Should You Use a Data-Removal Service?

Posted Oct 3 2026
I Paid a Company to Remove My Personal Information

Was It Worth It?

In February 2024, I subscribed to a service called Incogni. Its job was to contact companies known as data brokers and ask them to delete the personal information they had collected about me.

I kept the subscription for one year.

During that time, I noticed a considerable reduction in the spam and phishing emails reaching my inbox. Incogni appeared to be doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

So, when the year ended, I cancelled rather than renewing. I mean, why continue paying for a service after it had solved the problem?

That seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.

Recently, however, I signed up with Incogni again. Why?

The reason is easily summed up:

Data brokers don’t sleep.

So What Exactly Is a Data Broker?

Most of us have provided personal information to hundreds of businesses over the years.

We give our names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, birthdates, and other information when we shop online, enter contests, subscribe to publications, create accounts, fill out warranty cards, join loyalty programs, request insurance quotes, or download apps.

Some of our information also appears in public records or on social media.

Data brokers collect information from these and other sources. They combine it, organize it, analyze it, and then sell or share it with other organizations.

The Federal Trade Commission describes data brokers as companies that collect information about consumers from numerous sources, frequently without interacting with those consumers directly.

One broker may have only a little information about you. Another may have your current and previous addresses, telephone numbers, relatives’ names, estimated income, purchasing interests, or other personal details.

Combine enough little pieces, and they can create a surprisingly detailed profile of you. If that makes you feel a little paranoid, maybe it should.

Is That Even Legal?

You may be surprised to learn that data brokerage is generally a legal business.

These companies provide information for many legitimate purposes, including advertising, identity verification, fraud prevention, background research, among others. The industry itself is not operating entirely in some shadowy corner of the Dark Web.

But that does not mean data brokers can do anything they please.

Privacy laws in a growing number of states give consumers rights over their personal information. Depending upon where you live and which laws apply, you may have the right to find out what information a company has collected, correct inaccuracies, prevent certain uses or sales, or ask that your information be deleted.

(Note: Some information and organizations are exempt, and the rules are not identical everywhere. For example, a state privacy law may exempt banks governed by federal financial-privacy laws, healthcare organizations or medical information covered by HIPAA, or consumer-reporting information regulated by federal credit-reporting law. A business may also be permitted to retain information it needs to complete a transaction, prevent fraud, or comply with another legal obligation.)

So you can often request that your information be deleted. That sounds encouraging—until you consider what is actually involved.

You Can Ask for Removal Yourself

In theory, you don’t need to hire a company such as Incogni.

You could locate each data broker that may have information about you, visit its website, find its privacy or opt-out page, identify yourself, and submit a deletion request.

You might then have to respond to an email or provide additional information to verify your identity. And you'll want to check later to make sure the request was completed, and to follow up if it wasn't.

Now repeat that process for the next broker.

And the next.

And the next.

The difficulty isn’t merely completing one removal request. It is identifying all the brokers that may have your information and navigating the different procedures they use.

When I recently restarted my Incogni subscription, the service began contacting more than 120 data brokers on my behalf.

More than 120!

Trying to identify and contact that many companies myself would be a gargantuan undertaking. Even if I began, I doubt that I would have the patience to continue long enough to finish.

And here's the real issue:

Finishing once won't settle the matter permanently.

Why Removal Is a Cycle

Suppose a data broker receives a valid request and deletes your information.

That is good news. But it does not create an invisible shield around you. Your data will continue to be collected.

You will continue shopping, creating accounts, subscribing to services, using apps, appearing in public records, and generally living your life. New information about you will continue to enter the vast data-collection ecosystem. (I was surprised to learn just how vast it really it.)

A broker that deleted your profile last year may later obtain new information from another source. Another broker may create a profile that did not exist when you conducted your original cleanup. Your information can also reappear after having been removed.

That helps explain my own experience.

Incogni had been effective during my first subscription. The reduction in spam and phishing messages was noticeable enough that I believed the job was done.

It probably was done—for that point in time.

But personal-data removal is less like throwing away an unwanted object and more like clearing weeds from a garden. Removing them makes a genuine difference, but it does not mean that nothing will grow there again.

By cancelling after one year, I wasn’t wrong. I had received a real benefit, and I decided I no longer needed to continue paying for it.

But as time went on, more and more spam and scam emails hit my inbox. I realized that data cleanup was going to need ot be an ongoing process.

What Incogni Does for Me

Incogni acts as an authorized representative. After I provided the required information and authorization, it began sending removal requests to data brokers on my behalf.

I could then use its dashboard to follow the process.

The dashboard showed requests already sent, requests in progress, and removals completed. I did not have to locate each broker, decipher its opt-out procedure, send the request, and keep track of whether it responded.

I recorded a brief video showing what Incogni began doing shortly after I restarted my subscription. It offers a better sense of the scale of the endeavor than I could convey with a simple screenshot.

▶️ WATCH: See what happened after I restarted my Incogni subscription.

I need to make one point clear: Incogni does not push a button that instantly erases your personal information from the Internet.

Brokers have their own procedures and response times. Some requests take longer than others. Some information may be exempt from deletion, and no legitimate service can promise to make your digital footprint disappear completely.

But Incogni knows whom to contact and how to follow each broker's process. And what it provides above all is persistence. It handles a large collection of repetitive tasks that I could theoretically perform myself, but realistically would not.

Is Incogni the Only Choice?

No. Incogni is one of several services that help consumers find and remove personal information held by data brokers.

Other established choices include DeleteMe, Optery, and Kanary. These services differ in price, the number and types of brokers they cover, how often they repeat their searches, the reports they provide, whether they accept custom removal requests, and whether one subscription can cover additional family members.

I have personally used Incogni, so that is the service I can discuss from direct experience. I have not used the alternatives and cannot fairly declare which service is the best, only that Incogni has been effective for me.

If you are comparing services - and you should - don’t base your decision solely on which company claims to cover the largest number of brokers. Ask a few practical questions:

·       Does the service repeat its searches and removal requests?

·       Can you see what it has found and what action it has taken?

·       Does the plan protect only one person, or can it include family members?

·       What will the subscription cost after any introductory discount? (Prices can rise dramatically at the end of the introductory period.)

·       You may also decide that you would rather submit removal requests yourself. That costs less money but considerably more time.

Was It Worth It?

For me, yes.

During my first months with Incogni, I saw a substantial reduction in spam and phishing emails.

But I also learned something when I cancelled: personal-data removal is an ongoing project.

I don’t expect Incogni—or any competing service—to remove every piece of information about me from every corner of the Internet forever.

Instead, I think of it as periodic cleanup.

Could I attempt that cleanup myself? Certainly.

Would I identify and contact more than 120 data brokers, monitor their responses, and repeat the process when my information reappeared?

Almost certainly not. I'm a busy guy, and if I'm honest, not always the most patient either.

I'd rather pay a few dollars each month to let the experts handle everything for me.

Whether a data removal service would be right for you depends largely on how big a problem spam and scam messages are for you currently. You may or may not see this sort of service as worthwhile.

But I'll leave you with this parting thought:

Data brokers don’t sleep.