Carelessly sharing personal information online leaves you vulnerable to data brokers (companies that collect and sell your personal data, which goes from your browsing habits to your shopping history).
These organizations pull data from search engines, social media, public records, and even free apps on your phone to build detailed profiles about you.
The result?
A thorough digital dossier about your preferences that gets sold to advertisers, insurance companies, and pretty much anyone willing to pay.
There are four types of data brokers: marketing, financial, people search, and health information. Since they operate in so many fields, the consequences of leaked information can be significant.
While data brokers aren’t necessarily evil, they’re certainly a threat to your privacy.
The good news?
You can fight back.
Learning how these companies collect your data is the first step. Plus, getting it removed is easier than you’d think with the right tools.
Before we get into how data brokers collect your info, here’s how to tell if they already have you in their systems:
If this sounds familiar, your data’s already out there.
So, let’s look at how it got there in the first place.
Every time you search for something online, the search engine stores your search history. Google is particularly notorious for this.
This lets companies personalize ads based on your searches, creating a loop where what you search influences what you see, which then influences what you search next.
Your search history builds a psychological profile that reveals everything from your health concerns to your political views.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Switch to a private search engine like DuckDuckGo. It doesn’t track your search history, which means significantly less data about you is floating around out there.
Cookies are small text files that track what you do when you visit a website.
The real issue is with third-party cookies, which are tracking tools that work across multiple sites.
Ever browse for a product once and then see ads for it everywhere? That’s data brokers following your trail through these cookies.
Here’s something that might surprise you: according to a 2018 University of Oxford study that analyzed nearly 1 million Android apps, 90.4% of apps included at least one third-party tracker.
The biggest culprit? Google, which appeared in 88% of the apps studied.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Only accept necessary cookies when you visit a site. Better yet, use a privacy-focused browser and browse in private mode whenever possible.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
With free apps, you’re paying with your data instead of your money.
This usually happens without you noticing. All it takes is tapping ‘allow’ when an app asks for permission to access your photos, location, or files, and these apps start collecting data bit by bit, such as GPS locations, shopping habits, and contact details.
When data brokers combine all these fragments, they get a complete picture of who you are and what you do.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Before downloading an app, check what data it collects on its Google Play or App Store page. Once installed, go into your phone settings and disable any permissions the app doesn’t actually need – especially location tracking.
Your Internet Service Provider can legally collect your browsing data and sell it to data brokers. Everything from your search history to how many hours you spend gaming online.
The 2017 repeal of broadband privacy rules made this completely legal, so ISPs can monetize your data without asking for your permission first.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Use a VPN to encrypt your internet traffic and hide it from your ISP. Just avoid free VPNs, as they usually sell your data just like free apps do.
Data brokers use scraping bots to copy your public profile information like name, location, relationship status, and phone number.
While each individual piece might seem harmless by itself, when brokers combine details from multiple sources, they can piece together a surprisingly complete picture of who you are.
Your LinkedIn work history plus your Facebook check-ins plus your Instagram posts? That’s basically a full biography.
Facebook has been caught up in multiple data scandals, with the FTC hitting it with a $5 billion penalty back in 2019 for privacy violations.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Share less on social media. Check your privacy settings regularly and limit what the public can see. Better yet, think about which platforms you actually need in your life and disable anything that you don’t use.
Credit card companies see your data as an asset and sell it to data brokers.
Your purchase history is particularly valuable because it reveals spending habits, lifestyle choices, and how much money you have.
They’re not giving out your actual bank details, but they share enough information for data brokers to analyze your shopping patterns and build a detailed consumer profile.
🛡 How to protect yourself: You can’t exactly stop using credit cards, but you can add a layer of protection by using payment apps like Privacy, PayPal, or Venmo that create separation between your purchases and your personal identity.
Both online stores and physical shops keep your data after you make a purchase. Loyalty programs especially require lots of personal information, which often gets sold to data brokers.
With this data, brokers can connect your in-store purchases with your online behavior to create a complete picture of your shopping life.
🛡 How to protect yourself: You can’t stop buying things, but you can limit the damage by sticking to a few trusted retailers instead of spreading your data everywhere. And when you’re shopping in person, skip giving out your email or phone number unless it’s actually required for the purchase.
The government keeps records on you from the moment you’re born. This data is openly available in online databases (that’s why they’re called ‘public’ records.
We’re talking about property records, court filings, marriage licenses, voter registrations, professional licenses – all sitting there for anyone to access.
Data brokers scrape these databases constantly. Even if they delete your information once, there’s nothing stopping them from just grabbing it again later.
According to a 2025 investigation by CalMatters and The Markup, 35 data brokers deliberately hide their opt-out pages from Google, making manual removal nearly impossible.
🛡 How to protect yourself: Manual opt-outs don’t work well with public records because the data just comes back. This is where automated removal services really shine since they continuously monitor and re-remove your information as it pops up again.
When companies get hacked, data brokers are often first in line to grab that leaked information.
