Opt-Out Tuesday: New steps to get away from people search sites

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People search sites collect and sell personal information and make it available for anyone to see. Your name, address, phone number and other bits of data are likely scattered across multiple sites.

We launched our Opt-Out Tuesday series last year to provide detailed instructions on removing your information from people search sites. We even compiled each entry into one mega post so you can opt out of multiple sites simultaneously. Go here to check out the roundup.

Many people search sites are owned by or affiliated with similar sites, so when one makes a change, it can affect other sites. This was the case with a recent shakeup by PeopleConnect, which has several people search sites under its umbrella, all of which we’ve covered in Opt-Out Tuesday. Here’s the whole story.

The people connection

If you’ve been keeping up with our Opt-Out Tuesday posts, you may have had difficulty completing the steps on some of the sites. This is because the opt-out process can change at any time without warning from the site itself.

PeopleConnect lists a “fleet” of people search sites that include Intelius, US Search, TruthFinder and Instant Checkmate. Rather than having their own steps to erase your information, they all share the same process now — and we found more sites that follow the same pattern.

But don’t worry! We went back and opted out of every single one of these sites again to get the information you need to do the same.

You have friends and relatives who don’t even know these sites exist. While you’re opting out yourself, why not do the same for them? Just type in their information as you would your own, and follow our steps to completion. More on that is below.