Roughly 4,000 companies quietly buy and sell U.S. consumers’ personal data, and the ten largest hold profiles on almost every American adult. The 2026 industry — Acxiom, Epsilon, LiveRamp, Experian, Equifax, LexisNexis, CoreLogic, Oracle, Nielsen, and Dun & Bradstreet at the top — is worth roughly $307 billion, and it’s consolidating fast. Here’s who’s selling your data, what they sell, and how to make them stop with PrivacyOn.
How Big Is the Data Broker Industry in 2026?
Grand View Research values the global data broker market at roughly $307 billion in 2026, up from $278 billion in 2024. The U.S. is the largest single market. Two structural facts make this industry different from most others:
- You are the raw material, but almost never the customer — brokers sell you to other businesses, not to you.
- You have no federal right to know who holds your data or to force them to delete it. Only a handful of states (California, Vermont, Texas, Oregon) even require brokers to register.
What’s changing in 2026
California’s Delete Act (SB 362) went into full effect this year. The state’s DROP platform (Delete Request & Opt-Out Platform) launched in January, and starting August 1, 2026, every broker registered with the California Privacy Protection Agency must honor DROP deletion requests and re-check every 45 days. It’s the strongest anti-broker law in the country — but it only covers Californians.
The 10 Largest Companies Selling Your Personal Data in 2026
These are the companies whose databases you almost certainly appear in, ranked by consumer footprint and industry influence.
1. Acxiom (LiveRamp / Omnicom)
Acxiom is the granddaddy of the industry, holding ~2.6 billion verified global consumer IDs with an average of hundreds of attributes per person — income, household composition, health inferences, purchase categories, life events. It powers ad targeting for most of the Fortune 500. Historically owned by Interpublic Group, Acxiom is now part of the Omnicom-IPG mega-merger.
2. Epsilon (Publicis)
Epsilon (owned by ad-holding giant Publicis Groupe) is Acxiom’s main rival in identity-graph advertising. It matches your email, postal address, and device IDs to a persistent profile used across email marketing, direct mail, and programmatic advertising.
3. LiveRamp
LiveRamp is the identity infrastructure most of the ad industry runs on — the “connective tissue” that lets one company recognize you as the same person another company knows. On May 17, 2026, Publicis announced a $2.2 billion deal to acquire LiveRamp (~$38.50/share, 30% premium), expected to close by year-end. Combined with Epsilon, Publicis will control one of the largest consumer identity graphs on earth.
4. Experian
Beyond credit reporting, Experian’s Marketing Services arm sells detailed household data (income, age, lifestyle, wealth indicators) for advertising and risk analytics. Its ConsumerView database covers nearly every U.S. household.
5. Equifax
Another credit bureau with a huge non-credit data business — employment and income verification (The Work Number), fraud/risk, and marketing analytics. Equifax also aggregates “credit header” data (name, address, SSN partial) that seeds much of the people-search industry.
6. LexisNexis Risk Solutions (RELX)
LexisNexis sells to banks, insurers, landlords, and law enforcement. Its LexID identifier covers 283 million U.S. consumers, and its Accurint tool is one of the most comprehensive people-search databases in existence — way beyond what the consumer-facing sites publish.
7. CoreLogic
Property, mortgage, and homeowner data. If you’ve ever bought, sold, or refinanced a home, CoreLogic has a record of it. Its data feeds insurance underwriting, real estate marketing, and risk analytics.
8. Oracle (Data Cloud / Advertising)
Oracle historically operated one of the largest third-party data marketplaces via BlueKai and Datalogix. It has publicly wound down parts of that business but continues to broker large volumes of consumer data through its advertising cloud.
9. Nielsen
Best known for TV ratings, Nielsen sells rich cross-device viewing and consumption data — connecting what you watch to who you are, and selling that to advertisers.
10. Dun & Bradstreet
D&B is primarily a B2B broker, but its consumer “living units” database (built from household and residence data) is licensed widely and increasingly overlaps with consumer marketing.
The Other Two Layers You Should Know About
People-Search Brokers (the ones you can Google)
Below the industrial giants sits the people-search layer: Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, TruePeopleSearch, Radaris, FastPeopleSearch, MyLife, Intelius. These publish your name, age, addresses, phone, and relatives on public pages that show up when someone searches your name. They typically buy their base data from the layer above and re-package it as $19.99 “background reports” anyone can order.
B2B / Sales Intelligence Brokers
Companies like ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, Lusha, Seamless.AI, Cognism, and 6sense sell “business” contact data — but most of what they sell is your work email, direct-dial mobile number, job title, and employer, often scraped from LinkedIn and enriched with consumer data. Their opt-outs are separate from consumer opt-outs and often harder to find.
