opt out Whitepages

In theory, Whitepages can help you get in touch with acquaintances as long as you know their names and which city they live in. In our always-online society, though, it presents a real privacy concern, especially since anyone who pays for a premium subscription can find your home address.

To make matters worse, this is an opt-out service. In other words, Whitepages will automatically add you to its database by searching through public records, criminal histories, weapon permits, utility bills, and property deeds unless you specifically tell it not to. The good news is that it’s really quite simple to remove your details from Whitepages, and you can do it in just a couple of minutes. Here are the best tools for deleting your personal data automatically:

  • Incogni: An affordable data-removal service that sends, monitors, and follows up on removal requests without any input from you. Extremely easy to setup.
  • DeleteMe: Wipes your data from nearly 40 US data brokers’ databases and offers discounts on multi-user plans. Slowly rolling out internationally.
  • PrivacyBee: A more comprehensive option with a higher price point. Works with over 200 data broker and people-search sites.

Incogni: our favorite data-removal tool

Incogni Incogni was created by Surfshark, a leading VPN company with a strong focus on privacy. Incogni sends takedown requests to American, European, and British data brokers on your behalf, preventing them from hiding behind legal jargon and ensuring your private info remains just that: private.

One of the best things about Incogni is that it not only gets your data removed, it checks back regularly to make sure that it never reappears. Once you’ve set everything up, you don’t even have to check back in; Incogni will chase down brokers automatically and can even escalate complaints if removal requests are denied or ignored.

BEST PERSONAL DATA REMOVAL SOFTWARE:Incogni takes the stress out of scrubbing your data from people-search sites like Whitepages. Better still, you can try it risk-free as Incogni comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

How to delete your data from Whitepages and similar sites

Unfortunately, Whitepages isn’t the only people-search site out there. Even if you delete your Whitepages profile, your data may still be available on PeopleLooker, Intelius, and Spokeo. That’s where Incogni comes in.

Here’s how to delete your data from Whitepages:

  1. Find a tool to take care of the hard work for you. We recommend Incogni, created by leading privacy company, Surfshark.
  2. Create an account and subscribe to a monthly or annual plan.
  3. Incogni will send data removal requests to all data brokers on their list.
  4. Within just a week you will start to receive notifications of data removals being actioned.
  5. Within one month, most data removal requests are complete. Incogni will follow up with those that haven’t complied.

The good news is that Incogi repeats this process as many times as needed, automatically. It also keeps up with any new data brokers on the market. There is nothing left for you to do.

How to opt out of Whitepages manually

Here’s how to opt out of Whitepages manually:

  1. Search for your name on Whitepages (it may help to include your state of residence too)
  2. When you find your page, click the View Details or View Full Report button
  3. Copy the web page’s address from the URL bar at the top of the screen
  4. Open a new tab and visit Whitepage’s opt out page
  5. Paste your profile’s URL into the box and click Next
  6. Verify that the information shown is really yours, then click Remove Me
  7. Provide a reason for your deletion request and hit the Next button
  8. Enter your phone number and click Call now to verify. A code will appear on screen and you’ll have to type this on your phone’s keypad when Whitepages calls you in a moment
  9. Congratulations, you’ve completed the deletion process. Whitepages should now remove your profile in the next day or two

Note: We also highly recommend that you subscribe to an identity theft protection service for additional security.

Why bother opting out of Whitepages?

Whitepages collects an astounding amount of personal information including any other names you’ve used, your current and previous addresses, your phone number, any prior convictions you have, your age, and the names of your close family members (who will, of course, have their own Whitepage entries).

With this data alone, someone could make threatening phone calls, show up at your house, reveal any legal trouble you’ve ever been in, or harass your relatives. It’s also worth mentioning that there are other tools out there designed to scrape even more information about you, and with Whitepages’ help, anyone looking to steal your identity has a solid starting point.

Whitepages data removal: your questions answered

Will Whitepages re-add my data after I’ve removed it?

No, once you’ve submitted a takedown request, Whitepages will not collect any more information about you. However, if you don’t opt out, the service will continuously update your profile with the latest information it can find. There’s really no reason to leave all of this personal information out there for anyone to browse, so we strongly suggest deleting your Whitepages profile as soon as possible.

Can I remove myself from the internet entirely?

At this point, it’s virtually impossible to completely delete your online presence without abandoning social media, Google services, and most popular websites. You can, however, limit the amount of personal data that these sites collect, and reduce the chance of a single data breach compromising multiple accounts. Our guide to deleting your digital footprint is a good place to start, but we’d also suggest looking into Virtual Private Networks and thinking about adopting pro-privacy services like DuckDuckGo, Ghostery, and Brave.

Why does my Whitepages profile have out-of-date information?

There are a couple of reasons why your Whitepages profile might have old or otherwise incorrect info. This site scrapes new data from official records periodically, so recent changes might not show up for several months. It’s also possible that one of the sources Whitepages uses is just incorrect – this can happen if you share a name with someone who’s around the same age, or if somebody made a mistake while filling out a form.

Whitepages isn’t actually able to edit or amend third-party records itself, so if you’d like to rectify any of its errors, you only have two options: remove the entire profile (which is better from a privacy standpoint) or contact your local council to verify your information is up-to-date.

Can I see what information Whitepages has on me without paying?

If you’re not a Whitepages Premium subscriber, you can only see a person’s name, age range, address, landline number, and the names of their relatives. This is true even if you’re the person listed! In other words, paying customers know more about your Whitepages profile than you do! This is yet another reason why it’s a good idea to delete your profile as soon as possible.