Data Broker
Also known as: people-search site, data aggregator, information broker
A company that legally collects, packages, and sells your personal information — name, address, phone, age, family members — to advertisers, lenders, and sometimes scammers.
Data brokers are the invisible infrastructure of the online ad and identity-fraud economy. They collect information about you from public records (court filings, property deeds, voter rolls), online tracking (cookies, browsing), commercial purchases (loyalty cards, app sign-ups), and social media. They package the data into profiles that include your home address, phone numbers, email addresses, age, employment, and family members.
The profiles are sold to advertisers, lenders, insurance companies, recruiters — and through people-search sites like Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, MyLife, and dozens more, they are available to anyone with $20 and a curiosity to look you up. That same data is exactly what identity thieves and stalkers use to build targeted attacks.
In the US and EU, you have a legal right to opt out of most data broker listings. Services like DeleteMe and Incogni automate the removal process across hundreds of brokers continuously. Without them, manual removal takes 40+ hours and brokers re-add your data within months.