Broker profile
One of the largest US people-search services, run by Spokeo, Inc. of Pasadena, California, bootstrapped since 2006. Paid an $800,000 FTC penalty in 2012 over FCRA marketing, and was the named party in Spokeo v. Robins, the 2016 Supreme Court case on who can sue over inaccurate records.
Spokeo overview
Each broker is scored 1 to 4 across the six dimensions above; higher means more exposure, and the overall gauge is their average.
Spokeo, Inc.
2006 · four Stanford graduates
Harrison Tang
Pasadena, CA
A-
#186310
~12B records · ~18M monthly visitors
No
Background
Spokeo started in 2006 as a social-media aggregator built by Mike Daly, Harrison Tang, Ray Chen and Eric Liang. Facebook squeezed that market, the 2008 crash nearly finished the company, and it pivoted to people search, stitching public records, contact data and social profiles into one report per person.
Daly, Tang, Chen, Liang
Spokeo sells itself for personal use, finding old classmates or checking who's calling, and its terms bar employment, tenant and credit decisions. That line dates from the 2012 FTC action, which stopped Spokeo pitching its data to recruiters unless it complied with the FCRA. It chose to leave that market instead. It is registered as a California data broker (#186310, January 2020) and appears in the Texas and Oregon registries too.
Data Published
Sensitive: elevated identity-theft, doxxing, or safety riskStandard public-record field
Where it comes from: voter rolls, property and court filings, commercial aggregators, and the social profiles Spokeo's crawler has indexed. The 12 billion figure counts raw records, not people.
Contact
199 S. Los Robles Ave #711 Pasadena, CA 91101
556 S Fair Oaks Ave, Suite 101-179 Pasadena, CA 91105-2656
#186310 · six domains (spokeo.com, freepeopledirectory.com, thatsthem.com, peoplewin.com, anywho.com, family.me) · 8 deletion requests in 2024, each complied with in part · sold or shared data with the federal government, state governments and law enforcement in the past year
Network
Spokeo's privacy policy says its public listing opt-out covers spokeo.com and its other operated sites except ThatsThem, which takes its own request. FreePeopleDirectory is one of the sites that wording covers, and it also runs a form of its own that clears a listing there at once. AnyWho and PeopleWin send readers to spokeo.com/optout. family.me uses the Spokeo tool for public listings and has a separate account deletion process for information submitted to family.me.
Reputation
The BBB gives Spokeo an A- for answering complaints. Review sites rate the experience far lower, and nearly every complaint is about a cheap trial that quietly becomes a $29.95 monthly subscription.
$0.95 trial silently converts to $29.95 / month
Cancellation difficulties and refused refunds
"Free" reverse-lookup teasers gated behind a paid subscription
Generic, outdated or wrong data after payment
Litigation
Two cases that shaped how people-search brokers operate.
FTC enforcement · Fair Credit Reporting Act · settled June 12, 2012
$800,000
FCRA violations + fake endorsements
The FTC said Spokeo marketed its profiles to recruiters for employment screening without meeting FCRA duties, and planted employee-written endorsements on tech blogs. Spokeo paid $800,000 and left the employment-screening market. It was the first FCRA action over data scraped from online sources.
US Supreme Court · 578 U.S. 330 · decided May 16, 2016
6-2
Vacated and remanded
Aug 15, 2017, found standing
Thomas Robins found his Spokeo profile invented a degree, a marriage, children and a healthier bank balance, and sued under the FCRA. The Supreme Court held that a bare procedural violation isn't enough to sue over; the harm has to be concrete. On remand the Ninth Circuit found his was, and the case went on. It's now one of the most cited authorities on standing.
FAQ
Yes. It's registered as one in California (#186310), indexes around 12 billion records and draws around 18 million visitors a month.
Yes. The form at spokeo.com/optout takes one listing URL at a time and an email address for the confirmation link. Spokeo says the form covers its operated sites except ThatsThem, so a FreePeopleDirectory listing falls inside its scope, though that site also runs its own form that clears a listing straight away. AnyWho and PeopleWin send you to Spokeo's form. family.me uses the Spokeo tool for public listings, but account data must be deleted through family.me. The Spokeo removal guide shows every screen.
Spokeo's opt-out page says 24-48 hours; the confirmation screen on the walk said to allow 2-3 days, and the page wording was unchanged on September 8, 2026. Complaints describe listings coming back later, so check again after a few months.
No. It disclaims being a consumer reporting agency and bars employment, tenant, credit and insurance use, a line it drew after the 2012 FTC settlement.
Redact scans 120+ data broker sites from your device, finds where your details are listed, and submits the removal requests for you. If a broker relists you, it files again.
May 20, 2026
