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have you google searched yourself? :(

B

bluebird3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2013
233
0
I was amazed how much information of myself came up. Nothing bad or I have something to hide, but I felt very exposed and is concerned. There are some pubic record that are available for the public to view such as property information, address, phone number, etc. It even got my past three mailing dresses and past three phone numbers I've used! Then, there is a web site I signed up called classmate.com and put some basic information on there. The next thing you know, the information was shared with other similar sites such as mylife.com? And one more similar site...... :( I didn't sign up for those sites and I don't wish to be on there....then, i saw a back ground check web site by a private company. There, I saw my name, phone number, address, and my e mail address...

I wasn't happy and I'd rather not to share all those information on those site except county public record page which I have no control over.....

May i ask how I can remove myself from those sites and not to show up on google search ? I've google searched few of my friends name and their name didn't come up as much..... Please help what to do.
 
Last edited:
I don't know how you can be removed apart from specifically emailing the company and asking for a removal... and even that might not work.

Surprised at what comes up for me... not much, just one to three things on the first three pages of google. I guess thats a good thing, partly because I don't use my full name online much.
 
I'm thinking emailing and requesting that the company take down your information is the best bet, but I wouldn't no for sure. I googled my name and there seem to be enough successful people with the same name as me that by the 8th page of results I still hadn't seen anything about me. I did find out that there is a musician with the same name as me that I'd never heard of. Also there appears to be a few university professors with the same name as me, one of whom appears to work at Harvard. So yeah I don't really have the same issue to be able to give advice.
 
I have, after I had a boss google my name. Fortunately no embarrassing selfies, but... he did find the adult artwork I've done.

Nothing beats the "oh hey, I googled your name, and I found ALL of your art.... all of it *grin*"
 
Does anybody know about this site www.mylife.com? It used to be reunion.com. I'm just finding out. I was successfully able to log in, however, I can't edit/delete my profile. Then, it takes me to a credit card information link in order for them to "continuously" keep removing my personal information on the site, monthly cost of $9? Or something.... All I wanna do now is to delete my free account I created in 2005......

Not happy.
 
I googled myself after seeing this thread, then remembered I had scrubbed myself off the internet before starting my current job. I've made it so that the only thing's that show up are my FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, and then articles about my work from when blogs etc have done stories on it/me. After that (bottom of page 2, which let's be honest, 99% of people will never look at) are links to a blog I used to run, my highschool website and someone with the same name as me but isn't me.

Best advice I can give is to think before you sign up to stuff. If it's something you don't want linked back to us, use a fake name. You can also go through your search results and delete the accounts you don't want linked to you anymore.

Good luck.
 
Welcome to 2013.

Most of the information (save email address-which didn't exist when I was young) was available. It was just harder to find. A printed phone book had your name, address, and phone number (sure you could be unlisted but that required positive action on your part). A trip to the public records department could find much about you. The library had the local paper on microfilm/microfiche that contained society pages.

Most info online is mined from public sources. Additional info is there because you put it out there. This generations narcissistic desire to put themselves on display (Facebook, Twitter, e.g.) often comes back to haunt them. The desire/convenience to be "connected" to each other on sited like classmate.com can be tempting. Google, from your searches, and Amazon, from your searches can predict your behavior before you can. The tools to mine your information are incredible.

I am glad I was an adult when the internet exploded. While there is much one can find about me, I have relative online "anonymity" compared with those growing up with the internet. You can try to delete as much as possible, but one the genie is out of the bottle...

Just be very stingy with information online henceforth.
 
My name is to common and there are too many people with my name that are more important than me. Maybe this is good thing to be hidden in the background.
 
I live off the grid so no worries. When the terminators come for me I'll be hiding out using a false name in a small town in Mexico with lots of guns.

But seriously I never use my real name online. This is the only forum I've ever signed up for.
 
My name is fairly generic which was surprising when I found out as an young adult. To that end, when I google my name, it comes up with a ton of hits, most of which is not me.

I will say that if someone wants to investigate me, they're going to find the info, regardless of how hard/easy it may be to google.

Am I happy about that, not really, but given that privacy is all but an illusion in this day and age, I cannot do anything about it.
 
No. But people tell my dad that they've Googled me and found all my nice stuff and complement it. And he Googles me in front of everyone at work and reads my posts on MacRumors. :eek:

I don't care. Just shows that I'm human.
 
Just googled myself.

Good thing I'm Asian and possess a very common last name. The first three pages I checked had no sites regarding me (I stopped at three)
 
I did and I was able to find out where I live. Scary since my phone number is unlisted. I'm not feeling comfortable with my address being public to people from my past who I choose to forget. BTW, there are only 2 people in the USA with my name.
 
I have a very common first name as well as last name.

Apparently, I get around. :D

Found out there's a school with my name as their name - so I bought their hoodie off their PTA site. So I've got that going for me.

But yeah - being a privacy advocate I've had low profile and even going to the 20th page of Google results I didn't see anything on me.
 
Depending how many sites have your information it might take you a while to get rid of all that privacy intrusion.
Just adjust your security setting in any social media site to restrict search engines and who can search and see your profiles. And for any other sites, just call and talk to someone, avoid more spam bots to take more info from you.
Unless the support email/site is really a support one, it will take you quite some time.
 
Same here - my first and middle names are quite common, but apparently my last name is much more common than I realized. Seems there are a lot of "me's" out there. :p
 
I have a common-ish first name, but a very unique last name, and quite possibly the only person in the world with this first name/last name combo, so if you Google my name, anything that comes up is me. Needless to say, I keep a close eye on what comes up and thankfully it's only entries from people directories and whatnot.

I gotta say, I sometimes envy people with a last name like "Smith", you can use your real name on the interwebs and no one could trace it back to you personally. Plus, people don't butcher it when pronouncing it.
 
I don't use my real name for most online services. Nor any other identifying info for that matter. Just for shopping.

Even then I can quickly find myself on a Google search as public records info show up. However, very little comes up. Just the most basic public records.
 
I have never googled myself. I will try later on, maybe I will find some interesting information.
 
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