Zabasearch opt out and removal process: A step-by-step guide

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If your personal information is on the website ZabaSearch, then it’s important that you opt yourself out in order to protect your privacy on the web. 

We put together this guide to provide some more insight into ZabaSearch, how they collect your information, how to opt out, and other ways you can safeguard your personal information. 

Like many sites of its kind, ZabaSearch is a data broker that allows users to look up personal info on other people. The site has been around since 2005 and, according to their website, has three times more residential listings than the white pages phone directory. The amount of information that can be found on Zabasearch is substantial, including full name, contact information, age, and more. Basically, any information that is found on the top people search sites can also be found here.

What sets this site apart is that it is actually powered by another data broker, Intelius.com — which serves as ZabaSearch’s parent company. 

What type of information Zabasearch collects

Some basic personal information can be found by conducting a free search, with the option to upgrade for more detailed background information. There’s a few different ways you can conduct a search on someone including by name or through a reverse phone number lookup. There’s also an option for a “Zabasearch free” and a “Zabasearch advanced” search but both appear to bring up the same search results with the same type of information. 

When you conduct any type of free search, it’s possible to find a person’s address, age, and phone number (based on the amount of info that is associated with that particular record). On each record, they offer the opportunity to access further information, including a full background check, public records, additional phone number lookup, and property records. Each option takes you away from Zabasearch.com and to their parent company. From there, you can either purchase a one-off report on a specific individual or purchase an ongoing subscription to run reports in multiple individuals. 

These reports provide a lot more info, including: 

• All addresses & phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Date of birth 
• Relatives
• Social networks
• Employment history 
• Education history
• Marriage & divorce records 
• Court cases of any kind 
• Criminal history 
• Liens & bankruptcies
• Judgements & settlements

Even though this information is essentially behind a paywall, it’s still important that it’s removed from the web. The more information that’s available on the web about you, the greater risk of identity theft, hackers, stalkers, telemarketers, scammers, robocalls, and more.

Are sites like ZabaSearch legal?

Zabasearch aggregates the content on its site from publicly available sources and information. Because of this, the site is perfectly legal. 

That being said, legislation is beginning to be implemented (albeit slowly) to regulate how data brokers manage consumer personal data. One of the first related pieces of legislation passed in the U.S. was in Vermont. It required companies buying and selling consumer information to register with the state. This registration was made public. While other parameters of the law only apply to Vermont residents, it provided the first glimpse into just how many sites like Zabasearch are out there and the extent of data they possess.

Most recently, California passed a law that provides residents more extensive rights to have their info removed as well as to request what information is being stored about them. Again, this only applies to California residents, but many of these sites implemented procedures to comply with the law that benefit all users in respect to their privacy.

Zabasearch opt out, the manual way

Although Zabasearch claims that information can’t be removed from their site within their FAQs, it is possible to have your information removed at the source — through their parent company.  

Opting yourself out of the parent company essentially removes you from not only that site & database, but from ZabaSearch as well. 

Here’s what you need to do: 

• Go to this site.
• Input your first name, middle initial (when applicable), last name, and city and/or state. Providing both city and state will provide more accuracy, especially if you have a more common name.

• Scroll through and find your specific record from the list of results that populate. Press the button that says “Select and continue”

• Enter a valid email address and confirm the reCaptcha. It’s important you put in an email address that you have access to, as they will be sending you a verification email. 

• Check your email for the verification email — there will be a link within the email that you will need to click in order to officially submit the opt-out request. **Important: You must click the link in the verification email. If you do not, the request will not be submitted and your information will remain on the site and continue to feed into Zabasearch.

• Wait 48-72 hours for your information to be removed from the parent company. The parent company will process the request and remove the information accordingly. It may take some additional time for Zabasearch to recognize the change and remove the info from their site as well. You can always check back that your info was removed by once again going here and conducting a search of your name. 

Two things to keep in mind when it comes to a manual zabasearch opt out: 

• It doesn’t prevent the information from cropping up again – Once the information is removed one would think that you no longer need to worry about the site hosting your info, but that isn’t always necessarily the case. Here’s why: 
  • Data brokers collect their information by constantly scraping publicly available sources and databases. Because of this, it’s common for them to periodically rescrape the information from a site and unknowingly repost it.
  • There may be slightly different variations of your information out there. For example, wires may have gotten crossed within public records resulting in your age displaying differently in two different sources. This can result in multiple records on Zabasearch without you even realizing it. 
  • These sites rely on data as a revenue stream, so they are constantly looking for ways to expand their databases. As they expand the places they are pulling from, it increases the likelihood that they continue to scrape your information.

• Your information is likely on other people search sites – Zabasearch is just one of many companies that are publishing your information online. Removing your info from here is a critical step, but it is only one sliver of the pie. You will need to do a complete audit of all data broker sites and go through their own opt out processes. Each site’s process is unique so it can take a lot of time to get through them all.

Quickly remove ZabaSearch public records with BrandYourself

Constantly monitoring your online presence and staying on top of removing yourself from data brokers can feel like an ongoing game of whack-a-mole. That’s why we developed our Protect Private Info tool. It takes the hassle out of the manual opt out process by taking care of the work for you. We identify and remove your personal information from 50+ of the most common data brokers (including ZabaSearch). We also monitor these sites on your behalf. If something 

Here’s how to get started: 

1. If you don’t already have a BrandYourself account, create a free one here.

Go to the “Protect Private Info” feature located under the privacy tab in the lefthand navigation.

Conduct a free scan to identify which data brokers are publicly sharing your personal information. We only need some basic information for us to identify records on their site. This includes your name, age, and your location (city & state).

2. Upgrade to the premium Protect Private Info feature

We’ll immediately begin the process of removing your information from the identified sites.

3. You’re all set!

There’s nothing left for you to do at this point – it’s that simple! Ongoing monitoring is included in your premium subscription. If we identify your information has been reposted to Zabasearch or any of the other 50 data brokers, we’ll automatically submit an opt out request to have the information removed.