How to Remove Your Personal Information fromGoogle and the Internet

Remove Your information from People Search Databases, SocialNetworks, and Search Engine Results, Defend Your Online Reputation

Do you know what kind of personal information about you that can be found from Internet? Doyou know how to remove your name, address, phone number, unwanted pictures, bad publicity,negative comments, and bad reputation from Google and other search results? Do you know howto delete your personal information from online people search database records and the deepweb?You'll be surprised to see what kind of information people can find out about you. Without yourknowledge and permission, most of your personal information is published on the Internet and isavailable for the public to search. With your name or a telephone number, anyone can pinpointthe house you live in and obtain all kinds of personal details about you. Even worse, there maybefalse, negative, and untrue information and comments about you on the internet.

Criminals can use your personal information to threaten you and hurt your family. If you areserious about protecting your identity, your family, or your business, you can take immediateactions to block your personal information from public search.

"How do I get my information off the social networks?", "how to take my name from Googlesearch results?", "How to stop others from searching my information from people search?" Youwill find answers to these questions and much more in this article. You can find advices , tips, andtools to help you remove your personal information from hundreds of people search databases,major search engines, popular social network websites, and the deep web.

Exposing your personal information to the Internet is easy, finding your personal information onthe Internet is easy, but removing your personal information and bad reputation from theInternet can be very difficult or impossible without the right guidance and direction.

What Kind of Personal Information is in People Searchand Public Data Sources?

The Internet is such a great resource to look for information, you can easily search and findinformation from search engines like Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing.com, Ask.com, or atspecialized people search databases and social networks.

It is quite easy to search private information on the Internet on almost everyone. As you willsee next, there are hundreds of online people search or background check websites on theInternet. You can conduct a background check on a lost friend, a missing relative, a potentialdate, a new neighbor, a prank caller, a ruthless car driver, an unknown mobile number, anunlisted phone number, your boss, your coworker, or strangers you never met.

On the flip side, not only can you find anything about others, people can also findanything about you - which includes your personal records, private photos or videos,negative comments, and bad publicity.

Creditors, banks, political parties use your personal data for legitimate purpose. However,unscrupulous individuals and criminals can use the same information to harm you and yourfamily. With the full availability of your personal information, your identity can be stolen orexploited in illegal activities such as identity theft, predatory marketing, credit fraud,Internet stalking, and etc.

According to a recent Market Pulse Survey conducted by SailPoint, the majority of adults inthe United States, Great Britain and Australia are worried about possible exposure of theirpersonal information on the Internet, and a large percentage of adults have lost confidence inhow companies protect their personal information.

With the cost of a few dollar or even free, they can also obtain your information legally fromonline background check sites. The personal information available at these sites are not basicinformation about your name, address, or phone numbers, the information obtained at thesesites are serious Personal and Private Information. To many people, the availability of thisinformation on the Internet invades their privacy and could potentially put their family andchildren at risk.

Most visitors who are reading this article already learned that their personal informationwere exposed on the Internet, they are looking for fast ways to remove and hide theirinformation from public search before getting hurt by strangers or stalkers. If you are notsure what types of personal information about you are available from people search sites, you

can make a quick background check on yourself through Intelius:

At most background check and people search sites, a comprehensive background search on aperson may include:

* Up-to-date contact information includes address history, phone numbers, cell phonenumbers , email addresses, and P.O. box;* Names and alias used, household income, companies worked;* Relatives, household members, neighbors, and associates;* Marital, family status, marriage history, marriage / divorce records;* Nationwide criminal record check, sex offender check;* Bankruptcies, liens, judgments, court records: dates, parties, lawyer names for both parties,verdicts;* Criminal & background records. Police files, arrest records jail records, inmate records;* Age and DOB - birth records and hospital records;* Property and real estate records;* Business ownership and professional listings; etc

What Are the Names of Major People Search Sites on theInternet?

Online people search databases and public records

It is true that there are hundreds of online people search websites, and even Internet search engines

that lead you to background check sites. However, most of these people search sites are associated

with several powerful people databases behind the scene. Do you need to visit them all to remove

your information? The answer is no, it is time consuming and almost impossible to go through every

search website.

As a matter of fact, the basic people search data feed at Google, Yahoo, and Lycos, etc is provided by

one company - a little surprised?

