What Are Data Brokers?
Data brokers are companies that aggregate personal information from public and private sources and sell it as a product. Unlike Google or Facebook, which collect data to show you ads on their own platforms, data brokers sell raw profiles of you to third parties. Your data could be in hundreds of these databases right now without your knowledge.
The practical consequences for remote workers and freelancers are real: you get more spam calls and emails, you may pay higher insurance rates based on data-driven profiling, and your personal information (including home address) becomes accessible to anyone willing to pay a few dollars for a report. For digital nomads and remote workers who value privacy, this is worth addressing.
Types of Data Broker Sites
People Search Sites
Sites like Whitepages, Spokeo, and Intelius compile publicly available records including your address history, phone numbers, relatives, and sometimes financial data. Anyone can run a search on your name and find your home address for a few dollars.
Marketing Data Brokers
Companies like Acxiom and Experian Marketing collect behavioral and demographic data used to build consumer profiles for targeted advertising. Your estimated income, interests, and purchasing behavior are typical data points.
Recruitment Data Brokers
Companies that aggregate professional information for talent acquisition and background checks. Common sources include LinkedIn scrapes, professional directories, and industry databases.
Financial Data Brokers
Companies that collect financial behavior data used in lending, insurance, and credit decisions. Your payment history, subscription patterns, and purchase data may be collected and sold.
Can You Remove Your Data Manually?
Technically, yes. Most US data brokers are required to honor opt-out requests under laws like CCPA (California) or GDPR (if you are an EU resident). In practice, the process is genuinely painful. There are 400+ known data broker sites, each with its own opt-out form, process, and timeline. Some require you to submit a copy of your ID. Most need to be re-contacted every 30–90 days because they re-collect your data periodically. Doing this thoroughly would take dozens of hours and require ongoing maintenance indefinitely.
This is exactly why automated data removal services exist.
How Incogni Works
Sign up and provide your details
Incogni needs your name, email address, home address, date of birth, and phone number to search for your data across broker databases. This is the data it will be looking for on your behalf.
Authorize Incogni to act on your behalf
You sign a power of attorney that allows Incogni to submit legally valid removal requests under privacy laws including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPEDA. Without this authorization, data brokers are not legally obligated to process requests from third parties.
Incogni sends removal requests to 420+ data brokers
Within days of signing up, Incogni begins sending automated removal requests to its database of 420+ brokers. For brokers whose databases are private (not publicly searchable), Incogni proactively sends requests to brokers likely to have your data based on your geographic location and other factors.
Track progress in the dashboard
Your Incogni dashboard shows the status of every removal request — pending, in progress, or completed. Data brokers have up to 30–45 days to legally comply. Incogni automatically follows up on unresponsive brokers.
Ongoing maintenance — data stays off
Data brokers re-collect data periodically. Incogni repeats removal requests every 60–90 days for as long as you are subscribed, preventing your data from reappearing after initial removal. This ongoing maintenance is what makes a subscription service more valuable than a one-time opt-out effort.
Incogni Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (best value) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (Individual) | ~$15.98/mo | ~$7.99/mo |
| Unlimited (Individual) | ~$25.49/mo | ~$12.74/mo |
The Standard plan covers the vast majority of users. Unlimited adds custom removal requests for brokers not in Incogni’s standard database and advanced support. Prices current as of March 2026 — verify on the Incogni website. 30-day money-back guarantee available.
Is Incogni Worth It?
For remote workers, digital nomads, and freelancers who value their privacy, yes. The practical impact is measurable: fewer spam calls, reduced phishing targeting, and your personal information becoming significantly harder to find via people-search sites. The Deloitte-verified audit of Incogni’s removal practices adds credibility to the service’s claims.
The main limitation is that no data removal service can achieve 100% removal — some brokers are slow to comply, and new data collection happens continuously. Incogni’s value is in dramatically reducing your exposure and maintaining that reduction over time without requiring ongoing manual effort from you.
At roughly $7.99/month annually, it is less expensive than a basic streaming subscription and arguably more valuable for anyone who has ever received suspicious calls or noticed their personal information on people-search sites.
Pairing Incogni with a VPN
Incogni removes your data from existing broker databases. A VPN prevents new data from being collected by masking your IP address and encrypting your internet traffic. Together they form a stronger privacy stack than either does alone. Incogni is built by the Surfshark team, and pairing it with Surfshark VPN or NordVPN covers both historical and ongoing data exposure.
Remove Your Data from 420+ Brokers
Incogni automates the entire opt-out process and maintains removals on an ongoing basis. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Try Incogni →Frequently Asked Questions
This post contains affiliate links. WRT.org’s Incogni affiliate partnership is pending approval — links will be updated when active. Full disclosure →
