Intelius is one of the oldest and most powerful people search websites. Follow these steps on how to opt-out of Intelius.com.
So you want to remove yourself from Intelius. When it comes to people search websites, there are a few major players. Reviewers consider Intelius one of the “best” people search websites among others such as Whitepages and Spokeo. This is due to the size of its databases, the number of records it contains and the design of its data visualizations of all of that data.
Intelius can be a great tool if you are one of the millions of people who use the service to find the information they are looking for. But, if you happen to have a history that you want to keep private or simply prefer to live a private life, it can be a headache.
In total, the company’s databases contain more than 20 billion records.
Intelius, which is based in Seattle, Washington, under the parent company People Connect Inc., was founded back in 2003. Over the years, it has expanded its brand through purchases of other services, including Classmates.com, PublicRecords, Peoplelookup and iSearch.
The service is not unlike other people search websites that rely on public records to build these mega databases of personal information. They gather that information without the consent of the people whose data is featured. Unfortunately, this is entirely legal, as those records are public after all.
Intelius boasts several different services, including background checks, contact information, addresses, criminal records, phone numbers, social media, photos and assets in their database.
Controversy around Intelius
In the early days of Intelius, the company was accused of grabbing cellphone numbers without consent and including them in their database. The company received a mountain of negative media attention for this and decided to discontinue the practice.
The company was later accused of making it incredibly difficult to opt-out of the service for those who wanted to delete their information. It was also accused of making it difficult for those who paid for access to the databases to stop their credit cards from being charged.
The company purchased classmates.com for $30 million in 2015. That acquisition added a massive number of records, social media account and photos to its database.
Intelius offers an unlimited number of searches for $19.95 a month. That makes it one of the more affordable, high-quality people search websites.
How to delete yourself from Intelius.com
Chances are, if you are reading this, you are one of the millions of people in that database and now want to find out how to remove yourself from Intelius.
The good news is, it’s entirely possible and not very difficult to do. But there are dozens of other people search websites out there with more or less the same information on you.
To remove yourself from all of them, you will have to do so manually. That means going through each service one by one and later checking back with all of them to ensure you don’t somehow get added again…
So now you know a bit about Intelius and what makes it one of the largest and strongest people search websites out there. Now let’s talk about how to remove yourself.
1. The first step should be to visit Intelius.com and find their opt-out page (here for your convenience.)
2. Next, you will need to enter your full name, state and email address to continue.
3. Search the results and locate your name from the list. Click “Remove this record.”
4. Intelius will send an email to your account to verify the request.
5. Find the opt-out email and click the link to confirm.
6. At this point, you should wait up to 72 hours to check back and confirm your records have been deleted from Intelius.
If after 72 hours a search of your name still shows up in the database, email [email protected] with your confirmation number from your opt-out request.
The next steps after removing yourself from Intelius
If we were willing to take the time to opt out of Intelius, it’s likely you want to really clean up your digital footprint. If so, follow these steps on how to completely remove yourself from people search websites.
Another pesky problem for privacy is data broker websites that buy and sell your personal information. If you wish to remove yourself from those services as well, follow these steps to remove yourself from data broker sites.
If you want to make things easy, Privacy Bee can handle these opt-outs for you via its premium service.