Clearly, the best way to keep personal information off the internet is find the data sources which are

providing personal information to people search sites - find effective ways to stop them from feeding

your personal information to the public continuously.

At most Internet search engines and people search websites, you can make a request to remove your

personal information through an opt-out process under its privacy policy. However, with so many

people search websites, search engines, and social network websites, the opt-out process is quite

complicated and lengthy. The privacy policy disclaimers are vague and interpreted differently by each

website. If you want to remove negative information such as bad reviews and comments about

yourself or your company from some Internet forums and rating websites, it is almost impossible

without professional help.

Most Internet people search websites are data terminals and cannot remove your information directly

from their websites, as a matter of fact, they have to forward your request to their up-stream data

providers, and this is a lengthy process. No website would tell you where their data feed comes from

too - that's their business secrets.

Even if you have found the data source providers, it's not easy to opt-out your information. Keeping

and selling your personal information is their main business. It costs money and efforts to attain,

maintain, and update millions of personal records.

Removing your personal information from these powerful online databases by yourself will take time.

Another reason why it takes so long is because some search sites require you to send a formal removal

request through the regular U.S. mail. Of course, it can take weeks to get an answer or no answers at

all. It makes us wonder why they would want to take this traditional mailing approach in the days of

Internet and electronic age. Of course, the laws have not changed much to take into consideration the

digital Internet information age. To get immediate results, you may consider using a professional

company to help you as will be discussed later.

After extensive research, the following are some major players in people search on the Internet (not

inclusive):

(1) Intelius.com

(2) Acxiom.com

(3) USsearch.com

(4) Yahoo.com's People Search

(5) Google.com

(6) ZabaSearch.com

(7) PeopleFinder.com

(8) Spokeo.com

(9) Alliance Data and EXelate

There are several other popular people search sites that are not listed as there are many.

To stop people from getting your personal information, we will discuss people search sites and data

sources such as 411.com, Intelius, Acxiom, US Search, Peoplefinder, Yahoo.com, Whitepages.com,

whowhere.com, zabasearch.com, privateeyes.com, infospace.com and many others in the next section.

I will discuss how to contact data mining companies, and how to get professional help.

Procedures to Remove Your Name & Personal Information fromInternet

Remove Negative Search Results and Unwanted Information

With hundreds of people search databases and sites containing your personal information, removing

your name and personal data from the Internet is a tedious task. As we mentioned above, you don't

need to go through all these sites to remove your information from the Internet. You need to go to the

data sources to stop personal information from being searched by others. This is what this article is

trying to accomplish - help you get your unwanted information off the Internet.

(1) Intelius is a most well-known people search engine on Internet, it targets every Internet visitor.

Many background search websites are affiliated with Intelius. Many popular people search websites

are associated with Intelius. Intelius sells background information to anybody on anyone regardless of

who you are (unless you take an action to block it). The famous DateCheck site is also hosted by

Intelius. Their reports include your name, address, date of birth, court records, unlisted or mobile

number, and other personal info as described in the last section. You can search personal records by

name, SSN, or by phone number, etc through Intelius.

As a courtesy, Intelius can 'opt out' your specific information from the Intelius's Search service. Your

name as it appears in a particular record and the associated identifying information such as your

address and phone number will be suppressed.

To remove your personal information from Intelius, they need some documents from you to confirm

your identity. There are two ways to show your identity: (1) You would need to fax a copy of your

driver license, you can cross-out your photo and license number, they only require your name, address

and DOB; (2) Send them a notarized form confirms your identity.

At Intelius , under their Privacy section, there are instructions on how to remove your personal

information from Intelius.

(2) Acxiom.com is probable the biggest personal information data provider behind the scene. It has

been described as "one of the biggest companies you've never heard of." Last year, Acxiom generated

over $1.2 billion revenue from selling personal information. If you want to remove your private

information from major search engines like Google or Yahoo, this is the first step you should take -

have Acxiom remove your personal information from its data source either through your own effort or

through other online personal information removal websites.

Acxiom has two databases. One database provides background checks for businesses and law

enforcements, and another database is provided for general public which powers the search engines.

The data for businesses and law enforcements includes very sensitive financial information and social

security numbers, your personal information cannot be removed from this database, but you can select

to remove your personal information from the general public database. You can make such a request

through email or phone call. Visit Acxiom website for details on how to remove your data from

Acxiom or email privacy@acxiom.com, check their Privacy Statement. Be warned, it won't be easy to

get it done without giving them more personal information first.

