A data broker is a company that collects personal information about people it has no direct relationship with and sells, licenses or publishes it, often through people-search websites.
Data brokers compile names, addresses, phone numbers, relatives, ages, property and court records and online activity from public records, commercial sources and other brokers. People-search sites are the most visible type, and their profile pages often rank in search results for a person's name.
Regulation varies. In the EU and UK, brokers are subject to the GDPR, including the right to erasure. The US has no general federal law; several states, including California, Vermont, Texas and Oregon, require brokers to register, and California's Delete Act lets residents send a single deletion request to every registered broker through the state's DROP platform, which brokers have had to process since 1 August 2026.
In practice
Opt-outs are usually the first step, site by site, but listings tend to reappear when brokers refresh their data, so they need checking over time. Removing a broker profile does not remove its search result straight away; once the page is gone, an outdated-content request clears it. Data brokers are a common source of the details used in doxxing, so removal is also a safety measure.
Related removals
- Personal info on Google — $1,500 per URL, pay on success
- Personal reputation repair — Priced per removal, from $350, pay on success
Related terms
- CCPA / CPRA — The CCPA is California's consumer privacy law, giving California residents rights over their personal information, including the right to ask covered businesses to delete it.
- GDPR Article 17 — GDPR Article 17 is the EU right to erasure: people can require an organisation to delete their personal data when a ground listed in the law applies and no exception overrides it.
- Doxxing — Doxxing is publishing someone's private personal information — such as a home address, phone number or ID details — to expose, harass or endanger them.
- SERP de-indexing — SERP de-indexing is the removal of a specific URL from search engine results pages, so it stops appearing in searches even though the page itself may still exist.
- Outdated content removal — Outdated content removal is asking a search engine to update or drop a result whose page has already been deleted or changed, so the old title and snippet stop appearing.