It has become nearly impossible to completely delete your digital footprint. If you are concerned about your details listed on the internet, it is never too late to try and erase them.
Delete all your social media accounts.
This includes your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other social media profiles. If you don’t recall your profile from other websites, a Google search on your full name should provide all your profiles from the websites you have registered.
If you are unable to delete an account, fake it.
Some accounts are undeletable. It is unfair that some websites won’t let you delete your account. In this case, falsify your information. Change your photo, name, contact details, and other private information.
Delete all your search engine results.
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have URL removal options. Use the Google URL removal tool to eliminate your URLs from Google search results.
Unsubscribe from all mailing lists.
Click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of each of these emails. If you still receive some emails even after unsubscribing, contact the respective webmasters.
Delete your email account if necessary.
This is the final step in deleting your digital footprint. Before doing this, ensure all other accounts associated with your email address have been deleted. Transfer all your important data to your computer or external hard drive.
Why it’s hard to delete your digital footprint
It’s a tedious task to completely erase some details from the internet. Deleting your online presence by contacting every internet company takes a lot of time. There are scraper sites that scrape data from social media sites. In that case, you should send an email manually to all those webmasters by searching for yourself on the web. It’s a challenging task, especially if the social credibility of the person is significant.
To simplify this process, you can also use paid services to help you with deleting your digital presence.
