To opt out of Melissa (formerly Melissa Data), submit the Consumer Privacy webform at apps.melissa.com/user/consumerprivacy.aspx and select both Delete My Personal Information and Opt-Out of Sale/Share. Back it up by emailing ConsumerRequest@melissa.com. Anyone can request deletion from Melissa Lookups regardless of state. Expect 30 to 45 days.
Who Melissa Is and What They Have on You
Melissa Corporation — the same company that traded as Melissa Data from 1985 until its 2017 rebrand — is a global identity-verification and data-quality vendor. It licenses consumer records to marketers, lenders, insurers, and background-check companies, and it is formally registered as a data broker. A typical Melissa record includes:
- Full name and known aliases
- Current and previous home addresses
- Email addresses
- Landline and mobile phone numbers
- Age, gender, and estimated household income
- Property, mortgage, and deed history
- Business firmographics, if you own a business
- Geocoded location down to latitude and longitude
Who Buys Your Melissa Record
Melissa sells to direct-mail advertisers, email marketing platforms, banks and lenders running identity checks, insurance underwriters, and other data brokers. If you get targeted mail addressed to a slightly-wrong spelling of your name, or verification emails for applications you never made, a data-quality vendor like Melissa is one of the pipelines feeding it.
Step 1: Submit the Consumer Privacy Webform
- Open https://apps.melissa.com/user/consumerprivacy.aspx. It is also reachable from the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link in the melissa.com footer.
- Choose your request types. Select Delete My Personal Information and Opt-Out of Sale/Share — they are separate rights and one does not imply the other.
- Enter your full legal name, current mailing address, phone number, and email address so Melissa can match every record it holds.
- Add any previous addresses from the last five years and every name variant you have used: maiden name, hyphenated forms, middle-initial variants, common misspellings.
- Submit and screenshot the confirmation screen. Save the confirmation number.
You Do Not Have to Live in a Covered State
Melissa limits some statutory rights — targeted advertising opt-out, profiling opt-out, appeals — to residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws. But Melissa states that regardless of state or country of residence, any individual may request deletion of their personal information from Melissa Lookups and its other database products. If a form asks you to pick a state, pick your real one and file anyway.
Step 2: Send a Backup Email to ConsumerRequest@melissa.com
The webform is the official channel, but email creates a timestamped paper trail you can reference later:
- Email ConsumerRequest@melissa.com with the subject Consumer Request: Delete and Opt Out of Sale/Share.
- Include your full name, current address, prior addresses, every phone number, and every email address.
- Ask explicitly for deletion from all Melissa products and databases, including Melissa Lookups — not just marketing lists.
- Reference the confirmation number from Step 1 so the two requests are linked.
- Request written confirmation when the deletion completes.
Step 3: Phone Backup If You Get No Response
If two weeks pass with no acknowledgement, call. Melissa publishes two consumer lines:
- 1-800-800-6245
- 1-800-635-4772 (1-800-MELISSA), extension 4
Ask for the status of your consumer request by confirmation number, and ask the representative to note the call on your file. Write down the date, time, and the name of who you spoke with.
Step 4: Re-Check and Re-File After 45 Days
Search your own name on melissa.com's lookup tools after 45 days. If a record is still live, reply to your original email thread rather than filing a brand-new request — an existing thread is harder to treat as a first-time inquiry. Data-quality vendors refresh from public records and partner feeds continuously, so a record that was genuinely deleted can be rebuilt from a new source months later. That is the single most important thing to understand about Melissa: opting out is not permanent.
What Actually Happens After You Opt Out
Melissa's consumer-facing lookups are the visible surface. The commercial licensing business underneath is the part that matters. Realistically:
- Melissa Lookups records should disappear within 30 to 45 days.
- Records already licensed to a customer before your request do not come back. Your data lives on inside whatever marketer, lender, or broker already bought it.
- New public-record events — a move, a property purchase, a voter-registration update, a new phone number — can seed a fresh record.
- Downstream brokers that bought your data are separate companies with separate opt-out processes. Removing yourself from Melissa does nothing to Spokeo, Whitepages, or BeenVerified.
