Who Owns Incogni?

Incogni originated inside Surfshark in September 2021, when the company's privacy team began investigating the data broker industry and the weakness of manual opt-out processes. Data brokers aggregate personal information, including addresses, phone numbers, and behavioral data, and sell it legally in most jurisdictions. Opting out required individuals to contact each broker individually, a process measured in hundreds of hours.

The product automated that burden. Incogni generates and sends deletion requests to data brokers on a user's behalf, invoking legal frameworks such as the GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, and similar statutes elsewhere, then tracks responses and resends requests as needed.

The service launched publicly in January 2022, initially covering a defined list of data brokers across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and European markets. Surfshark integrated it into the Surfshark One+ bundle, positioning data removal as a complement to VPN and antivirus protection: VPN hides traffic, antivirus protects devices, and Incogni removes the personal data already circulating in broker databases.

In 2025, Incogni introduced Custom Removals, a feature allowing subscribers to submit links to websites outside its automated broker list for human-assisted takedown requests, extending coverage beyond the fixed broker directory. The product operates as one of the leading standalone data removal services, competing primarily against DeleteMe, Aura, and Optery.