So you’re done with the internet, or maybe it’s done with you. Whether it’s the privacy challenges, the threat of identity theft by hackers, addictive and abusive social media behavior, or a haunting past that you can’t shake, you might want to delete yourself from the internet and make it disappear.
Achieving total erasure isn’t easy or fast, but you can make your internet identity disappear with persistent effort and ongoing determination. Deleting your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, and other social media accounts is a great first step, but there’s plenty more to do.
Your personal data exists throughout the World Wide Web in the hands of search engines and data brokers that collect and index public and private information to run their businesses.
How to delete multiple social media accounts
You probably use multiple social media platforms, and if you want to delete yourself from the internet, that’s a great place to begin. You can individually log in to your Facebook account, Twitter account, and the rest, navigating through complicated menu systems to remove your posts and personal information, but there’s a better way.
A free tool calledRedactsimplifies this process. With the Android, Windows, or macOS app, you may quickly sign in and mark some or all of your social media account data for deletion.
The Redact app displays a lot of information, so it’s easiest to use a phone with a large, bright screen, such as theGoogle Pixel 7 Pro.
Even with the Redact app, it takes some time to delete everything. It’s worth considering whether you need or want to take this irreversible step.
Email and other online accounts
If you have active email or Gmail accounts associated with your name or online presence, export anything you want to save, then deactivate those accounts. For Gmail, you canuse Google Takeout to save your datasecurely offline. Other email providers have ways to save information before you delete these old accounts.
Don’t forget LinkedIn and other websites where you entered your business credentials. To erase all references, you need to delete accounts everywhere.
How to delete yourself from Google Search results
Google is the most popular search engine in the world, so it’s an important source of online information to consider when you want to delete yourself from the internet. Google explains the “right to be forgotten” in a support document. In compliance with the European Union’sGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you can request that your personal details be delisted from Google Search results.
According toGoogle, “search engines must consider if the information in question is ‘inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive,’ and whether there is a public interest in the information remaining available in search results.” That means your request may or may not be honored, depending on the nature of the content. Unauthorized, private data is likely to be removed. Information relating to disputable claims is more difficult unless you have a court ruling to back up your position.
In the support document, Google gives a good accounting of how it decides to remove or retain certain listings in its search index. There are few absolutes and many gray areas, so trying again might be a good idea if your request is denied.
Google is the largest search engine, but don’t forget about MicrosoftBingandYahoo.
DIY DMCA Takedown notices
Even if you get Google to remove all mentions of you and your private information from its search index, your content may still be all over the internet on various websites. You have a digital footprint because nearly everyone owns a smartphone, takes pictures, and shares information about coworkers, friends, and family.
You can write to individual website owners and request that your pictures and data be deleted, but it’s likely to get routed through a support center and placed in the circular file to deal with later. However, you aren’t without options. In some cases, you can issue a DCMA takedown notice to demand removal. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) can be used to force data to be removed or a web page taken offline if it contains material that infringes your copyright.
You can file a DMCA note using the resources atCopyright.gov. You need to contact the person in charge (the webmaster) of the website containing your data and send a removal request.
Despite your best efforts, information spreads rapidly on the internet, and you might find removing your data from hundreds of websites is time-consuming. It might be better to hire a service that specializes in deleting personal data from the internet.
Third-party data deletion services
Your name, address, phone number, and email accounts are among the vast amount of data commonly shared on websites. Often the intention is to keep some or all of this information private. Financial information, including credit card numbers and bank account details, could be stored by data collection businesses. Online retailers hold your data to facilitate shopping. Amazon is one of the largest and is generally considered trustworthy. Still, you might have ordered products from smaller websites years ago and forgot that they also have your personal and financial information.
If your contact information or other private data leaks out once or is shared with an untrustworthy source, details of your personal life can be spread across hundreds of websites in seconds. It could take months or years to root out all the unwanted references to your data across the internet. To remove all traces of your existence from the internet, professional help is needed. Several service providers, including Deleteme, Kanary, and OneRep, can help with data removal.
How to protect your data in the future
For most people, deleting yourself from the internet is not meant to be a permanent situation. The World Wide Web has so much to offer that abandoning it forever is almost unthinkable. Instead, you may want to start using the same services you deleted, setting up a new account, possibly under a new name.
In the future, lock down your iOS permissions andAndroid privacy settings. To be even more secure, consider using avirtual private network (VPN), such as the one included with Google One, when using a web browser.
Deleting yourself is hard
Deleting yourself from the internet is hard and might require an ongoing effort. Search engines, people search sites, and online public records serve good purposes but can be used by anyone to learn more about you.
Data brokers make money from collecting and selling your information. Data breaches can expose your personal details despite your best efforts at cybersecurity. If you need to remove yourself from the internet, you probably need an ongoing search and delete effort to get the job done.
