Phone numbers (including unlisted numbers), email addresses
- Family: Names of relatives, household members, relationships
- Demographics: Age, date of birth, gender, ethnicity estimates
- Financial: Estimated income, net worth, home value, property ownership
- Employment: Current and past employers, job titles
- Education: Schools attended, degrees
- Lifestyle: Interests, hobbies, purchase history, political affiliation
- Legal: Criminal records, lawsuits, bankruptcies (all public record)
Where Does Their Data Come From?
Data brokers piece together your profile from dozens of different sources:
| Source | What's Available |
|---|---|
| Public Records | Property records, voter registrations, court records, DMV records, birth/death records |
| Social Media | Names, photos, employers, interests, connections, check-ins, location data |
| Loyalty Programs | Purchase history, shopping habits, brand preferences |
| Apps & Websites | Browsing behavior, location history, health app data |
| Other Brokers | Brokers regularly buy and trade data between themselves |
| Data Leaks | Information from breached databases is often circulated in the broker ecosystem |
Who Buys Data Broker Information?
Data brokers sell to a wide range of customers:
- Marketers and advertisers — to target ads by demographics, interests, and purchase history
- Employers — for background checks and candidate research
- Landlords — for tenant screening
- Insurance companies — to price premiums based on lifestyle data
- Banks and lenders — for credit decisioning
- Private investigators — to locate individuals
- Law enforcement — data brokers often sell directly to government agencies
- Stalkers and abusers — people-search sites are frequently misused
The dark side: Multiple studies have shown that data broker sites are routinely used by domestic abusers and stalkers to locate their targets. This is one of the most compelling reasons to opt out — not just for privacy, but for safety.
Types of Data Brokers
The industry has several distinct categories:
People-search sites
Sites like Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, and Intelius that let anyone search for a person by name and retrieve their address, phone, relatives, and more. These are the most consumer-visible type.
Marketing data brokers
Companies like Acxiom, Experian Marketing Services, and Oracle Data Cloud that sell consumer profiles to marketers for targeted advertising. These typically don't have consumer-facing search tools but have the most detailed profiles.
Risk mitigation brokers
Companies that sell background check and fraud screening data to employers, landlords, and financial institutions. LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk are major players.
Financial data brokers
Companies that compile financial health data used for credit underwriting and insurance pricing.
How to Opt Out
You have the legal right to request removal from data broker sites, especially in California (CCPA), Virginia (VCDPA), and Colorado (CPA). The general process is:
- Find your profile on the broker's website
- Locate their opt-out or removal form (usually buried in fine print)
- Submit your request (often requires email verification)
- Wait for removal (hours to 30 days depending on the broker)
- Repeat every few months as data gets re-added
The problem: there are 500+ major brokers and the process for each one is different. Manually opting out of all of them is estimated to take 100–200 hours annually, because your data regularly gets re-listed from public records.
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Start Free Trial →The Regulatory Landscape
Data broker regulation in the US is patchwork and still evolving:
- California (CCPA/CPRA): The strongest state-level protections. Requires brokers to honor deletion requests and registers brokers with the state.
- Vermont: First state to require data broker registration, though with limited consumer rights.
- Texas, Oregon, Virginia: New laws with consumer opt-out rights taking effect in 2023–2024.
- Federal: No comprehensive federal data broker law exists yet, though bills have been introduced repeatedly.
At the EU level, GDPR requires companies to have a legitimate legal basis for processing personal data, and data brokers operating in Europe must comply — which has significantly curtailed the industry there compared to the US.