How to Go Off the Grid (Part 2)
In Part 1 of how to go off the grid, we looked at the reasons why you should consider going off the grid and the first three steps that you need to take. In this article, we will go an extra mile and look at three other measures that you can adopt to ensure that there is no personal information on the web.
Remove Personal Information Posted on Websites
Some malicious people can post personal information such as your social security number and tax information online without your consent. Such information can be used by cyber criminals to impersonate you and conduct heinous activities online thereby landing you in trouble.
Be proactive and looking at the specific sites that the information is posted on and contacting the webmasters. If that move does not yield any positive results, consider sending a legal request to Google. Google support team will review your request and remove the information directly without necessarily involving the webmaster.
Get Rid of Outdated Search Results
The internet never forgets – anything that you post online since the first day you started using the internet can be retrieved and used for you years down the lane. As stated at cnet.com, you can delete such content by leveraging Google’s URL removal tool. This tool has been proven to be very effective in erasing past mistakes from the internet.
For example, if your former employer is yet to delete your personal information from the site page such as your roles and position in the company months after you changed jobs, you can request them to update the page. However, the page will still show up when you Google your name even though the name cannot be found when someone clicks the link. This is mainly because the page is still cached on their servers. Google URL removal tool will help you get rid of such outdated search results easily.
Remove Email Addresses
The number of steps that you need to take to successful does away with your email address depends on the account. Note that you will need to log into the account to find the close or delete account option. It is also important to mention that some companies will keep the account open for a given period, so if you change your mind, you can still reactive the account.
Also, in the current digital world, email addresses are used to complete certain crucial steps such as verifying and accessing online banking services, so evaluate other options available before deleting the account.
Bonus Tip
The process of erasing personal data from the internet does not deliver the expected results immediately. You need to be patient and give the respective companies or webmasters ample time to complete the process.