What Kind of Data Do They Actually Sell?
Depending on the broker, a full profile can include:
- Name, aliases, date of birth, and full SSN or its last four digits
- Current and prior addresses (often 20+ years of history)
- Phone numbers, email addresses, and mobile device IDs
- Household composition — spouse, children, roommates, relatives
- Estimated income, net worth, and credit tier
- Homeownership status, mortgage details, property value
- Purchase categories, brand affinities, subscription history
- Precise geolocation trails from mobile apps
- Health inferences (conditions, life events, prescription categories)
- Political affiliations, religion, ethnicity, life-stage indicators
- Web browsing categories and social media activity
The scariest part isn’t any single field
It’s the combination. When a scammer buys one $19.99 report, they can address you by name, cite your home address, mention your spouse and kids, know your employer, and reference a real neighbor — enough context to make almost any phishing, tax-scam, or grandparent-scam call sound authentic.
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Who Buys Your Data from These Companies?
- Advertisers and brands — for targeted email, direct mail, and programmatic ads
- Banks and lenders — for risk scoring, marketing, and pre-screened offers
- Insurers — for underwriting, pricing, and fraud detection
- Employers and landlords — for background checks (often via LexisNexis or Equifax subsidiaries)
- Political campaigns — for voter targeting, especially in swing states
- Law enforcement and federal agencies — buying commercially what they’d need a warrant to demand
- Private investigators and process servers
- Scammers, fraudsters, and stalkers — buying the same $19.99 report as everyone else
How to Get Your Data Out
Every major broker has an opt-out process. The catch is that there are dozens of them and they re-populate profiles from fresh public-records feeds within weeks. A realistic sequence:
- Start with the largest people-search sites you can Google: Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, TruePeopleSearch, Radaris, FastPeopleSearch, MyLife, and Intelius. See our complete data-broker opt-out guide.
- Opt out of the marketing giants: Acxiom, Epsilon, LiveRamp, CoreLogic, Experian, and Equifax.
- If you’re a Californian, submit a single deletion via the state’s DROP platform — it forces every registered broker to delete your data starting August 1, 2026.
- Set a recurring reminder to re-check each site monthly. Brokers repopulate quickly.
Or Let PrivacyOn Handle It For You
Chasing 4,000 brokers by hand isn’t realistic. PrivacyOn is our top pick for automated data broker removal because it does what a DIY approach can’t sustain:
- Removes your data from 100+ major broker sites — the ones with the widest exposure
- Monitors continuously and re-files when your profile reappears
- Includes 24/7 dark web monitoring for email, phone, and SSN
- Family plans covering up to 5 people under one subscription
- From $8.33/month — cheaper than DeleteMe, Aura, or Kanary
- Free scan shows exactly which brokers are exposing you right now
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the biggest companies that sell your personal data?
The largest U.S. data brokers by consumer footprint are Acxiom, Epsilon, LiveRamp, Experian, Equifax, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, CoreLogic, Oracle, Nielsen, and Dun & Bradstreet. Below them sit hundreds of people-search sites (Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, etc.) and B2B contact brokers (ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, Seamless.AI).
Is it legal for companies to sell my personal data?
In most U.S. states, yes. There is no comprehensive federal law regulating data brokers. California’s Delete Act is the most aggressive state response — from August 1, 2026, registered brokers must honor centralized deletion requests. About 15 other states give partial deletion rights, but the industry is largely unregulated federally.
How do data brokers get my information without asking?
From public records (property, court, voter, DMV in some states), commercial data (loyalty cards, warranty registrations, credit-header feeds), digital tracking (cookies, mobile SDKs, connected-car telematics), social media scraping, and by buying and licensing data from each other. None of it typically requires your consent.
How many data brokers have my information?
Estimates put the U.S. data broker industry at roughly 4,000 companies. Most Americans appear on 100+ consumer-facing people-search sites alone, and are held in the databases of most of the top-10 giants above. Run PrivacyOn’s free scan to see your actual current exposure.
Can I ask companies to stop selling my data?
Yes, but you have to do it broker by broker. Every major site has an opt-out page. In California, one DROP request covers all registered brokers starting August 1, 2026. Everywhere else, DIY takes 30–60 hours per year, and profiles reappear constantly from fresh data feeds — which is why an automated service like PrivacyOn is the practical option.
What’s the fastest way to remove my data from these companies?
Use PrivacyOn. A free scan takes about a minute and shows exactly which brokers are exposing you. From $8.33/month, PrivacyOn files removals across 100+ brokers, monitors for re-listings, and re-files automatically — the only realistic way to keep your data down long-term.