PeopleSmart

Atlas Data Privacy Corporation sued as the assignee of 19,398 people protected by Daniel's Law, which lets New Jersey's judges, prosecutors, police and their families have their home addresses and unlisted phone numbers taken down. PeopleSmart's own opt-out page has a separate Daniel's Law route for these covered persons, which our removal guide describes. PeopleSmart LLC was a defendant from the February 2024 filing onward, along with the parent and the other brand companies.

The defendants moved the suit to federal court, which ruled in November 2024 that it had no jurisdiction and returned it to Mercer County, and the appeals court declined to step in the following March. It appears on Atlas's November 2025 roster of 111 open state cases, and the state Supreme Court said no to coordinating them on May 1, 2026. No ruling on the claims has been published that we can find.

• CourtListener docket ->
• Atlas's November 2025 case list, row 55 (PDF) ->

A contact database that sells direct and personal phone numbers sits close to what this suit was about. Since 2005 Colorado's telemarketing fraud statute has barred companies from knowingly putting a person's cell number in a for-profit directory without that person's consent, and the March 2025 complaint applied that to BeenVerified's listings of Colorado residents. PeopleSmart LLC was one of six LTVCO companies the April 2026 amended complaint added.

On August 11, 2026 the plaintiff walked away from the case against all eight companies, keeping the right to sue again, and no public filing gives a reason.

• CourtListener docket ->
• PacerMonitor, where the dismissal notice's text is posted ->

An Ohio right-of-publicity action against the family's parent company, pleaded expressly around PeopleSmart, whose trial the complaint said used Ohioans' identities to advertise subscriptions. About five months in, the two plaintiffs filed an agreed notice ending it, with each side paying its own costs, and Judge Dan A. Polster approved it on March 28, 2024. Nothing on the docket says whether money changed hands.

• CourtListener - N.D. Ohio docket ->
• The agreed notice of dismissal (PDF) ->

Six plaintiffs from four states say the parent used their names and contact details in PeopleSmart's $1 seven-day trial to sell monthly subscriptions, without the written consent their states' right-of-publicity laws require. The docket lists it as a fraud case, but every count in the original complaint is a publicity claim and PeopleSmart is the only platform it names. It's the Ohio case's theory taken to four more states by the same plaintiffs' firm. The company moved to dismiss the amended complaint in October 2025, and the case was still open at its last docket entry in July 2026.

• The complaint (PDF) ->
• CourtListener - E.D. Cal. docket ->

Two Illinois residents said PeopleSmart showed their details to $1 trial users as teasers for a monthly subscription, which they argued broke the state's right-of-publicity law. At the February 11, 2026 hearing Judge Robert Rohm accepted that the trial existed to sell subscriptions, but held that because it wasn't free there was no violation, and dismissed with prejudice. According to Ice Miller's write-up, he said he might reconsider if the plaintiffs' lawyers found a decision holding that a paid trial breaks the Act.

• Ice Miller's analysis of the ruling ->

A Californian who had never subscribed to either site said BeenVerified put his name and details in free teaser profiles to sell subscriptions, and the complaint covers peoplesmart.com alongside beenverified.com. PeopleSmart LLC wasn't a defendant; the two BeenVerified companies were. Nothing was ever argued. After the companies had their response deadline pushed back to discuss an early resolution, he dismissed his own claim with prejudice on March 28, 2022, and the proposed class of Californians got nothing from it.

• Docket, entry by entry ->
• The dismissal entry, March 28, 2022 ->