Contributor note: This article incorporates expert input from data broker researcher Jeff Jockisch
If you’re overwhelmed by spam texts and calls and wondering, “Why is this happening to me, and what can I do to stop it?” this article is for you.
The real reason you get so much spam is because there’s a vast data broker ecosystem collecting, sharing, publishing, and selling your data, including your phone number. This ecosystem feeds the same marketing pipelines that fuel spam.
Reducing spam requires shrinking your exposure inside that system. Below, we break down how the data flows work and what you can do to significantly limit spam.
The Hidden Pipeline That Feeds Spam Texts
Data brokers are the major suppliers of bulk contact lists used by spammers.
Data brokers collect, categorize, and resell detailed datasets on hundreds of millions of people. These records include names, phone numbers, addresses, demographics, interests, and behavioral signals.
This data is sold via subscriptions or bulk exports to marketers, political groups, survey firms, and others running high-volume messaging campaigns.
How does your data end up in these systems?
Data is sourced in three primary ways:
- Direct collection: Some brokers acquire apps or websites that gather personal information, or they embed tracking tech inside mobile apps that collect identifiers like phone numbers, locations, and behavioral patterns.
- Indirect sourcing: Brokers pull from public records, scrape websites, harvest social media, and buy data from other brokers or lead-generation partners.
- Inference: Algorithms guess your interests, habits, or lifestyle details based on location, purchases, or browsing behavior, whether accurate or not.
Once collected, your phone number gets bundled with other attributes into marketing datasets. These lists then circulate through resellers, affiliates, and platforms that service mass messaging.
Eventually, your number lands in a system that sends out spam, even if you never opted into anything.
Telecom carriers and credit bureaus are also major exposure points
Telecom carriers and credit bureaus feed large volumes of personal data, including phone numbers, into the same commercial data ecosystem.
Telecom carriers routinely share subscriber information with advertising and marketing partners through data-licensing and ad-targeting programs. Some opt-outs exist, but they are limited, and consumers cannot opt out of broader CPNI-related data flows. Carrier-shared data is then distributed through ad-tech platforms, analytics firms, and lead-generation partners, ultimately contributing to the same large marketing datasets that fuel spam.
Credit bureaus also play a significant role. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion maintain some of the largest marketing databases in the U.S., feeding phone numbers and demographic segments into prescreening systems, affiliate-sharing pipelines, and lead-generation channels. Even consumers who never apply for credit still have their data circulated unless they place a credit freeze, which stops prescreening-based sharing and reduces the spread of their phone number through these pipelines.
Together, data brokers, telecom carriers, and credit bureaus form the primary sources of the marketing datasets that eventually supply both legitimate and illegitimate spam systems.
Illegitimate Spam: When Broker Data Ends Up in the Hands of Scammers
Not all spam is from marketers following the rules. Some of the most frustrating spam texts and calls are outright deceptive, like fake loan offers, “urgent” robocalls with AI-generated voices, or messages that ask you to call back to opt out. These are not legitimate advertisements. They’re malicious or manipulative campaigns designed to trick you into responding, engaging, or handing over personal information.
Some of these fall into a category called ping spam, where messages are crafted to provoke a reply or callback that confirms your number is active, a tactic that can later lead to more spam and fraud. According to privacy researcher and data broker expert Jeff Jockisch, “Evidence suggests that data brokers, including lead generation companies and people search engines, are connected to ping spammers.”
Scammers often acquire phone number lists through the same marketing ecosystem as legitimate spammers. Bad actors may purchase data directly from brokers, obtain access to broker-sourced datasets through intermediaries such as resellers or compromised marketing/CRM accounts, or acquire broker data that has been exposed in breaches or traded on dark-web marketplaces.
Scam calls that spoof numbers or use fake identities originate from the same core problem: your phone number being widely available through broker datasets. Once your number circulates, it’s difficult to control where it ends up, including in the hands of bad actors running illegitimate operations.
Responding in any form confirms that your number is active, which increases its value to both scammers and marketers and leads to more spam.
