Can I keep information about the business on the side private from various websites

[joeb]

I am looking to incorporate a startup online business as a side business in california.

I want to keep the information about my involvement private until I'm somewhat confident about the enterprise. After that I can go public.
CA state records makes some information public e.g. the entity's registered agent.

Would some information digging website such as corporationwiki, bizpedia etc be able to dig officer information etc and post it online? How can I keep my affiliation private until I am ready?

[Freelancier]

As far as I'm aware -- but I'm not in CA, so take that into consideration -- every corporation registration requires a list of its officers and a registered agent (which can be one of the officers or it can be an attorney). All are public knowledge once you tell the state government about it (open record laws and all that).

If you're trying to hide your involvement from your current company, it's going to be random whether they find out, since it'll take someone searching on your name and the search engine pulling up the info in the state database.

[joeb]

Officer names can be obtained from secretary of state office in CA only at the cost of a small fee. At least that is what the CA state has on their website. So, even if anyone can find out the registered agent name by doing a quick search against a business entity name on CA state website, they can't find the officers names so easily - they'll have to pay a fee.

Since websites such as corporationwiki etc have listed officers names for several CA companies, can anyone tell me how these websites obtain this info? Do they simply crawl the internet and store info that the company owners may themselves have posted on the net; Or, do they do something else?

I have heard that there exist websites that would post company officer information on the web even if one wants to hide their involvement in the company. any examples of such websites?

[Freelancier]

Looking at the CA SOS site:


Owner, shareholder and employee information for a business entity is not made of record with the California Secretary of State. Requests for information should be directed to the business entity itself.


So you seem to be free and clear on that. It's just the registered agent part, and you can make your parents that or even a close friend and hide your involvement entirely.

As for the other companies you're seeing: publicly traded companies must register additional information as part of being publicly traded. Maybe that's what you're seeing...?

[joeb]

Thanks for the response and I hope to hear from people who have faced similar issues.

I will be an officer as ceo in the company and can't just be the owner so CA secretary of state will have that information. The company will be a private s-corp.
I plan to run it as a side business/startup as i have a day job. But in the beginning i do not want my name to be visible in relation to the company and want to do so when the startup looks viable and generates more confidence. I do intend to have a few cofounders who would take other executive roles in the company.

I am sure many have navigated these issues before especially in CA. Knowledge that sites exist that extract your officer info from all sorts of sources and paste it on the internet makes me think that there must be a way to handle this privacy issue. Where would these websites get this information if it's only available by making a financial payment to the state and how to handle this privacy issue?