(3) US Search : You might have heard or seen US Search from TV or radio advertisements. Many

websites are associated with USsearch. Like Intelius, they sell your background information to

anyone. You can make a request to remove your personal records from them via a postal mail. You

need to include your name and DOB in the mail letter. In addition, they want you to list the former

addresses of 15 years as well as the aliases you use. As readers pointed out, US Search also requires

you to pay to remove. The best way to get updated information is go to US Search and check out its

new Privacy Policy.

(4) WhitePages.com - just like a regular hard copy white page book, whitepages.com has an online

directory which is available to anyone on Internet. The White page lists your name and address in its

search results if your phone number is not under unlisted number. This information is not more serious

than others mentioned above. Most info can be found on hard copy phone books. You can remove

your information via an online form available on their website. In the form, you fill in your name, city,

and state, and give a reason to remove, in the drop down list, you can select General Privacy Concerns

as the reason to remove. Of course, the most serious personal information can be found at its Sponsor

links after your name.

(5) Yahoo and Lycos's People Search are also powered by Acxiom. If you just want to remove very

basic search info from Yahoo, visit Yahoo Privacy Policy .

(6) Peoplefinders.com is a People Search site actually associated with Intelius. The company helps

people find family members, friends, classmates, military buddies, old flames and most anyone else in

the United States. People Finders also provides more than 40 years worth of historical records.

Peoplefinders.com require you to write a letter and signed by you with the following information in

the letter, your name, address, former addresses going back up to 20 years. Referring to

Peoplefinders.com private policy for details on opt-out process.

(7) Anywho.com, Address.com, Infospace.com, 99lists.com, Peoplelookup.com, Phonebook.com,

thepublicrecords.com, Zabasearch.com, backgroundcheckgateway.com, etc are all linked Intelius on

personal background information check. Most of these sites provide phone number and address search

only, but background and personal information check is done through Intelius .

(8) If you are concerned about name/address search at ZabaSearch (which shows your history of

address changes), you can contact ZabaSearch to remove you information from their search engine.

ZabaSearch has an option out feature right after you clicked your name.

Professional Personal Information Removal Services and Tools : How toremove your personal information quickly and thoroughly

As you may have realized, it is not easy to go through hundreds of people search websites andsearch engines to remove your personal information, don't even mention new personalinformation websites pop up every week. As many have pointed out, the opt out process isnot hassle free, in most cases, you need to pay and fill out paperwork, after weeks andmonths, your name or unwanted personal information still exists in various websites andsearch results.

Many people are looking for professional assistance to remove their personal informationfrom Internet completely and immediately. No companies were in this business when thesites was started. Only until recent years, one professional company named ReputationDefender (RD) has been doing the business that many frustrated people are trying toaccomplish - remove personal information from Internet with automated process andcontinuously monitor personal information on a daily basis.

At RD's My Privacy service, you make a full search of your personal information, it brings upyour personal information spreads over thousands websites on Internet, you select whatinformation you want to delete, their tool will automatically submits your removal requeststo search data sources, its service will track and monitor your online information proactivelyeach day. Most importantly, according to the website, their company has exclusiveremoval agreements with some major background check and people search companies.Their company was the first and the only company that performs the personal informationremoval service. If you want to remove unwanted information from websites such asSpokeo.com, peoplefinder, peoplesmart etc, you should take a serious consideration of RD .

The basic cost to use RD's continuous personal information monitoring and removal serviceis about $10 month. RD has been well covered on major media and press such as CNN, ABCNews (20/20), NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, Business Week, Associated Process,Reuters, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on talk TVshows such as Dr. Phil etc.. Visit RD for more details.

Professional Online Reputation Management Services Protect anddefend your online reputation

Online reputation is very important to both individuals and companies. Bad online comments on an

individual can hurt him/he both emotionally and physically, negative comments and reputation can

interrupt or destroy the business and normal operations of a company, causing serious financial

damages. If you or your company has been slandered by online comments or bad reviews, you should

seriously consider to seek professional Online Reputation Management Services.