Spam persists because bulk contact data is legal, profitable, and lightly enforced. When bad actors are penalized, they typically disappear.
The long-term solution to reducing these messages is shrinking your exposure inside the data broker ecosystem. But in the short term, ignoring and not engaging helps prevent deceptive spam messages from increasing.
How to Actually Reduce Spam: Shrink Your Exposure
Since spam relies on mass-circulated contact data, the best way to reduce it is by keeping your data out of the data broker ecosystem as much as possible.
There are two key strategies:
1. Reduce your current exposure
If your number appears across people-search sites and broker databases, it’s almost guaranteed to be circulating in bulk contact lists.
Manual removal of your data from broker sites is difficult because:
- There are too many data brokers to deal with
- New ones emerge constantly
- Removed profiles are routinely republished
For these reasons, many people use an automated service like Optery to find and remove their data for them.
Removing your number and other identifiers from data brokers can significantly reduce spam, but not instantly. It takes at least several months following removal of your data before you will start to see results because:
- marketing lists have long half-lives,
- resellers maintain backups, and
- suppression files take time to propagate across systems.
2. Prevent new exposures
In addition to data broker removal, to limit spam you must also take steps to ensure your data is not continuously re-entering the system.
Key steps include:
- Use privacy-first browsers like Brave or Firefox to block ad-tech trackers
- Enable Global Privacy Control (GPC), a browser signal that opts you out of data sales where legally recognized
- Install reputable ad blockers, which reduce behavioral tracking across sites
- Disable personalized ads on platforms like Google and Facebook
- Review and revoke app permissions, especially for contacts, location, and device IDs
- Never reply to unexpected texts, even with STOP. Doing so can validate your number to bulk texters
- Avoid sharing your phone number with stores or online forms, which often pass data to marketing partners or brokers. Many phone numbers enter broker pipelines through routine interactions such as: grocery stores and pharmacies, loyalty programs, real estate portals, car dealerships, warranty registrations, contests and sweepstakes, charitable donations, and travel bookings. These voluntary inputs are a major reason numbers recirculate.
- Use an alternate or masked number (such as Google Voice, Hushed, or a similar app) whenever you’re asked for a phone number you don’t truly need to supply. This keeps your real number out of marketing and broker pipelines.
- Avoid “quick-fix” spam-blocking apps, as many collect phone numbers, device IDs, and behavioral data that feed the same broker pipelines responsible for spam. Stick with reputable tools like your carrier’s built-in spam filtering instead of installing apps that may increase your exposure. Carriers offer marketing-sharing opt-outs, which you should use, but consumers cannot fully opt out of CPNI-related sharing, which is another reason phone numbers remain exposed.
- Freeze your credit. Credit bureaus are a major phone-number pipeline. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are among the largest wholesalers of marketing data in the U.S. Their prescreening and affiliate-sharing systems feed consumer phone numbers into lead-generation channels used by marketers. A credit freeze stops this category of sharing and prevents your number from being circulated through these pipelines.
In addition to these steps, you can help filter by reporting and blocking spam messages. Detailed instructions for doing so can be found here.
Conclusion: Shrinking Exposure Reduces Spam
If you want fewer spam texts and calls, focus on reducing your exposure inside the ecosystem that fuels spam. If you take the following steps:
- Removing your data from broker and people-search sites
- Blocking new data collection where possible
- Avoiding unnecessary sharing of your phone number
…you can shrink the pool of marketing lists your number ends up on. Over time, that leads to a noticeable reduction in spam, without needing to change your phone number or live in airplane mode.
You cannot eliminate spam entirely, but you can dramatically reduce it by shrinking your exposure to the data broker pipelines that drive it.
Learn more:
- Hang up on unwanted calls about loans | Consumer Advice
- Ping SMS Spam. Secret Weapon of Phishers and Brokers.
- How to stop spam texts on iPhone and Android phones – Digital Trends
- BBB Scam Alert: Receive a call from Jessica at a loan processing company? It could be a scam
- Data Brokers, Elder Fraud, and Justice Department Investigations | Lawfare