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 should 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 services accounts.
Social
networks include sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
Shopping accounts include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com,
Macys.com and others. And Web services might include cloud storage
accounts such as Dropbox and OneDrive.
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
Googling "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 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
sites out there that collect your information, mostly in order to sell
you stuff. They have names like Spokeo, Crunchbase, PeopleFinder, as
well as plenty of others.
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.
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.
This 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
won't remove it, you can at least contact the search engine companies to
have it removed from search results.
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.
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