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How to scrub your personal information from the internet
If you’ve ever heard of data scrubbing, then you understand the concept of why and how you need to get your data off the internet. For many it’s a privacy breach, for others, they just don’t like the idea of their home address being online, even if it’s listed in the “phone book” or is public domain. It takes a fair amount of work and persistence to scrub you completely from the internet. You may do a google or Bing search to find that only your first and last names are online or your home address and last name. For some people it’s their home phone number and former spouse’s name. The extent to which you will need this personal information scrubbed off the internet will depend on how much data of yours is out there to begin with. Even something as simple as your first and last name and address can appear on dozens of sites, and so each one has to be removed because each site is owned by a different person or company. It may turn out that only a little information about you is online so it will be a simple procedure to scrub the personal data off those sites. That’s the best scenario and the one that takes the least amount of time.
However, if you have a lot of cross information posted on many websites, then the issues becomes more complicated. For many people this is the case. Data leaks out and gets posted to one website, but then data miners scrounge the internet for info and pull it off that site and post it on their website, and so on. Over time, a great amount of your personal information is online, much more than you ever bargained for. To scrub this personal information off the internet yourself is quite a chore and requires diligence and upkeep. You need to go to each website where your information appears and ask each company to remove all data associated with you. You may have to do this in writing via regular mail or via email with proof of identity included. Some sites offer a “remove my info” section or form that you can fill out. These are similar to the Unsubscribe pages included on spam emails. What some sites do, though, is simple repost your information in a few months or weeks, just like your email address is sold to a sister or parent spam company and you are soon getting new emails from companies you never even heard of.
It takes a certain amount of expertise to dig in and really get to the root of the problem with your data being posted online. A good, reliable data removal company can get your personal information off the internet. They are experienced with internet searches and can find even the sneakiest postings. Once they information is off the sites, all-inclusive companies offer monitoring services that keep the data off for extended periods which keeps people from just turning around and reposting. This saves a lot of hassle in the long run.
If you have questions about data removal, talk to the team at Wiperts.
