Seeking to escape the internet? While online notoriety thrills some people, for others, it can become a great burden. Well, you may not feel like the flotsam and jetsam that make up the facts of your life are important, but increasingly companies are using that dry data to make your every online step as indelible as if written in blood. Internet makes you quite easy to find. But, you can take back your digital dignity now...
Know How...!!!
Think this through very carefully before proceeding, as once done, most of the things said below cannot be undone.
1. How is it that easy for search engines to display your results? Most of the time, blame Social Networking and Online Shopping Sites for those results. So, first delete your accounts from those sites. You may not even remember all those you've joined, but make sure you delete your accounts from facebook, twitter, google +, linkedin, Flickr, StumbleUpon, paypal, ebay & other auction sites, craigslist and other local advertising groups, game sites and other 3rd party applications, that are linked to your social networking accounts.
2. Weasel your way out of undeletable accounts. Some sites don’t allow full deletion, forcing you to merely “deactivate” (while your information stays in the system) or abandon your account. If there is a real reason for removal (such as witness protection), contact the site's owner or engineers; at the very least, you should be able to get a name change to cover your real identity. However, if you can’t get anyone to intervene on your behalf, there’s another way of dissociating:
- Remove every last scrap of information about yourself from the account. If there is no option of leaving any field blank, fill it with absolutely fake names (or) with those names which are quite famous as Ratan Tata (or) Kajal Agarwal.
- Create a new email account with a free email provider. The more unlikely the username, the better.
- Associate the undeletable account with this new email address. Confirm the new email address when prompted. Once it goes through, make sure your real email address no longer appears anywhere in this account.
- Cancel your new email address. Your undeletable account is now associated with an address that no longer exists.
4. Check with your phone company to make sure you're not listed online. If you are, ask them to remove your details completely. Ditto for any other customer databases that might cause your name and details to be online.
5. Cancel all mailing lists. This should be fairly straightforward as usually the method for unsubscribing is in the body of each email, often with a direct link. Follow the individual instructions given. If you can't find such instructions, contact the site administrators directly.
6. Delete search engine results that feature you. Search not only Google or Bing, but also others like Spokeo, ZabaSearch, Pipl, Intelius and many that you know. There might be images, articles, or even employer websites, where your name shows up. The first thing to do is figure out where you're showing up online in search results. You essentially have one course of action to remove this content: contact the source directly. Email the web site hosting the content and politely ask them to remove it. After that, you can appeal to the search engines directly to remove the edited pages right away. You can do so through Google, Google Images, or Bing by filling out a simple form and requesting the URL to be indexed again.
7. Monitor your friends. Unfortunately, it's not just about you anymore. Urge your friends, family and other acquaintances not to post your photos or information in the web without your explicit permission.
8. Get rid of Criminal and Public Record Results. Go for services like DeleteMe, of course you need to pay, but this service does background checks and personal databases checks to wipe your information from web.
9. Clean up your computer.
- Remove all internet history, cookies, etc.
- Remove the internet program if you're really adamant.
- Remove your computer if you're going "cold technology".
10. Shrug off what you can't remove. There may be some things that you can't do anything about. In that case, it is probably best to just accept that reality as you move on. If instances of your online come back to haunt you, you could always try denying that it's you -- especially if you have a common name!
You've done as much as you can...Move on now!!!
P.S: Beware! Keep your online persona clean, for you don't know what can hurt you (you know what I mean!)
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