Five ways to delete yourself from the internet
Finally ready to get off the grid? It's not
quite as simple as it should be, but here are a few easy-to-follow steps that
will at the very least point you in the right direction.
If you're reading this, it's highly likely
that your personal information is available to the public. And while you can
never remove yourself completely from the internet, there are ways to minimize
your online footprint. Here are five ways to do so.
Be warned however; removing your information
from the internet as I've laid it out below, may adversely affect your ability
to communicate with potential employers.
1. Delete or deactivate your shopping, social network, and Web service accounts
Think about which social networks you have
profiles on. Aside from the big ones, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
Instagram, do you still have public accounts on sites like Tumblr, Google+ or
even MySpace? Which shopping sites have you registered on? Common ones might
include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com,
Macys.com and others.
To get rid of these accounts, go to your
account settings and just look for an option to either deactivate, remove or
close your account. Depending on the account, you may find it under Security or
Privacy, or something similar.
If you're having trouble with a particular
account, try searching online for "How to delete," followed by the
name of the account you wish to delete. You should be able to find some
instruction on how to delete that particular account.
If for some reason you can't delete an
account, change the info in the account to something other than your actual
info. Something fake or completely random.
2. Remove yourself from data collection sites
There are companies out there that collect
your information. They're called data brokers and they have names like Spokeo,
Crunchbase, PeopleFinder, as well as plenty of others. They collect data from
everything you do online and then sell that data to interested parties, mostly
in order more specifically advertise to you and sell you more stuff.
Now you could search for yourself on these
sites and then deal with each site individually to get your name removed.
Problem is, the procedure for opting out from each site is different and
sometimes involves sending faxes and filling out actual physical paperwork.
Physical. Paperwork. What year is this, again?
Anyway, an easier way to do it is to use a
service like DeleteMe at Abine.com.
For about $130 for a one-year membership, the service will jump through all
those monotonous hoops for you. It'll even check back every few months to make
sure your name hasn't been re-added to these sites.
3. Remove your info directly from websites
First, check with your phone company or cell
provider to make sure you aren't listed online and have them remove your name
if you are.
If you want to remove an old forum post or an
old embarrassing blog you wrote back in the day, you'll have to contact the
webmaster of those sites individually. You can either look at the About us or
Contacts section of the site to find the right person to contact or go to www.whois.com and search
for the domain name you wish to contact. There you should find information on
who exactly to contact.
Unfortunately, private website operators are
under no obligation to remove your posts. So, when contacting these sites be
polite and clearly state why you want the post removed. Hopefully they'll
actually follow through and remove them.
If they don't, tip number four is a less
effective, but still viable, option.
4. Delete search engine results that return information about you
Search engine results includes sites like Bing,
Yahoo and Google. In fact Google has a URL
removal tool that can help you delete specific URLs.
For example, if someone has posted sensitive
information such as a Social Security number or a bank account number and the
webmaster of the site where it was posted won't remove it, you can at least
contact the search engine companies to have it removed from search results,
making it harder to find.
5. And finally, the last step you'll want to take is to remove your email accounts
Depending on the type of email account you
have, the amount of steps this will take will vary.
You'll have to sign into your account and
then find the option to delete or close the account. Some accounts will stay
open for a certain amount of time, so if you want to reactivate them you can.
An email address is necessary to complete the previous steps, so make sure this
one is your last.
One last thing...
Remember to be patient when going through this
process. Don't expect it to be completed in one day. And you may also have to
accept that there some things you won't be able permanently delete from the
internet.
Video Link | http://www.cnet.com/videos/get-off-the-grid/
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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