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How to Modify or Remove Your Online Presence
Applying
for a new job? Maybe you’re about to tie the knot! You may have several
reasons for removing certain parts or all of your online presence from
websites and search engines. Here is how to do.
Facebook
REMOVING INDIVIDUAL POSTS: You can remove individual status
updates/comments by clicking the drop down arrow on the top right corner of
your update and selecting delete. For photographs posted by you, open the
image, click on Options and select “Delete This Photo’’. It becomes tougher
when you want to delete a photo uploaded by someone else. In most cases, a
friendly removal request to the uploader should work. If not, open the
image, click options and select Remove/Report Tag. A pop-up box will guide
you.
DELETE THE ACCOUNT: By default, Facebook does not give you the
option to delete your account completely. Instead, you can deactivate your
account by going to Settings > Security. Deactivating the account hides
you profile and prevents people from find you. However, if you choose to
join back, your account will get reactivated when you login with the same
username and password as before. To completely delete your Facebook
account, you need to fill out an online form. Facebook gives you the option
to download a copy of your info to your computer before you do this. Login
to your Facebook account and open www.facebook.com/help/delete_account.
LinkedIn
Sign in to Linkedin and from Account & Settings select Privacy
& Settings. Scroll down and click on the Account section — here, on the
right side, you will see the option to “Close your Account”. Linkedin will
ask for a reason for the account closure request and once you submit a
reason your account will be removed. Keep in mind that once you delete your
Linkedin account, your entire profile, all your connections and all
recommendations will be removed. Linkedin advises that your public profile
which is visible via a search engine, might take a few days to disappear.
Google
A Google account not only offers access to Gmail but various other
services including maps, calendar, Google+, YouTube, Picasa and so on. Your
Google account is also intricately linked with your Android phone (and it
includes details of any apps you have purchased from the Play Store —
deleting an account means that any paid apps will be forfeited. If you want
to dowmload any of those paid apps again, you will have to pay again). If
you want to remove your account completely, head to your Google Account (http://accounts.google.
com) and click on Data Tools. On this page, in the Account management
section, you get option to delete just your Google+ profile, your entire
Google account and other associated services/products. You could also
choose to remove specific products. If you or someone else accidentally
deletes your account, Google allows you to restore everything for a limited
time (unspecified) after deletion.
Justdelete.me
Apart from the popular ones, you may have also registered with several
other websites over the years (for newsletters, online shopping or even to
post a comment). Head to www.justdelete.me to
instantly find out how hard it is to delete your account with them — green
labels are the easiest, red are hard and the black labelled websites have
accounts that cannot be deleted. One of the tools available on the site is
a fake identity generator — especially useful for random websites that
require all sorts of info like birthdate, address and user description.
Accountkiller.com
At www.accountkiller.com,
you can get to-the-point instructions on how to remove your account and/or
public profile from many popular websites, blogs and networks. It’s all
listed alphabetically but you can also search for the ones you want. In
most cases, they also provide a direct link that provides more info on
account deletion or a simple ‘Delete Account’ button. Everything is free
and you don’t need to sign up with account killer either.
Twitter
YOUR TWEETS: If you go to www.twitter.com and
sign in (as opposed to third-party apps or phones), you’ll see a delete
button near each tweet you send. If you’re using third-party apps, browser
extensions or add-ons to tweet, you may have to look for delete option.
However, no matter where you tweet from, the delete button on twitter.com
will remain.
DELETE THE ACCOUNT: Removing a Twitter account is simple — head to www.twitter.com/settings/account and
sign-in to your account. Scroll to the bottom and click on ‘Deactivate my
Account’. On the page that opens, click on the Deactivate button. Keep in
mind that Twitter first disables your account for 30 days. If you login to
your account within 30 days, the account will be reactivated.
Search Engine Results
TOUGHER THAN YOU THINK: Removing search results are tricky. Search
engines only point to content from various websites. This means that even
if you manage to remove a search result, the content on the website will
still remain — searchable by other search engines like GigaBlast or
Volunia. Luckily, Google offers several help pages and tips on how to
remove unwanted search results, photos and other personal information. A
Google section called ‘Manage your online reputation’ will guide you. In
case of Bing, search for ‘Bing Content Removal Tool’ while Yahoo provides
an online form for the same. According to comScore, Google, Yahoo and
Microsoft remain the largest English search engines — so if you
successfully manage to remove content from these three, most of your work
is done. Don’t hesitate to directly contact the search engines when you
want to take down your copyright content, if you find your financial
information (like credit card numbers) or content that personally defames
you.
BUT YOU CANNOT DELETE
NEWS ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS: If your name has been mentioned in a news
article or in an interview on a website/blog, it cannot be removed unless
you have been quoted incorrectly
COMMENTS: Reviews/comments on a website’s comment section cannot be deleted
by you. You can request the admin to remove them, but they are unlikely to
comply without a good reason
PHOTOGRAPHS: Photos posted online by someone else (friends, family or
colleagues) in which you are visible, cannot be removed by you. You can
‘un-tag’ yourself in certain cases though
Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat ET131225
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