Over the years, through online shopping, social media interactions, and more, you have shared a surprising amount of information about yourself on the World Wide Web. This might put you at risk of having your information stolen, so it might make you feel a little uneasy. But there are steps that you can take to clean up your online presence to remove a lot of information that’s available about you.
Do you wish that you could wipe away your presence online? Check out the tips below to get started.
Delete Your Social Media Accounts
Social media can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a tempting way to share way too much personal information about yourself. Even just filling out your profile information after creating an account on a platform like Facebook could have you oversharing before you know it. Details like where you live, where you work, where you’ve lived and worked in the past, where you went to school, your birthday, and your relationship status could all be on display if you allow them to be. And when you’re connected with friends and family, it becomes easier for strangers to gather information about you and your loved ones.
Although you can certainly make your social media accounts private, if you really want to delete yourself from the online world, you’ll want to deactivate and totally remove your social media accounts. Just don’t forget about accounts that you don’t use anymore. Remember how popular Myspace used to be?
Delete Old Accounts You No Longer Use
In addition to deleting your social media accounts, when you want to clear your online footprint, you’ll also want to delete any old accounts that you no longer use. These might have been created years ago, so it might be tough to remember that they even exist, but finding them and removing them will be important. You might need to go through your old emails, if you saved them, to find accounts that you’ve made with various websites, online shops, and more.
While getting rid of old accounts is important, also look at the accounts that are currently active. If you really want to totally remove yourself from the internet, those will need to be deleted as well. Otherwise, hone in on the ones that you want to keep and the ones that are necessary, and keep only those active.
Contact Websites That Share Information About You
Finally, do a quick search online using your full name to see which websites, if any, are hosting information about you. What you might find is that people search sites like Whitepages are displaying your contact details, along with other information, for all to see. If that’s the case, the next step would be to opt out of Whitepages to have your information taken down.
But don’t just stop at Whitepages, as there are plenty of people search websites out there, and they might all be displaying your information. Spokeo is another good example, but you can look into Spokeo opt out instructions to regain control.
A final example is FastPeopleSearch, which might also be sharing your details with the public. As is the case with similar sites, FastPeopleSearch removal shouldn’t be difficult at all.
There you have it: a few ways to clean up your presence online or go through the process of removing yourself entirely!
