This is how – and why – you should delete your personal info from the internet

Keeping your personal information under wraps online doesn’t have to be a chore – think of it as a personal mission to outsmart the internet’s nosy parkers. With some savvy moves in addition to Apple’s privacy protections, you can take charge of your digital footprint.

What you can do to protect your online privacy

Embark on an internet expedition across search engines and social media landscapes to discover where your details are sitting in the (unwanted) spotlight. Find a digital trace of yourself? Make note of those websites or profiles that display your personal details, then channel your inner polite enforcer and ask those sites to erase your tracks. It’s time consuming but doable, thanks to the fact that many websites have dedicated privacy policies and procedures for such requests.

Then there’s the curious world of data brokers – think of them as the digital world’s chatterboxes, eagerly swapping stories about you. They collect such personal data as your address, date of birth, phone number, and IP information, and use that info to send unnervingly accurate ads and the junk mail that clutter your real and virtual inboxes. Your data ends up in people search, marketing, risk mitigation, or even scams and phishing attempts. This is why you get annoying spam calls.

For example, financial information brokers collect financial and background information and sell it to credit companies and banks. That in turn can influence loan eligibility. Further, health insurance companies can actually raise your rates based on your online activity.

Opt-out requests can seem like an endless game of tag, given their sheer numbers and persistence. It’s pretty labor-intensive, and you’d have to keep checking back, as data brokers can (and do) add you back into their databases.

An easier way to keep your personal data private

Here’s where you can bring in the secret weapon: a data-erasing service like Incogni, which was created by cybersecurity Surfshark.

Incogni jumps through data companies’ hoops, sticking to each one’s particular removal procedure. They do the tedious and frustrating work so that you don’t have to.

They send opt-out requests faster than you can say, “privacy, please,” so you get efficient and continuous privacy protection. They ensure your data is deleted from such people search sites as WhitePages, FastpeopleSearch, and UsPhoneBook.

Incogni deals with extra data broker interactions like rejection appeals. And the best part is that Incogni restarts the whole process every couple months to keep your data out of circulation.

And 9to5Mac readers, you exclusively get 55% off Incogni’s annual plans by using code “9to5mac.”

You can cancel at any time, and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. So there’s really nothing to lose – apart from your online privacy.

Follow Incogni on Twitter here.

Image: Incogni

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