[GUIDE] How to Remove Your Name from the Internet: 9 Steps

Thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones and the power of Google, Bing and a scattering of other search engines, we have abiding, almost instantaneous access to virtually every piece of information in the universe.

Most of the time, being able to search online for the answer to almost any question—no matter how obscure—makes our lives easier and more than convenient. Nonetheless, when the subject field of an online query happens to be our own personal data, the ability to rail downwards information on the internet of a sudden loses a fleck of its appeal.

If you've ever searched your ain proper name online, y'all already know that information brokers, social media sites and other sources make it incredibly simple for almost anyone to find out your home address, phone number, email address, employment history, voting record and a variety of other intimate information. In these cases, you may be wondering how to remove your proper name from the Net.

In the wrong hands, this data could result in you becoming a victim of hacking, identity theft, virtual or physical stalking or harassment. In some cases, cybercriminals extend their nets to cause impairment to business concern and personal assembly they discover in your social media circles and online contacts.

How to Remove Your Name from the Internet

Though information technology'due south almost impossible to completely disappear from search engine results, at that place are some things yous can do to minimize your exposure and avert becoming the target of malicious actors online. The nine steps below will make your information more than difficult to notice and use against you.

Social media profiles tend to rank near the meridian of online search results, and then locking down your privacy settings can help prevent search engines from finding this information. If y'all take old or unused social media profiles on obsolete sites like MySpace, Flickr or Google+, you lot should delete them completely.

You may even want to join the growing ranks of people abandoning however-popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in response to concerns about user privacy and the proliferation of faux news.

How to brand your Facebook account individual

Click on the down arrow push on the summit right corner of the page.

Choose "Settings and Privacy" and click "Privacy."

In the menu on the left, click "Privacy" again.

Curl down and click "Edit" next to "Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your contour?"

Make sure the box adjacent to "Permit search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile" is unchecked.

Nether "Posts," make certain to limit who can come across your by and future posts to "Friends."

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How to make your Twitter account private

Log into your Twitter account and click the "More" push button on the left.

Select "Privacy and Settings"

Click on "Your Business relationship" and then "Privacy and Prophylactic."

Under "Audience and tagging," select the box next to "Protect your Tweets."

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How to make your Instagram account individual

Open the Instagram app and click the 3 bars in the top correct corner.

Select "Settings" and and then "Privacy."

Toggle the bar to actuate the "Individual Account" setting.

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Stride ii – Discover and remove sometime personal content, including reviews, blog posts and comments

As the saying goes, the cyberspace never forgets, meaning unless yous delete them, content you created months or even decades ago lives on somewhere on the spider web. Quondam blog entries, posts on message boards, comments on news manufactures—they're all lurking in some dusty corner of the internet, but waiting to be rediscovered by a search engine.

Unfortunately, the only way to erase years of online activity is to manually delete each piece of content, one past one. Offset past performing a search for your name and visiting the location of each result to delete the content you want to eliminate from search results.

In some cases, you may have to contact the possessor of the website in question to request the removal of your post or comment. This contact data may be located in the "About" section of a website, or y'all may need to search www.whois.com to determine who currently controls the site. This process can become notoriously difficult, so nosotros recommend keeping a spreadsheet to keep runway of progress for link removals/updates and responses.

Pace 3 – Opt-out of data brokers and people search sites

Upon performing a test search of your name, you'll probably find multiple entries from data brokers or people search sites like Intelius, PeekYou, MyLife and Spokeo.

These sites scour the net to gather equally much information every bit possible near individuals and then aggregate the data into comprehensive reports that can then exist sold to marketers, regime agencies, individual subscribers, or other data brokers.

These databases can contain sensitive data such as your full name, home address, employer, telephone number, email address, fractional Social Security number, voting history, marital condition, engagement of birth, and much more.

Almost all information brokers allow individuals to opt out of having their information collected, stored, sold, and shared, but you lot'll need to complete the opt-out process for each of the dozens of information brokers and and then await up to 60 days for your personal information to be removed from their sites.

Even after y'all've opted out, your information volition remain with the original sources from which data brokers choose their information—places similar state and local government records, social media profiles, and news sites—although it volition be more time-consuming for searchers to locate.