When millions of records leak online, data brokers scoop them up and add them to their existing databases. The 2024 National Public Data breach exposed 2.9 billion records, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers spanning three decades.
This leaked data doesn’t just disappear. It gets:
So your breached data becomes permanent ammunition in their databases, making removal even more important.
Prevention is your best defense against data brokers.
Mix up your approach: use a secure browser with a VPN, be careful what you share on social media, and think twice before giving apps permissions.
But here’s the reality: manually opting out is extremely time-consuming. You’d need to contact hundreds of individual brokers, each with their own opt-out process, and many of them require you to hand over MORE personal data just to request removal.
Even worse, those 35 data brokers that hide their opt-out pages from search engines? Good luck finding them without insider knowledge.
| Feature | Manual DIY | Automated service |
|---|---|---|
| Time required | Hundreds of hours | 5 minutes setup |
| Brokers covered | Limited (you find them yourself) | Hundreds of sites |
| Ongoing monitoring | You must repeat every 3-6 months | Automatic quarterly/monthly scans |
| Proof of removal | None | Before-and-after screenshots |
| Success rate | Varies widely | 75%+ on custom removals |
| Hidden broker access | You won't find them | Patented search technology finds them |
This is where a data removal service like Optery comes in handy.
Instead of spending hundreds of hours manually opting out, data removal services handle everything through a mix of AI automation and actual human privacy agents who double-check the work.
For us, Optery is one of the best options on the market right now. Here’s what makes it stand out:
☂️ Massive coverage: Optery covers over 1,200 data broker sites. Most competitors only handle 180-200 brokers, which barely scratches the surface.
🔎 Patented search technology: Optery’s search methods find and remove more of your exposed information than any other service out there.
🧾 Actual proof: Unlike competitors who just send you reports you have to trust, Optery gives you before-and-after screenshots. You can literally see your profiles being removed with your own eyes.
📊 Continuous monitoring: Optery runs monthly or quarterly scans to catch these re-listings and remove them automatically.
⚖️ No legal paperwork: Unlike services like Incogni that need power of attorney, Optery works without it (though giving it does make the process more efficient).
🧹 Search engine cleanup: After removing your info from data brokers, Optery also submits removal requests to Google and Bing so outdated links don’t stick around.
The platform starts at $3.25 per month if you pay annually, and there’s even a free plan that gives you quarterly reports and DIY instructions if you want to try manual removal first.
All paid plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee and discounts up to 30% for families and groups like veterans, teachers, and identity-theft victims.
Optery is a multiple-award-winning personal data removal service with a massive index of over 600 data brokers and people search sites.
The service lets you wipe out your digital footprint by asking these companies to remove your information through automatic scans and removals.
The web app also sports comprehensive reports and visual confirmation of profile removals with links and screenshots, so you can rest easy knowing your personal data is kept private.
The best part is that there’s a free plan that you can use. Although the company won’t remove the data from you, you get everything you need to manually take control of your personal data.
Meanwhile, those who go for a paid plan can get discounts of up to 30%.
Data brokers collect your information from everywhere – search engines, free apps, social media, public records, and dozens of other sources – to build detailed profiles that get sold without asking you first.
Manual opt-outs are technically possible, but with hundreds of hours required and dozens of brokers hiding their opt-out pages, it’s not realistic for most people.
A data removal service like Optery is the most practical solution.
With coverage of over 1,200 data broker sites, patented search technology, and actual screenshots proving removal, it handles what would otherwise be impossible to do yourself.
The platform has a free plan if you want to try the DIY route with some guidance, or paid plans starting at $3.25 per month with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Your data’s already out there. The question is whether you’re going to let it stay there.
Data brokers typically have your name, current and past addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, age, marital status, property records, shopping history, browsing habits, and social media activity. Some even have estimates of your income, political views, and detailed shopping preferences.
Yes, they’re legal in the U.S. But things are changing. The CFPB proposed new rules in December 2024 to limit what data brokers can do (though the rule was later withdrawn in May 2025). Still, state laws like California’s CCPA and international laws like GDPR give you more control over your data.
The whole industry is worth over $200 billion a year. Individual records sell for pennies to a few dollars each, but when you add up your complete profile across multiple brokers, you could be worth $50-$100 or more to advertisers.
It depends. You can sue if they violate specific laws like FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), GDPR, or CCPA. But most of what data brokers do is currently legal under federal law. State laws are starting to give people more options, though.
If you do it manually, expect 7-30 days per broker, and you’d need to do this with hundreds of sites. With automated services, the initial scan finishes in 1-2 days, with most removals done within 30-60 days. The continuous monitoring keeps your data from coming back.
After a successful opt-out, your profile should be gone from that specific broker’s database. But data brokers regularly scrape public records and other sources again, so your info can reappear within 3-6 months. That’s why continuous monitoring matters for long-term protection.
Share your thoughts, ask questions, and connect with other users. Your feedback helps our community make better decisions.
©2012-2025 Best Reviews, a clovio brand –
All rights
reserved
