How to Opt Out of TruePeopleSearch.com

TruePeopleSearch.com is one of the hundreds of data broker sites across the internet that gather, aggregate, and profit off people’s publicly available personal information. In short, they contribute to the growing identity-theft problem. So if you want to limit where your personal information appears online, the wise thing to do is to opt out of TruePeopleSearch.com.

We found two easy ways to opt out. The first was by manually going through TruePeopleSearch.com’s opt-out process. The second was by signing up for Incogni, a data removal service that uses automation to quickly and conveniently remove users’ information from multiple data broker sites. Both worked.

We didn’t have to shell out money with the former, but it took some effort. With Incogni, we had to pay a small monthly fee, but it worked quicker. We’ll talk about both methods in this guide, but whichever you choose, you must act now and opt out of TruePeopleSearch.com.

FYI: There are two TruePeopleSearch websites — one has the .io domain suffix while the other has .com. TruePeopleSearch.io doesn’t seem to be a legitimate people search site. We never got any successful searches but were redirected to a different data broker site instead. This guide is all about opting out of the latter — TruePeopleSearch.com.

What Is TruePeopleSearch.com?

Why the sense of urgency in opting out? Because TruePeopleSearch.com is scary good. Although it’s a free people search service, it’s able to provide highly accurate and detailed information. We always try to search our names before opting out, and when we did so with TruePeopleSearch.com, all our profiles included the property details of our current residences. Here’s an example, with the sensitive information blocked out:

At this point, we’re no longer only worried about identity theft; we’re worried about home security, too. There’s even a satellite view of the address somewhere on the page. Scrolling further down, the profile says that the only known relative is a senior female aged 74 years old. When you put together those details and all others in the profile, it paints a picture of a working age male possibly living with his senior parent.

As security experts, those are the types of information we wouldn’t want to be publicly available — let alone easily searchable on the internet. So let’s figure out how to opt out of TruePeopleSearch.com.

>> Also See: How to Opt Out of LexisNexis

Opting Out of TruePeopleSearch.com

Let’s start with the free, more straightforward method, which is to opt out using TruePeopleSearch’s website itself. Unlike when we opted out of PeopleLooker, however, we didn’t find TruePeopleSearch’s data removal page right away. The “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link is at the very bottom of the homepage — and the homepage only. It’s not on any of the other TruePeopleSearch.com pages we visited, which we found to be weird.

Once you’re there, you have to click another link to access the removal tool, and then you can begin the opt-out process.

1. Enter your email address, verify you are human, and agree to the removal terms. It starts off pretty easy, so just make sure you enter the correct email address — one you can access right away — because you’d need to verify your removal request via email a few steps down.

2. Find your records. On the next page, enter your full name into the search bar and hit the search icon. TruePeopleSearch.com will show all profiles that might be yours. You might see multiple results, in which case, you should check them each and note the ones with data that matches yours. It doesn’t have to be 100-percent accurate — if a profile under your name has at least one piece of correct information, it’s worth requesting its removal.

You will have to opt each profile out one by one, so start with the one with the most accurate information. Click the “View Details” button next to each profile to see what they contain.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the profile page and click “Remove This Record.” Avoid clicking the panes with sponsored ads. While they make it seem like they have more information about you, those ads will simply send you off to a different people search website. Stay on TruePeopleSearch.com.

4. Check your email for the confirmation. We found ours in the spam folder, but don’t worry if you don’t receive it right away. You have 24 hours to confirm the request by clicking on the email link before it expires.

5. Wait up to 72 hours. Once confirmed, TruePeopleSearch.com will remove your profile within 72 hours. Use the website’s search function to check if the profile has already been removed. And keep in mind, TruePeopleSearch will take down only the profile you specifically requested to opt out. If you found multiple records containing your personal information, go back to step one and repeat the process.

Opting Out of TruePeopleSearch.com Using Data Removal Services

As we mentioned earlier, there is another way to opt out of TruePeopleSearch.com, and that is by using a data removal service. Now, it’s not exactly as straightforward as TruePeopleSearch.com’s opt-out process. You’ll need to:

1. Choose a data removal service. We recommend either Incogni, Kanary, or Optery — our favorite data removal services. Incogni is our top pick in particular because it works fast to remove records from data brokers. It managed to take down 100 records and send 29 other requests in just one week.
2. Buy a subscription. Data removal services aren’t free, so you’ll need either a monthly or yearly subscription. Incogni costs at least $7.49 per month if you pay annually.
3. Enter your personal information. To know which records and profiles to request removal for, your data removal service needs to get to know you. We even had to digitally sign an authorization form when we signed up for Incogni, but all in all, setting it up took us about 10 minutes.
4. Wait for the results. Data removal isn’t instant. It took Incogni a couple of weeks to remove our data from over 100 websites, and it continued searching beyond that. Even after a month of using Incogni, we still received notifications about new profiles of us that popped up.

That’s the thing about data removal services, though: You’re not just paying them to opt you out of TruePeopleSearch.com, but out of as many people search sites they can find that have your records. So setting up a data removal service for about 10 minutes is all you need to do to opt out of hundreds of data broker sites. For reference, manually opting out of TruePeopleSearch.com took us five minutes per profile. So yes, we strongly believe that data removal services are worth it.

Why Opt Out of TruePeopleSearch.com?

Opting out of TruePeopleSearch.com and other data broker sites is a lot of work, but let’s talk about a few reasons why it’s worth doing.

• To avoid identity theft: As experts on the field, the best advice we can give you to reduce your chances of falling victim to identity theft is to limit the exposure of your personal information online. Data broker sites hurt that effort since they compile people’s information in one easily accessible place.
• To get away from scammers: Scammers also benefit from the records published by data broker sites, especially those as detailed as TruePeopleSearch.com. The most successful online scams involve social engineering and emotional manipulation, and having access to details like names of your relatives and your address gives scammers an advantage.
• To have better control of your privacy: Privacy has unfortunately become a rare commodity in this day and age. Anyone from stalkers to potential dating partners and even employers can use people search sites to learn more about you. And because TruePeopleSearch.com publishes all public information it can find about anyone, the people using it can see details they don’t need to know.
• For overall better personal safety: In relation to that, having your address and property details published for anyone to see is a real safety threat. For your physical safety, opting out of TruePeopleSearch.com is the smart thing to do.

Recap

Fortunately, TruePeopleSearch.com made it easy to opt out. Whether you’re doing the manual method or using a data removal service, it shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes of your time to take down your records. That’s not always the case. When we tried opting out of Spokeo — another well-known free data brokerage service — we had to wait days and exchange emails with their support team to remove our data from their search results.

Our experience opting out of numerous people search sites has taught us one thing: That opting out of just one site isn’t enough. Despite having our records removed from over a dozen data broker sites, we still see bits and pieces of our personal information when we Google ourselves. That’s why we recommend using a data removal service. Explore the benefits in our data removal service guide and decide for yourself if you need one.