Personal Detective Help Needed.
April 1, 2010 11:45 AM Subscribe
How do I erase certain parts of myself from the internets?
Asking this anonymously for obvious reasons....
I've been a child of the internet for a long time now and during that time I've used a very specific username. People - online and off - know me by this moniker. I'm about to start using this name to represent myself professionally in the next few years.
Over time I've used my name to sign up to specific sites. Nothing dangerous or illegal but, were I to get famous and they were found, could be potentially damaging.
I've closed down as many of the logins as I can remember but is there any way of making sure I've got all of them? I've tried googling my name, but I'm sure there's more. Is there any search engine I could plug this name into to find out?
Asking this anonymously for obvious reasons....
I've been a child of the internet for a long time now and during that time I've used a very specific username. People - online and off - know me by this moniker. I'm about to start using this name to represent myself professionally in the next few years.
Over time I've used my name to sign up to specific sites. Nothing dangerous or illegal but, were I to get famous and they were found, could be potentially damaging.
I've closed down as many of the logins as I can remember but is there any way of making sure I've got all of them? I've tried googling my name, but I'm sure there's more. Is there any search engine I could plug this name into to find out?
Another place to check would be to figure out all the URLs this name has appeared under and plug then into archive.org. But I'm agreeing with hal_c_on.... once stuff is on the Internet, it's nearly impossible to scrub it, and what's to stop someone from re-posting an old thread they saved on their hard drive?
posted by crapmatic at 12:21 PM on April 1, 2010
posted by crapmatic at 12:21 PM on April 1, 2010
Yeah, that porn site that you joined is going to haunt you forever, as is the pot-legalization forum that you so enthusiastically posted in.
What's done is done. Move on or craft a new identity for yourself.
posted by ged at 1:12 PM on April 1, 2010
What's done is done. Move on or craft a new identity for yourself.
posted by ged at 1:12 PM on April 1, 2010
Another idea, you could go the opposite way and use that name to sign up for everything out there and just water down the google results enough that it wouldn't matter.
posted by Craig at 1:27 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Craig at 1:27 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]
I remember Lifehacker had something recently but couldn't find, was able to find this:
Remove Your information from People Search Databases, Social Networks, and Search Engine Results
posted by doorsfan at 1:42 PM on April 1, 2010
Remove Your information from People Search Databases, Social Networks, and Search Engine Results
posted by doorsfan at 1:42 PM on April 1, 2010
Craig's idea has merit, but I think in order for Google's spiders to notice the extra incidences of your username, you'd have to actually post, and not just sign up.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:30 PM on April 1, 2010
posted by IAmBroom at 9:30 PM on April 1, 2010
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posted by iamkimiam at 11:54 AM on April 1, 2010 [4 favorites]