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Step 4 – Enlist assistance from a privacy protection service

If opting out of each data broker and people search site 1 at a fourth dimension sounds tiresome and time-consuming, yous're right. Fortunately, there are services like Removaly that can complete the process for yous. That is what we are here for, to make the procedure easier.

These privacy protection services have years of feel in identifying both well-known and obscure data brokers and how to complete the opt-out process for each one.

These services can too be highly constructive in locating the original sources of your data and requesting its removal. Considering the fourth dimension it would take for you to tackle this gargantuan task by yourself, signing up for 1 of these services tin be a wise investment.

Footstep 5 – Privatize online shopping accounts

From grocery delivery to gift shopping, about of us make a sizable percentage of our purchases online. Nevertheless, a surprising number of these transactions are at to the lowest degree partially public.

For case, unless you deliberately fabricated your Amazon Wish Listing individual, the default setting for these aspirational accounts is public, significant they will appear in search engine results.

Anytime you lot make a purchase online, check your business relationship settings to ensure that your e-commerce activity is private. Otherwise, y'all may exist broadcasting your shopping lists for the whole internet to run into.

Step half dozen – Ax inactive email accounts

Over the last quarter-century, we've probably all accumulated at least a scattering of e-mail addresses, from the early days of Net providers similar AOL and Juno to more contemporary hosts like Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. Unless y'all're actively using an email account, deleting it will prevent potential breaches past hackers and exposure in online searches.

After you lot shut obsolete accounts, any letters directed to them will bounce back, prompting their removal from mailing lists and corporate databases and providing 1 less connectedness for search engines to notice.

Stride 7 – Delete inaccurate search results

Even after yous've deleted erstwhile, obsolete or inaccurate content, it may nevertheless show up in online searches. If unwanted results are still actualization when you search, yous can contact Google to request their removal.

Google'southward Remove Unwanted Content tool may be an option if you do non own the search result page and the page or image no longer exists or is substantially unlike from the electric current version of the page or image.

Utilizing the Remove Content Tool in Google

To use the Remove Unwanted Content tool:

• You must be logged into Google for the request to be processed.
• Go to the Remove Outdated Content page.
• Enter the URL of the page or image in the required format and click Submit.
• If the page or image however exists at the URL you enter, you will need to provide additional information.
• If your submission is accustomed, your asking volition exist added to the history at the bottom of the page.
• Check the status of your request periodically. If your request is denied, Google will provide a link explaining why your submission was rejected.

Footstep 8 – Create new content to help cover-up private data

If y'all are unsuccessful at removing the information that shows upwardly in your search results, your next course of activeness is to bury it with new, highly-ranked content that will relegate the links yous want to hide to the second or third pages of the results (and thus less likely to exist discovered by potential employers, family, friends, and even some bad actors).

High-quality, relevant content well-nigh you will rising to the top of your search results—content like new social media accounts, a personal website or weblog or fifty-fifty printing releases posted to free sites like EIN Presswire. Focus your efforts on websites with loftier Domain Authority, which attain the highest Google rankings and will about effectively obscure the unwanted content.

Step 9 – Get aid from Google to address serious breaches

If your personal safe or financial data are truly at risk, Google will typically work with you to go the content removed, provided you tin replenish proof of the actual or potential damages.

If your Social Security number or banking concern business relationship information take been published online, y'all can submit a legal request to Google to have it taken down. This selection volition not piece of work for information that is simply negative or inconvenient, so save this pick for dire circumstances just.

If you get the victim of identity theft or financial fraud, be certain to report it immediately to the Federal Trade Commission and the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Y'all should also contact the three main credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) to have your credit report frozen.

Concluding Thoughts on How To Remove Your Name from the Cyberspace

Though it's not possible to completely erase yourself from search engine results, you exercise accept a significant amount of control over what data appears in searches and how easily information technology tin be located. The ix tips described in a higher place will become a long manner in making your personal information hard to admission, and you tin can help forbid future exposure by existence judicious about what and where y'all share content online.

A good rule of thumb for online activity is to act as if whatever you're posting, sharing or ownership could get public at some betoken, and wherever possible, drag your privacy settings to minimize the chances of information technology actually happening.

Concerned nigh how much information about you is freely bachelor online? Go your data automatically removed from dozens of people search websites and information brokers, and avoid detest raids, for less than the cost of a Netflix subscription with Removaly.

Source: https://removaly.com/how-to-remove-your-name-from-the-internet/

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