Five Ways To Delete Yourself From The Internet

Can you really delete yourself from the internet? It sure seems like it'd be harder than this article makes it sound.

Social networks include sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. Shopping accounts include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com, Macys.com and others. And Web services might include cloud storage accounts such as Dropbox and OneDrive. To get rid of these accounts, go to your account settings and just look for an option to either deactivate, remove, or close your account.

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Once something is on the internet, its pretty much forever.

No. You can never be deleted from the internet. Forgotten? Yes.... Deleted? No...

That's easy for some companies when they let their domain name expire and suddenly e-mails being sent to that domain bounce back to sender.

But if I delete myself from the internet I might cease to exist

the second i bought a house it was all over.

all those years of staying anonymous and a simple google search of my name shows my address.

aardvark sandwich said:

the second i bought a house it was all over.

all those years of staying anonymous and a simple google search of my name shows my address.

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Yup, ditto ^
Once that happened for me I just learned to act like my dog when growing up (selective hearing "sit, stay, roll over" *blank stare* vs. "dinner time" *at your feet in 0.024 seconds*

1) "Deactivating" your online accounts doesn't "delete" anything. It's still out there even if you can't easily "see" it.

2) Let's pay a company to delete my information. But in order to know what information to delete, you're going to need to have an account - one of those that you were suppose to get rid of in step 1 - and give them information to make sure they are deleting you and not someone else. So, you'll just end up putting more information ON the web in hopes that they can get information OFF the web.

3) Let's ask people who have no obligation - and sometimes no knowledge of how - to remove your contributions from their site.

4) OK, I'll give 'em credit here. I didn't know about Google's URL removal tool. However, it doesn't apply to other search engines, especially in non-google dominant countries.

5) Good luck on your next job search without the use of email or the web.

Just because there's information out there doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. Nor does it mean you can get rid of it. Keep things under control for sure, but there's rarely a reason to go hermit.

Back in my day if we wanted to be erased from existence we went around burning all the phone books. Then we went back in time in a Delorean to got hot with our mama, thus erasing us from existence. Don't even talk to me about time paradoxes, cause it just works out ok.

Move to Europe...apparently its your right to be forgotten and irrelevant.

What happens on the internet, stays on the internet ...


FOREVER

Just have a common name and you are good to go...

John Smith...Juan Garcia.....good fucking luck nailing that guy down.

hmm for anyone interested there was a documentary made about this very thing back in 2010 here is a link to an article about it http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/29/erasing-david-review

and the official site: http://erasingdavid.com/

Given enough time shit starts to disappear, from normal channels anyway. Had a spam-ridden e-mail address that after non-use for a while the spam eventually stopped. Things I use to find on the internet years ago have disappeared. When the interest level for data drops low enough, it won't be maintained and eventually drop off the edges and no amount of resurgent interest can get it back.

It takes 5-10 years, but stuff starts going away. People like to project a lot of absolute qualities onto the internet which aren't true. This is one of them.