Lena OrtizWe sell people search. So it is fair to be suspicious of a guide from us about getting out of it - and fair to expect that guide to start with our own front door rather than end with it.
Here is the honest version, including the parts that are inconvenient for us: removal works, it is slower and more repetitive than most articles admit, and no one can make it permanent.
Removing yourself from DeepSearch
Use Remove my info. It is free and does not require a DeepSearch account. Choose the request that matches the information you want removed:
- Search results: provide your name and an email address you control, then enter the code sent to that address. A successful verified request withholds the matched provider record and its identifiers from DeepSearch results.
- A public page: submit the phone number, exact DeepSearch page URL, or person's name in the page-removal form. A precise number or URL can normally be suppressed automatically; a name may need manual matching. You can remove the page entirely or keep the link while excluding it from search indexing.
- Your customer account: use Delete account to delete the account and associated product data. This is separate from public-page and search-result removal.
For a correction, a failed request, or an appeal, contact support@deepsearch.app with the affected URL and the minimum details needed to check it. The DeepSearch removal guide explains the scopes and verification steps.
If you live in California, start with DROP
California residents now have something no one else does: one request that reaches every registered data broker at once, backed by law rather than goodwill.
The Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) was created by the Delete Act (SB 362) and run by the California Privacy Protection Agency. You submit a single deletion request at consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov and active registered brokers must process it within the mechanism's scope. Legally exempt information may remain.
The timing matters, and it is why this is worth doing now rather than last year:
- DROP opened to consumers on 1 January 2026
- Since 1 August 2026, data brokers must check DROP at least once every 45 days. They have up to 45 days after downloading a request to process it and report the outcome, so a consumer may wait up to 90 days for an initial status update
Before August, a request sat in a queue waiting for an obligation that had not started. It has started.
What to expect: you must be a California resident, and you verify your identity through the California Identity Gateway or Login.gov before the request goes out. It is free.
The real limit is the word registered. DROP reaches brokers on California's data broker registry. A site that has never registered is not reached by your request, which is exactly the kind of site least likely to honour a manual opt-out either. Use DROP for the bulk of the work, then handle stragglers by hand.
If you do not live in California, DROP is not available to you. The manual loop below is the route.
The manual loop, everywhere else
The available rights depend on the data, the business, and your jurisdiction. The FTC describes free, site-by-site opt-outs as a practical route. Follow each site's current process:
- Find your listing first. Search your name, then your name with a city you have lived in, then your phone number and email. You cannot request removal of a record you cannot point at, and most sites require the exact URL.
- Find the opt-out page. It is almost always in the footer, under Privacy, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, or Opt out. If the footer has nothing, check the privacy policy - the mechanism is usually described there even when it is not linked prominently.
- Submit the listing URL, not just your name. Name-only requests are the ones that quietly fail, because the site cannot tell which of six people you are.
- Confirm by email. Most send a verification link, and the request does nothing until you click it. Check spam.
- Write down what you did. Site, date, listing URL, confirmation. You will need this in three months, and by then you will not remember.
Give it a few weeks. Some sites act in days, some take the better part of a month, and a few need a second request before anything happens.
Never pay a site to remove a listing it published for free. A removal fee is a business model, not a process, and paying it marks you as someone who will pay again.
What opting out actually achieves
This is the part most guides skip, and it is the part that determines whether you are satisfied a year from now.
Removal is partial by design. As the FTC sets out, these sites will let you opt out of some categories, such as an address or phone number, while continuing to publish others.
You still appear inside other people's records. Your name can remain in the listings of relatives, former neighbours, and associates, because it is their record, not yours. Opting out does not reach into it.
It can undo itself. These sites rebuild from public records and commercial feeds on a schedule. When the underlying record changes - you move, register a vehicle, update a licence, buy property - a fresh entry can be created that your old opt-out has no relationship to. Use the reappearance monitoring workflow to distinguish a restored record from a new identity cluster, relative's report, or stale search result.
Reappearance is not a sign the opt-out failed. It is the system behaving normally.
So the honest framing is not delete yourself from the internet. It is reduce your exposure and keep it reduced, which is a maintenance task rather than a project with an end.
Cut the supply, not just the listings
Opting out treats the symptom. A smaller amount of work upstream lasts longer:
- Public records are the raw material - property, voter, court, licensing, business filings. Some jurisdictions allow suppression of a home address for specific reasons, such as documented safety concerns. Ask the office that holds the record what it offers; the answer varies enormously by state and by record type.
- Search engines are a separate step. Removing a listing from a site does not clear it from search results immediately, and the cached copy can outlive the page. Use the search-result removal workflow to choose between a live-content privacy request and an outdated-result refresh.
- Old accounts leak. Dormant profiles and forgotten forum posts are frequently the origin of a "current" detail. Closing them removes a source that would otherwise keep feeding.
Are the paid removal services worth it?
They do what is described above, on a schedule, across dozens of sites. That is genuinely valuable if the alternative is that you do it once and never again - and doing it once and never again is what most people actually do.
What they cannot do is exceed your own authority. They submit the same public opt-out forms with the same standing you have. Any service promising permanent or total removal is overselling; nothing on this page is permanent.
Two things to check before paying: whether the service itself sells data, and whether it will hand you a record of the requests it has made on your behalf. A service that will not show you its work is asking for a lot of trust. Compare the free official routes first in the data-broker opt-out directory.
A cadence that works
Once, properly: DROP if you are eligible, then the sites where you actually appear, then the upstream sources. After that, re-search your own name once a quarter and clear whatever has come back. The time needed depends on how many records you find and how the sites respond.
Why we published this
Because the objection is legitimate, and answering it with silence would be worse than answering it plainly. A search product that only works when people cannot get out of it is a product with a problem.
Our position: we search public information, we show the source for every claim so it can be checked rather than trusted, and we remove people who ask. If you want out, the removal form and support route are linked above.