Spokeo is the aggregator most people meet first: search a name, and a profile page with addresses, relatives, and phone numbers appears behind a teaser paywall. The good news is that Spokeo runs one of the more functional opt-out forms in the industry. The less good news is that one opt-out removes one listing — and most people have several.

Opt-out: spokeo.com/optoutTime: ~15 minutesRemoval: ~72 hoursRe-listing: 3–6 months

No account needed. You will need an email address you can check immediately, and the exact URL of every listing you want removed.

Before you start

Use an email alias if your provider offers one. The address you enter is only used for the confirmation link, but it does enter Spokeo's system, and there is a certain irony in handing a data broker a fresh data point while asking it to delete the old ones.

The opt-out, step by step

  1. Find your profile. Search your own name at spokeo.com, or run a search for site:spokeo.com plus your name and town. Open the listing that matches you.
  2. Copy the full profile URL from the address bar. It looks like spokeo.com/Jane-Smith/Texas/Houston/p123456789. The opt-out form wants this exact address, not your name.
  3. Open the opt-out page at spokeo.com/optout. Spokeo does not link it prominently; you go there directly.
  4. Paste the profile URL into the form and enter your email address.
  5. Complete the CAPTCHA and submit. You should see an on-screen confirmation that a verification email has been sent.
  6. Open the email and click the verification link. The request is not filed until you do, and the link expires. If nothing arrives within ten minutes, check spam, then resubmit.
  7. Re-check after seventy-two hours. Search your name again. The specific listing you flagged should be gone from both Spokeo and, a little later, from search-engine caches.

Now do it again

Here is the part the form does not explain: Spokeo holds secondary records under slight variants of you. A middle initial, a maiden name, a previous address — each generates its own profile page, and each profile page is its own opt-out. Search every variant you can think of and repeat the seven steps for each URL you find. Two or three passes is normal.

If the form fails

When the form errors or a listing stubbornly survives, email privacy@spokeo.com with the profile URL and a one-line request citing the California Consumer Privacy Act (section 1798.105) if you are in the US, or UK GDPR Article 17 if you are in the UK. Spokeo's privacy desk answers these; the statutory citations move you out of the general queue.

One opt-out removes one listing. The re-listing job that quietly reverses it runs on a schedule of its own.

The re-listing cycle

Spokeo rebuilds its database from source feeds on a rolling basis. In our experience a fresh profile — usually under a name variant — reappears within three to six months of a successful opt-out. The removal you filed stays removed; the new record is technically a different listing, which is how the industry keeps the practice defensible. Set a quarterly reminder to re-run the search, or accept that this is now a recurring chore.

Fifteen minutes for one broker is fine. Fifteen minutes for each of 150-odd brokers, four times a year, is a part-time job. Nox Æterna files the lot — Spokeo included — for one £89 payment, chases the confirmations, and re-checks so you do not have to.