Whitepages, Inc. is a privately held Seattle company founded in 1997 by Alex Algard that operates the oldest large people-search service in the United States, alongside sister sites 411.com and PeopleSearch.com, the Whitepages Premium subscription, background reports, a property-intelligence product, and the Whitepages Pro API for businesses. Its self-described Identity Graph spans 350 million identity records, 460 million phone records, 112 million property records, and 571 million email addresses, built from public records and licensed third-party data including addresses, aliases, relatives, dates of birth, and traffic and criminal records. Its terms state it is not a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA. Whitepages is registered in California's and Texas's data broker registries, operates a self-service opt-out tool, honors Global Privacy Control by defaulting optional cookies off, and reported handling roughly 34,700 California opt-out requests in 2024 with a one-day median response. In 2022 it settled Illinois and Ohio right-of-publicity class actions over free-preview ads for about $4.07 million while denying wrongdoing.
TRACK RECORD
1 BREACH
[2016-06-27] · BREACH
Have I Been Pwned lists a breach record for Whitepages: "Whitepages".
Approximately 11,657,763 accounts affected, per HIBP.
Whitepages' own about page describes its 'Identity Graph' data infrastructure as processing billions of signals and spanning 350 million identity records, 460 million phone records, 112 million property records, and 571 million email addresses, which power its consumer people-search, background report, and business API products.
Whitepages' privacy policy (updated June 22, 2026) states that it collects and licenses directory and public-record data from third parties for its people-search products, spanning names, current and former addresses, phone numbers, possible aliases, possible relatives and associates, dates of birth, email addresses, property records, and traffic and criminal records. The same policy says it also collects usage data including search terms and browsing history from before and after visits to its sites.
Whitepages' about page states the company was founded in 1997 by Alex Algard as a digital alternative to printed phone directories, publishes a corporate timeline including spinning out Hiya as a standalone caller-ID company in 2016 and Whitepages Pro as a standalone company renamed Ekata in 2019, and identifies the sister brands 411.com and PeopleSearch.com. Whitepages, Inc. is privately held, and its current ownership and investor structure are not disclosed on the page.
Whitepages' Terms of Service (updated August 9, 2021) state that Whitepages is not a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and that none of its database information was collected to furnish 'consumer reports,' and they prohibit users from using the services to determine suitability for credit, insurance, employment, education, or housing - meaning its background reports are sold outside FCRA accuracy and dispute protections.
Whitepages' privacy policy states in its own words that 'Whitepages Inc is a data broker under Texas State law' and that it must register with the Texas Secretary of State to conduct business in Texas, a self-identification as a regulated data broker published directly in its policy.
Whitepages operates a self-service suppression tool that lets individuals remove their listing from the Whitepages website through a five-step flow that starts by pasting the URL of the profile to be removed.
Whitepages, Inc appears in the California Privacy Protection Agency's data broker registry. Its registry row self-attests 'No' to collecting minors' data, biometric data, and precise geolocation, and 'No' to having sold or shared consumers' data in the past year with foreign actors, the federal government, other state governments, law enforcement (absent subpoena or court order), or developers of generative-AI systems; these are the company's own unaudited attestations.
Whitepages' Consumer Privacy Rights notice (updated December 20, 2024) discloses, for Oregon residents, the specific third parties to which it has disclosed personal data: Amplitude, Google Analytics, Microsoft, Salesforce, Sumologic, Worldpay, Zendesk and Zuora. The same notice says the automated opt-out tool requires providing a phone number and agreeing to Whitepages' Terms of Service, with webform or email routes offered as alternatives, and that CCPA opt-out requests may take up to 15 days to process.
Whitepages' privacy policy permits sharing personal information with third-party advertisers to deliver targeted online and mobile advertising, and permits disclosing and selling data as part of corporate transactions such as a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Its state-specific rights section grants residents of 18 states a right to opt out of the sale of personal information, language that presupposes sale as defined by those laws.
Whitepages' California data broker registry filing reports its 2024 consumer-request metrics under the DELETE Act: 5,879 deletion requests (5,697 complied with in whole, 182 denied), 192 requests to know what information is sold or shared (190 complied in whole), and 34,722 requests to opt out of sale or sharing (33,747 complied with in whole, 975 denied), each with a reported mean and median response time of one day - a comparatively strong self-reported compliance record for the category.
Have I Been Pwned's breach catalog lists the "Whitepages" incident (whitepages.com), breach date 2016-06-27, affecting approximately 11,657,763 accounts. Data classes exposed per HIBP: Email addresses, Names, Passwords. Source: Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com), CC BY 4.0.
In 2022 Whitepages settled class actions (Lukis v. Whitepages, filed 2019) alleging it violated the Illinois Right of Publicity Act and the Ohio Revised Code by using residents' names, contact information, dates of birth, former addresses, possible relatives, and photographs in free previews advertising its subscriptions and background reports; it funded settlements of $1,208,400 for Illinois residents and $2,864,200 for Ohio residents while denying any wrongdoing. These were allegations resolved by settlement, not adjudicated findings.
Whitepages' cookie-preferences page states that its Marketing & Advertising cookies track visitors' browsing habits, sometimes across different websites, to target ads. As a mitigating practice, the same page states that when a browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, optional (analytics and marketing) cookies are switched off by default.
Whitepages' privacy policy states that it and its partners use cookies and web beacons, that ad networks may place or recognize cookies on visitors' devices to profile web usage and target advertising, and that Whitepages does not change its practices when it receives a browser Do Not Track signal.