Whether you are a really private person and you no longer feel comfortable with so much of your personal information being available online, or you are ready to disconnect from the online world for any reason, you can begin deleting your digital footprint.
This involves removing as much information about yourself as possible so that it won’t be easy to find on the internet. Below, we list a few ways that you can get started if this is the path you want to take.
Contact Websites That Have Posted Content About You
If you have any websites or blogs under your own control, it’s easy to just take them down and remove them from the internet so they are no longer accessible. But if there are websites out there that have posted content about you, you’ll need to contact them to politely request that they remove that information.
Bear in mind that there are likely public records posted online, and there may not be anything that you can do about those. However, if a website that you contributed to in the past, for example, still has your content up, you can certainly talk to them about why you want that content taken down, and hopefully they’ll agree to fulfill your request.
Get Off of People Search Sites
People search websites are super easy to find these days because there are so many. While you might already be familiar with some of them, such as Spokeo, there are a lot more where that came from.
What do people search websites display? Well, they can showcase a lot of information about you. And anyone can go on those sites, type in your name, and find that info, which might include your contact details, the names of your family members, and even your background. So, if you want to delete your digital footprint, deleting your listings from people search sites should be part of your plan.
It might seem daunting at first, but getting your information off people search websites isn’t difficult. For example, if you wanted to get off Spokeo, you could go to the Spokeo opt out page.
How can you figure out which people search sites are making your information public? A simple internet search should guide you in the right direction. You might find that FastPeopleSearch is one of them, so you’d have to go through the process of FastPeopleSearch removal.
Another popular site is Intelius, but like others, Intelius opt out isn’t complicated.
Delete All of Your Online Accounts
This is probably the hardest step in the process of removing your online footprint because you need to think about all of the accounts that you have set up over the years. Accounts that you’ve used with retailers, social media accounts, and accounts that you’ve created to interact on websites like forums and news sites would all need to be removed.
When you are all finished deleting your various online accounts, you can then move on to deleting your email addresses. Just be sure that you keep your emails active until you’ve deleted the accounts that are associated with them.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, with the right strategy, you could remove your digital footprint and have more control over the information that people can find about you on the internet.
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