HOW THIS WORKS
Methodology & honesty
A directory is only worth trusting if it's honest about what it knows. Here's exactly how OptOut Index is built and where it's still growing.
The data
Every broker listed is a real US data broker, and every opt-out link points to that broker's real, publicly-documented opt-out endpoint. Difficulty (1–5) and time estimates are honest guidance based on the number of steps each removal takes — they're labelled as estimates, never presented as guarantees. Today the index holds 24 brokers (15 of them quick wins under ten minutes, 12 minutes average).
The full registry
Beyond our hand-picked list, the Full Registry reproduces California's official data broker registry verbatim — all 549 companies that have registered as data brokers under the state's DELETE Act, with their own opt-out and deletion links (337 carry an opt-out link). It's the state's data, dated to when we retrieved it (2026-07-07); we don't add, remove, or guess entries.
Freshness badges
Opt-out pages move and change. The badge system is designed to show each link's health at a glance:
- Verified — automated check confirmed the link works.
- Changed — the opt-out page moved; follow the note.
- Broken — the link is down; we're re-sourcing it.
In this first release, links show a neutral "Listed" state: they are on record and hand-checked, but the weekly automated verifier that flips these badges is part of the next release. We'd rather show you an honest "not auto-checked yet" than a green tick we can't stand behind.
Your privacy
The Removal Plan Builder runs entirely in your browser. The concerns you pick and the boxes you tick are stored only in your own browser's local storage — nothing is sent to us. We use privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics for aggregate traffic counts.
What's coming
The California registry is live above; the Vermont registry, per-broker difficulty for registry entries, the automated link verifier, and translated guides are on the roadmap. This page will say so plainly until they ship.