Delete Yourself From The Internet
This article is specific to US expats in the Philippines.
Civil defamation is a real problem with some Internet data brokers. But erasing yourself from the Internet is also a matter of protecting your credit, your identity and your personal security.
In the Credit and Identity Protection Guide we addressed how to request a security freeze on your credit to prevent data brokers from having access to your personal information.
Whether or not you decide to go with security freezes, you might want to take some steps to clean up what is already out on the web.
Below you will find opt out information for fifteen of the major people data websites. I found that these sites are responsible for greater than 95% of all of the search results that I receive when I search for variations of my name together with other personal details.
By opting out of these sites I achieved almost total erasure of myself from search results.
To do the same for yourself, go to the opt out URL and follow the instructions from the site:
Make sure you save the URL of the page before you ask them to delete the page.
Before you do this you might want to create an ad hoc email address just for this i.e. delete.john.doe@gmail.com. You should keep it for future iterations.
https://www.smartbackgroundchecks.com/optout
- You will get a response from support@smartbackgroundchecks.zendesk.com.
- If you have any issues you can respond to that address and they will quickly sort it out.
https://www.beenverified.com/f/optout/search
- support@beenverified.com
https://www.peoplelooker.com/f/optout/search
- People looker uses the same database as beenverified.
- support@peoplelooker.com
https://www.peoplesmart.com/help
- If you click "manage your listing" on the right it also redirects to beenverified opt out.
- support@peoplesmart.com
https://www.truthfinder.com/opt-out
https://clustrmaps.com/bl/opt-out
https://checkpeople.com/do-not-sell-info
https://www.spokeo.com/optout
- If you have trouble you can send them an email (privacy@spokeo.com) with details and they will respond and delete the information.
https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/removal
https://www.checkthem.com/optout
- support@checkthem.com
https://www.truthfinder.com/opt-out
- Truthfinder seems to be associated with instantcheckmate and fastpeoplesearch, as they all have the same opt out interface.
https://www.instantcheckmate.com/opt-out/
- privacy@instantcheckmate.com
- support@instantcheckmate.com
https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/removal
https://rehold.com
- Follow your search engine result to the rehold.com page containing the address showing you as a resident.
- On the right side you will see a link "information control." Click it.
- Click "remove" next to the record you wish to remove. The text over those names will be struck out.
- Enter your name and email. DO NOT enter your actual current phone or address.You do not owe them that information.
- Solve the captcha.
- Click apply.
- You will be sent a confirmation email with a link you need to follow.
- After you do that it takes up to 48 hours to take effect.
- This will be one of the pages where you only delete the snippet with your information from search results, as the page will not be entirely deleted.
- Mylife.com does not have an opt out page.
- You will need to email your removal request to privacy@mylife.com and removalrequests@mylife.com
- DO NOT give them information they do not have.
- Do not curse.
- Be professional.
- Be firm with your request.
- Include the link to your profile page.
- You may get different responses from different personnel at Mylife.com. Simply reiterate your demand.
- State something along the line that:
- This page contains false, inaccurate, defaming material about myself: [url of page with your information]
- Please remove the page immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Information on this site may or may not be updated/corrected. Use at your own discretion.
Public comments are no longer accepted.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.