Do you have the right to be forgotten on the internet? Do you want to delete your data from the network of networks? Have you uploaded personal data to the Internet and now you want to delete it? One of the big concerns that many people have is how to disappear from the Internet, something quite complicated if we do not know how to do it.
At the very least, it is quite laborious, since we would have to review all our online accounts, photos, information… and it is possible that in the last 20 years we have surfed the Internet a lot. What a burden.
What can we do to quickly disappear from the Internet and return to being analog human beings? Our digital life is going to disappear. We leave the Matrix and return to interact with others physically…
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Do you know how to delete your data from the internet completely?
Here are a few steps you can follow to try to make your personal data, your photos, your comments or your participation in social networks disappear from the internet.
1. Delete your social media accounts or internet services
The first thing you should do is unsubscribe from the main social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok or cancel your Google account.
I have already told you how deactivate your Facebook account, and how look for alternatives to Google, but you surely want to unsubscribe from many more options.
- If you want to delete your data from Google, they offer a tool to remove content from their different services, such as YouTube, Google Maps, Google Photos: https:/ /support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en
I would recommend that you visit each online service to which you subscribe and patiently unsubscribe little by little.
Don’t you remember all the online sites where you have registered? You have to try Deseat.me (it seems that it no longer this option is available).
Fortunately, there is now a single website that allows us to disappear from the Internet completely. It’s called Deseat.me and it will allow you to exit the Matrix. You just have to enter this website with your Google account.
What are you going to get with this service? Well, delete your time on websites or services where you have registered, such as Gmail, Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Evernote, Microsoft (Hotmail), etc.
Eye! It may take a while depending on the sites you have signed up for on the Internet throughout your life.
Deseat.me gives you a list of all the accounts and services for which you have created an account and give direct links to their deletion page, and instructions on how to delete your account forever.
Of course, you can select the services where you want to unsubscribe and leave only those that interest you.
- Don’t you want to do it on your own? There are paid services such as DeleteMe. You pay an annual subscription and they do all the work for you.
Alternatives to Deseat.me
Now that Deseat.me is not available, we can try one of these two options:
Accountkiller
AccountKiller collects direct links and account deletion instructions to make account cancellation easier. Websites like Skype that don’t allow you to easily delete your profile are blacklisted. Fortunately, there are other websites that care about your online privacy.
justdelete.me
justdelete.me is another similar option that will help you delete data from all your online accounts. It works the same as the previous option.
2. Can you delete your information directly by contacting each webmaster?
Yes. You just have to contact the person responsible for the website and they should unsubscribe from their service. The European GDPR Law protects you in these cases. For other countries things work differently. You must consult each specific legislation.
In any case, you have nothing to lose by trying to contact the owner of the website and ask them to unsubscribe you. Check the privacy policy of each website, the contact information should be there.
Google offers the possibility of doing so as commented in «Legal violations: request Google to review a withdrawal request in accordance with applicable laws.
- This is the link: support.google.com
4. What online services do I recommend you use from now on?
Simple. First, check their privacy policy carefully. I have given you a few tricks in How to understand the privacy policies of online services.
Only those that respect your privacy are worth it.
And to look for good alternatives, I recommend doing the following search in any online search engine:
old online program/service name + Open Source
For example: Zoom + Open Source
And you will get many Open Source alternatives that will respect your privacy, your online data and your security. In this case, for example, Jitsi.
Also Read: The Best Password Managers For MacOS, Linux, Android and iOS: free and paid
5. What is the Right to be Forgotten?
Important. You can consult it at: Right of deletion (“to be forgotten”): internet search engines.
In the Spanish aepd they say it very well: «The right to request, under certain conditions , that the links to your personal data do not appear in the results of an internet search carried out for your name».
- And both Google, Yahoo and Bing offer specific pages to exercise this right in the European Union: Google, Bing, Yahoo.
If they do not answer you, you can file a claim with the Spanish Data Protection Agency (if you are a Spanish citizen).
What does Google say about it? When you send a request, at Google we seek the balance between the privacy rights of the affected users, the public interest that this information may have and the right of other users to distribute it; For example, we may refuse to remove certain information about financial scams, professional negligence, criminal convictions, or official conduct.
Well, it doesn’t hurt to try… then we can follow other channels.
6. Do you want to take one last important step to protect your online privacy? Use a VPN
I have already told you many times, both actively and passively. Use a VPN network to hide your IP and to encrypt your online traffic. You will prevent your government from monitoring you. You will prevent your ISP from monitoring you. You will prevent your sensitive data from ending up in the wrong hands.
In the following entry you have a good comparison with the best VPNs:
But if you want VPNs that do not keep logs of you and care about your online privacy, you may be interested in the following: The best VPNs without logs .
What type of logs can a VPN collect? Which are acceptable and which are not?
- Activity logs: unacceptable. It is not okay for a VPN to record your connection data, browsing history, web pages you visit, metadata or DNS usage.
- Connection logs: bandwidth usage, connection time, VPN server IP, etc. Well, some very reliable VPNs collect this data. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world either. This data is used to optimize the performance of the VPN network. This data, if well managed, should not be used to identify you.
- Logs and statistics on web pages and apps: This is not the most “polite” thing on the part of the VPN. If you offer a privacy service, do not include Google Analytics on your website or apps. And if you do, for marketing purposes, implement it well and use trackers that anonymize the IP and connections (for example Matomo).
Also Read: DNS Leak: How to protect yourself with a VPN and better DNS
Conclusion: we are going to delete our data from the internet, there is still time
Protecting your identity online, if you have been surfing the Internet for 10 years or more is complicated, but it is never too late to start. You can delete your data from the Internet, and from now on, avoid giving away more data to all online companies.