Verification Limits Worth Knowing
Melissa states it matches the information you supply against its records and does not require you to create an account or upload a government ID for a straightforward opt-out. If any page or email asks you to upload a driver's license or Social Security number to process a simple deletion request, stop and verify you are on the real melissa.com domain — that pattern is a common phishing setup around well-known broker opt-out flows.
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Why Melissa Is Harder Than a Typical People-Search Site
Spokeo or TruePeopleSearch exist to show your profile to the public, so a successful opt-out is visibly confirmed: the page goes away. Melissa is business-to-business infrastructure. Your record is an input to someone else's address-verification or lead-scoring system, which means:
- There is no public profile page you can refresh to confirm removal.
- Confirmation depends on Melissa emailing you back.
- Data flows in from dozens of upstream sources, so suppression has to hold against continuous refresh.
- The same underlying records feed several Melissa products, and a deletion scoped to one product is not a deletion from all of them — which is exactly why Step 2 tells you to name "all Melissa products and databases" in writing.
How PrivacyOn Handles Melissa and 100+ Other Brokers
Melissa is one company. The record it sold is now sitting in a hundred others. Filing one form fixes one node in that network, and 45 days later you get to do it again because the record came back.
PrivacyOn removes your personal information from 100+ data brokers and people-search sites, then keeps monitoring so that when a broker re-lists you — and they do — the removal is filed again automatically. Plans start at $8.33/month and include 24/7 dark web monitoring and family coverage for up to 5 people. Run a free scan to see which brokers are publishing your name, address, and phone number right now.
Extra Steps to Shrink Your Marketing Footprint
- DMAchoice (dmachoice.org) suppresses you from direct-mail lists run by Association of National Advertisers members for a small fee.
- OptOutPrescreen.com stops prescreened credit and insurance offers for five years, or permanently by mail.
- The National Do Not Call Registry (donotcall.gov) covers legitimate telemarketers, though not scam callers.
- Your county recorder may allow redaction of your address from public property records — ask, since that is an upstream source Melissa pulls from.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Melissa Data the same company as Melissa?
Yes. Melissa Data Corporation rebranded to Melissa in 2017. Same company, same databases, same opt-out process. Search results and old guides still use "Melissa Data" and "melissadata.com," but the current consumer privacy form lives at apps.melissa.com.
How long does the Melissa opt-out take?
Plan on 30 to 45 days. Statutory deadlines under state privacy laws are generally 45 days with a possible extension. If you have heard nothing after 45 days, reply on your original email thread and call 1-800-800-6245.
Do I have to live in California to opt out of Melissa?
No. Melissa states that regardless of state or country of residence, anyone may request deletion of their personal information from Melissa Lookups and its other database products. Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws additionally get rights to opt out of targeted advertising and profiling, and a right to appeal a denial.
Is it legal for Melissa to sell my information?
Largely, yes. There is no general federal law banning the sale of consumer data in the United States. State privacy laws give you deletion and opt-out rights rather than a ban, and data-broker registration laws in California, Vermont, Texas, Oregon, and New Jersey add transparency and registration duties. That is why the burden of opting out still falls on you.
Will opting out of Melissa stop my junk mail?
It reduces one source, not all of them. Melissa is one of many vendors feeding direct-mail and telemarketing lists, and any copy of your record already licensed before your request stays with the buyer. Combine the Melissa opt-out with DMAchoice, OptOutPrescreen.com, and broad broker removal to see a real drop.
Can Melissa refuse my opt-out request?
It can deny a request it cannot verify as yours, or one that falls outside the rights available in your state. If that happens, resubmit with more identifying detail — prior addresses and name variants are usually what is missing. Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws have a statutory right to appeal a denial, and you can escalate to your state attorney general.
Does PrivacyOn remove me from Melissa automatically?
Yes. Melissa is covered in PrivacyOn's broker list, and removals are re-filed automatically when your record reappears — which matters more with Melissa than with most brokers, because its records are continuously refreshed from public sources. PrivacyOn starts at $8.33/month and covers 100+ brokers plus dark web monitoring.