To disappear completely and completely from the Internet is an impossible thing. Especially today. But it is possible to reduce its presence as much as possible.
If you’re reading these words, it’s very probable that your personal information is available to the general public. And by “public”, we must read, “everyone everywhere”. How, then, could disappear from the Internet stop companies from getting their hands on this data? To make it short, it’s impossible. Unfortunately, it is impossible to completely and completely disappear from the Internet, but it is possible to leave a minimum of traces. Here are some tips for doing this.
Be careful, however: removing your personal data from the internet could have certain negative effects, such as making it difficult to communicate with potential employers.
1. Deactivate or delete your online shopping, social networking, and other accounts.
Think of all the social services you have accounts with. Do you have any old Tumblr accounts, aside from the major ones (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn)? MySpace? Reddit? On which e-commerce sites do you have an account? Amazon? And the others?
To deactivate, delete, or close these accounts, log into the relevant sites and seek for options to deactivate, delete, or close your account under your profile. These are most often found in Privacy or Security.
If you have difficulty with a particular site, do not hesitate to search “How to delete account << service name >>”. You should find the information fairly easily.
And if for some reason an account cannot be deleted, change the information to muddy the waters, enter something completely wrong.
2. Get rid of data-gathering websites.
There are businesses whose sole purpose is to capture your information. They are data brokers; they collect information about everything you do online and then sell it to third parties that are interested in serving you personalized advertising.
You can look up these websites and contact them directly to request that your personal information be removed. But these procedures are different from site to site, and you often have to fill out paperwork – and send faxes, letters, etc. –
Using a service like DeleteMe is a simpler option. For a fee, this service will perform these tedious operations for you. It’ll even check every x time to make sure your name hasn’t reappeared here or there.
You’ve probably erased yourself from Google results if you removed yourself from these data broker sites. This makes it more difficult for people to locate you. DeleteMe also offers you a number of guidelines to follow to delete yourself from the different data brokers if you prefer to do it yourself.
3. Delete your information directly from the sites
First, check with your carrier to make sure you are not listed online and ask them to delete your data if necessary.
You must contact the webmaster directly if you wish to remove an embarrassing old post from a forum or blog. You can find the contact information in the dedicated sections or use www.whois.com and enter the domain name to contact.
Unfortunately, webmasters are under no obligation to respond to your requests. Always be polite and ask precisely which post (s) you want to be deleted.
If they do not respond favorably, option # 4, below, is less effective, but valid.
4. Remove all of your personal data from the websites.
You can make an official removal request to Google if someone has posted critical information about you, such as your social security or bank account number, and the site’s operator refuses to remove the post.
Although the procedure may take some time and there is no guarantee that it will be successful, it is your best option if you are actually in danger.
5. Remove search results that are no longer relevant.
Let’s say there’s a page with information about you that you’d like to have removed – say, a page from a former employer that you’d like to have removed many months after you left jobs. -. You ask them to update the page. They comply. But when you do a search on your name on Google, the page still appears in the results – while your name is not found when you click on the link -. This determines that Google’s servers still have the old version of the page cached.
This is where the tool comes in. Submit the URL to Google to update their servers, remove the result from the cache so no one can access it. No guarantee that Google will actually remove cached information, but it’s worth a try if you really want to reduce your internet presence.
6. Finally, remove your email accounts as the final step.
The number of steps to achieve this varies depending on the sort of email account you have. In any case, you’ll have to go in and look for the option to delete or close the account. Some accounts stay open for a while, if you change your mind, for example.
An email address is also required to complete the operation, so make sure the one you enter is your last.
One last thing…
Remember to be patient and don’t expect it to disappear immediately. You will also most likely have to accept that some things cannot be deleted …