One of the professional online reputation management companies needs to mention is

InternetReputation.com, check out InternetReputation.com. InternetReputation.com helps individuals

and companies remove Internet slander, Internet defamation, mug shots, and fix brand online

reputations with their proprietary techniques and in-house cutting edge technology, this company was

recently rewarded True Wealth's Innovative Tech Firm of the Year.

Of course, reputation.com offers My Reputation service which helps businesses to take out unwanted

negative information or bad publicity from the Deep Web (not just the search results on Google, Bing,

or Yahoo) for every bad reference to you and related information, including over 40 of the biggest

social networks. If you want to remove very tough links for your business from a particular website,

additional cost and legal fees may apply.

Three other companies can also help to pull out your information from search engine results. They

don't have online information removal tools like RD, nor have any agreements with data source

providers or search engine companies to remove data. These companies require you to make phone

calls to get a quote on pricing.

ZALLAS.COM - aka Reputec.com aka Virtograph.org. According to the company, it takes 4 to 6

months to help move your bad or negative information from the 1st page or 2nd page of the search

engine results, you have to call to get a quote, the price varies on case by case basis, can be in

hundreds or thousands of dollars.

REMOVEYOURNAME.COM: the price is $995 to remove your negative information from the first

page of Google, $1495 to remove your negative information from the first two pages of Google,

Yahoo, Bing and AOL. and $3,995 for the first three pages.

POSITIVESEARCHRESULTS.COM : according to its website, its service fees range from $10,000

to $40,000 depending on the manpower required to produce the guaranteed results. The typical

primary fee is $20,000 for most companies with an average amount of negative posts to clear.

Obviously, Reputation.com and InternetReputation.com are the companies you should consider to

contact.

How to Remove Your Name and Information from Google SearchEngine Results?

This section has just updated and is dedicated to remove information from Google search results - the

most popular and widely used search engine on the Internet. A recent study shows about 54% of the

adults used Google to search each other's name and information. So how to prevent your name, phone,

addresses, images, photos, bad comments, and other sensitive information from appearing on Google

search results?

Google's main people search data feed is from Acxiom.com. Put your home phone number at Google

search box, you can instantly see your name, home address, map, and driving direction etc. How to

remove your name and address from this type of Google search results? If you want to remove your

name, home phone number, and address from Google's phone listings, it is pretty easy, here is the link,

choose "privacy concern" as the reason to remove, in my experience, the next day, this information

will disappear from its search results. (note: some people reported this link works, but cannot send

results).

Google's search engine robots search millions of websites every minute to collect and index

information. Google's website aggregates information already published on various websites, even if

Google were able to eliminate the page in question from Google index through talks with Google or

through a formal court order, it would still exist on other websites or other search engine databases.

Do you need to remove sensitive information from Google? Found a dead link in Google search

results? Want to help Google to improve their SafeSearch filter? Sign up a Google account, give

Google webmaster tool a try. This tool is suppose to help webmasters to control information or image

that appears in the Google search results. If you find a page in Google search results that lists your

social security or credit card number, submit a web page removal request. Google will contact the

site's hosting company to request that the page be taken down from the Web. Google also take steps to

remove the information from its search results, you can also send a request to removals@ google.com

to eliminate the sensitive personal information from Google index or cached pages.

If your name or other information appeared on a site that you don't own or have control over. The first

step is to contact the owner of that site or domain and ask him/her to remove or block the content.

Only the website's owner or webmaster can, by removing the content (or including code that blocks

Google robots), prevent a page from appearing on Google search results. You can find who owns a

domain or website through www.whois.net.

Is it possible to remove all my information from Google? If you want to delete or block all

information related to your name from Google search results, it would be a very tough task and maybe

hard to do so since there are other people may have the same name as you in the world, in some cases,

a formal court order will help.

Is it possible to modify or remove negative comments and reviews on a business or a location from

Google local Map? Google comments and reviews on businesses were aggregated from many sources,

try to remove from the sources first. You can also use the "Report a Problem" link at the bottom of the

map, you have the choice of (a) tell Google the search result contains incorrect information or

suggests a place that is closed. (b) Search results contain multiple listings for the same place; (c) A

place is missing from Google Maps, or report something is wrong with the map."

