How to remove yourself from Spokeo

Spokeo's opt-out works on one profile URL at a time, so the first job is finding them. Go to spokeo.com and search your full name with your state. Spokeo shows a list of people with matching names, each with an age range, a city and some relatives' names. Open each one that matches you and copy the address from your browser's address bar.

A Spokeo profile URL looks like this, with your name, city, state and a number on the end:

• https://www.spokeo.com/Jane-Smith/Houston/TX/p12345678

Spokeo's own opt-out page also accepts the longer address you see if you click through to a purchase page, which has purchase?q= in it. Either form works. Do not buy a report to find your listing; the free search results show enough to match yourself.

Search more than once. Try your maiden name, a nickname, your name with and without a middle initial, and each state you have lived in during the last ten years or so. Spokeo itself warns that you may have several listings and that each one must be opted out individually. Duplicates are normal: a new phone number or an old address with a different spelling is often enough to create a second profile.

1. Open spokeo.com/optout. It is also linked from the Privacy link in Spokeo's footer.
2. Paste one profile URL into the URL box.
3. Enter an email address. Spokeo uses it to send a confirmation link, and the request does not go through until you click it.
4. Complete the captcha if one appears and press Opt Out.
5. Open the email from Spokeo and click the confirmation link.
6. Repeat for the next URL on your list.

Spokeo's page says that, depending on the request and the amount of data, an opt-out should be processed in 24 to 48 hours. In our reading of the page, there is no phone verification step and no request for ID.

After a couple of days, open your old profile URL again and repeat your name search. The listing should be gone from Spokeo. A search engine may still show the old page title and snippet for a while, because search results are cached separately from the site.

If Google keeps showing a result that now leads to a missing page, its Remove outdated content tool lets you ask for the stale result to be refreshed. Google's Results about you page goes further: it looks for search results that show your phone number, home address or email and lets you request their removal, wherever they are hosted.

Spokeo is open about the next part. Its opt-out page says it keeps receiving new and updated records from public sources, so your information may reappear without notice, and it asks you to check regularly for new listings. A move, a new phone number or a property purchase can all create a fresh profile. Put a reminder in your calendar for three or four months from now.

• It does not remove the source records. Spokeo says plainly that opting out does not remove the data from its original source, such as a county property record, and that your information may still appear on other websites.
• It does not cover other people-search sites. Whitepages, BeenVerified, the PeopleConnect brands and TruePeopleSearch all need their own requests. See the guides linked below, or our full data broker removal guide for the order to work in.
• It does not change your account, if you have one. Data you gave Spokeo as a customer is separate from the public-records listing. Spokeo's privacy policy covers requests about account data.

If you live in California, the state's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) lets you send one free deletion request to the data brokers registered with the state, which the state says number over 600. Since August 1, 2026, registered brokers have had to check DROP at least once every 45 days and start processing requests, and the state says it can take up to 90 days for a status to update. Use DROP and still do the Spokeo opt-out directly: the direct route is faster, and DROP reaches the long tail of brokers you would never find by hand.

One Spokeo opt-out takes five minutes. The work is in finding the duplicates, repeating it across a dozen other sites, and coming back when listings reappear. A removal service does that loop for you. It cannot remove public records at the source either, and it is worth trying the free route first so you know what you are paying to avoid.

We compare Optery with DeleteMe, Incogni and others in data removal services compared.