What are people-search sites, and where do they get my information?

A people-search site is a data broker with a search box. Type a name, get a person: current and past addresses, age, phone numbers, relatives, sometimes property records and court filings. Some charge for the full report; nearly all show enough for free to be useful to a stranger.

Where the data comes from

Almost none of it is stolen. That’s what makes it hard to stop.

• Public records — property deeds, voter files, court filings, business registrations, marriage and divorce records
• Credit header data — the identifying top slice of a credit file (name, addresses, phone), which sits outside most of the protection the credit report itself gets
• Commercial data — loyalty cards, warranty registrations, magazine subscriptions, change-of- address filings
• Each other — brokers buy and resell one another’s databases constantly, which is why the same wrong middle initial follows you across a dozen sites

Why opting out doesn’t end it

You’re removing a record, not the supply. The sources that produced it are still producing. See are removals permanent?.

Upstream vs. people-search

Bighound’s registry marks two kinds:

• People-search — the consumer-facing sites you can search yourself
• Upstream aggregators — the wholesalers that feed them. Fewer people have heard of them, and removing yourself from one can reduce what flows downstream to many.

Both are worth doing; upstream tends to be higher leverage and slower.