How to opt out of PeopleFinders

PeopleFinders is a people-search site run by PeopleFinders, LLC, which is listed in the California Data Broker Registry and also operates findaneighborhood.com. Its help centre says its primary source is public records from courts and government agencies at federal, state and local level, including birth, criminal and property records. It also collects, directly or through third-party data collectors, information from published sources such as phone directories, news items and social media profiles, and details shared during everyday activities such as online shopping accounts, magazine subscriptions, sweepstakes entries, voter registrations and professional licences.

That matters for the opt-out. PeopleFinders says it cannot change inaccuracies in the records it receives, and that correcting a public record means going to the original source, such as a county courthouse or licensing agency. What its form does is stop a record being shown on its site.

The form at peoplefinders.com/opt-out has two parts. In the first you enter your name and email address, say whether you are the subject of the request or an agent authorised to act for them, tick a certification, and complete a security check. PeopleFinders then emails a link to what it calls the Record Suppression Form.

The second part asks for first name, last name, street address, city and state, which are required, and middle name, email, phone and date of birth, which are optional. PeopleFinders asks you to leave out special characters such as periods and hyphens, giving the example that James Brown, Jr. should enter "Brown Jr" as the last name. It says the details should match the record you want taken down, that omitting or inaccurate information will hinder the process, and that if the information is incomplete it may be unable to locate all records connected to you. The page states that information entered here is used only to process the request. You cannot edit the form after you submit it.

You do not need a PeopleFinders account, and the page does not ask for identity documents. The privacy notice states that opt-out requests do not require verification. An authorised agent can submit the form instead of you; the agent's email address receives the link, confirmation goes to both addresses, and PeopleFinders says it may ask the agent for a signed authorisation from you.

This guide describes PeopleFinders' opt-out page, privacy notice and help centre as published on 16 October 2026. Companies change their forms and policies, so check the page itself if something looks different. UltoPulto is pre-launch and has not yet processed live requests through PeopleFinders' form; the steps below are the ones PeopleFinders publishes.

1. 1.Search for your name on PeopleFinders and note how your record appears: the spelling of your name, the address and the city. The form works by matching these details.
2. 2.Open peoplefinders.com/opt-out and click Next. Enter your name and an email address you can read today, choose "The subject of the request", tick the certification and complete the security check. Click Send Request.
3. 3.Open the email from PeopleFinders and click the link. It may take a while to arrive. The link expires after 24 hours; if you miss it, request a new one.
4. 4.Fill in the Record Suppression Form so it matches the record: first and last name, street address, city and state, plus the optional fields if you are willing to give them. Leave out periods and hyphens.
5. 5.Review the form, tick the certification and click Submit. You will see a confirmation page and receive a confirmation email.
6. 6.Write down the date and keep the confirmation email. PeopleFinders says to allow 3 days, so search for your name again after that.

If you would rather not use the form, PeopleFinders' privacy notice gives a phone number for privacy requests, (877) 551-9688. Its help centre, updated on 13 October 2026, says it does not process privacy requests received by email, so a written request to its customer care address is not a route it recognises.

PeopleFinders frames the form as an opt-out from the sale of personal information under state privacy laws such as California's. It states that the publicly available information in its products is generally not covered by those laws, and that it applies opt-out requests to that information "as a courtesy". The request stops the record being displayed on its site. It does not, in PeopleFinders' words, remove the data from its original source, so the same details may still appear on other websites.

PeopleFinders publishes request figures in its state supplemental notice. For 2025 it reports 773,547 opt-out requests, of which it complied in whole with 228,704 and denied 544,843, with an average reply time of under a day. It says denials include cases where the person was not a covered consumer under an applicable state privacy law and cases where it could not locate matching records. That is one reason to fill in the form carefully: a request that does not match a record may be counted as a denial rather than acted on. If you believe a decision was wrong, the privacy notice says you can appeal through its Appeal Form or by phone.

The opt-out form does not change cookies or advertising. PeopleFinders says that to opt out of sharing through its tracking technologies you must adjust its cookie settings or send a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser, and that it does not honour Do Not Track signals.

PeopleFinders says it regularly receives new public records, so your information may appear in its products again after an opt-out, and it recommends refreshing your request periodically. It also notes that new data linked to a record it could not identify from your first request may reappear. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gives the same picture for people-search sites in general: opting out does not delete anything from public records, your details can still appear in reports about relatives, neighbours or associates, and the FTC suggests checking sites periodically and submitting a new opt-out for anything new.

California residents have a second route. The state's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) is free and sends one deletion request to every registered data broker, including PeopleFinders. You file with your name, date of birth and ZIP code. Brokers have been required to process requests since 1 August 2026, a status can take up to 90 days to appear, and brokers must re-check for new matching data at least every 45 days. The state's guidance says brokers are not required to delete publicly available data, data covered by a legal exemption, or data you gave a business directly, so a DROP request complements the PeopleFinders opt-out rather than replacing it. The California deletion guide explains the process, and the data broker checklist lists the other sites that commonly carry the same details.