The following example could help you on removing your information from Google. In recent news,

Johnston County officials in North Carolina mistakenly posted a file with thousands of names,

addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers on the county Web site. Of course, the

speedy Google search robots indexed this personal information quickly. Even after the information

was removed from the county website, the information was still available at Google search. To

remove the information from Google, a judge ordered Google to remove remnants of personal

information on Johnston County residents that still show up on Google search engine. Officials said

the information might have been online for as much as six weeks before they found out, but getting

the private information removed from Google search took a court order, and it is a tough task for

Google to filter out also.

Of course, if your case is serious, you could retain professional reputation defending service

companies like Reputation.com to remove undesired search engine results.

How My Personal Information is Exposed?

How to Protect my Online Privacy?

Famous stars, celebrities, businessmen, or even a regular Joe like you and me are at risk when our

private and personal information is easily accessible from Internet.

To get your information off the internet, you have to understand there are many ways that your name,

address, telephone number, date of birth, neighborhood information are ended up in online people

search databases.

To protect personal information online, you should take actions to remove your personal information

from Internet as mentioned above, but most important of all - be conscious of protecting your personal

information daily is essential.

The people search databases are collected and purchased from various public or commercial data

sources. Data brokers buying and selling personal information collected through state or county public

records, paid surveys, sweepstakes, vacation giveaways, and through confidential sources. Have you

filled out a detailed form to win a brand new car at a mall during Christmas shopping? That's one of

the ways data brokers to collect information on you. In situations when you provide information to the

government, or to a private company -- without a binding assurance that the information cannot be

sold or distributed, that information, in effect, becomes part of the public domain sooner or later.

When your computer is connected to Internet, every move you make on your computer, including all

of your Internet activities and email browsing, is being recorded whether you realize it or not. If

someone else has access to the computer you use either physically or remotely, such as a friend, a

boss, a co-worker, a spouse, or a hacker, they can see every single thing you've done on that computer

and they don't even have to know much about technology to accomplish such a feat. By simply using

one of many common software applications available online, almost anyone can retrace every

computer move you've ever made.

First, does your PC have an anti-spyware program installed? Does it have the latest updates and

pattern files? Spyware (malware) are much worse than virus, their goal is to steal your personal

information and take advantage of you. Make sure you have installed a good anti-spyware software

program. A spyware can steal sensitive information stored on your PC or hijack your Internet

activities.

Second, have you joined any social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace or other

social networks? You may have the public know too much information about you. These days, people

are spending more and more time on tweaking Facebook or tweeting Twitter. People are updating

their status and checking friends' tweets constantly. That's all well and good if you have time to spend,

of course, on the flip side, the amount of personal information you share in real time with others, and

the level of trust implicit with the social networking sites, do pose particular personal security and

privacy problems.

According to a recent investigation conducted by the Wall Street Journal, "tens of millions" of

applications on Facebook transmit varying amounts of personal identifying information to their own

ad servers, even in cases when users' profiles were set to completely private.

Have you posted personal information you don't want public to see on your personal profile? Make

sure you have provided your private information as little as possible on your personal profile at these

social networks. To checkout your profile, logout your account and check it as a regular visitor or

another user. Some social networking websites DO expose and disclose your email address, name, and

location information to the public by default. Very often, your personal information was published to

Internet unintentionally.

In a recent study from security firm Sophos, they found that Facebook users reveal more than

adequate personal information to new friends, including ones they really don't even know or have

never met in the past. Using fake profiles, Sophos sent out friend requests to 100 random Facebook

users, more than 40 percent users blindly accepted the requests, giving the company access to their

birth dates, e-mail addresses, phone number and addresses-- \and private information you don't want

strangers to know.

The openness of Twitter--anyone can follow anyone else, and posts are indexed in search engines--

makes it a nirvana for spammers and privacy intruders. You probable heard someone was tweeting

from the start of vacation and during the vacation - telling the world include the theft where he is

about, by the time the family got back from vacation, guess what happened? Not quite smart to tell

your personal information on Tweeter.

Third, some websites use techniques to trick users to register their personal information.. Some users

want to save a few dollars and provided their personal information. They are not aware that this

information in turn was sold by data brokers at hundreds of dollars. These data brokers sell the same

information to hundreds of people search databases. Saving a few dollars could cost you hundreds of

dollars later. Removing personal information from hundreds of Internet databases is not an easy task.

In a recent news report by CNN, one of the popular social websites - Classmates.com is selling your

credit card numbers and personal information to other credit card companies and businesses without

telling you. You should not give any personal or financial information to classmates.com, for these

have enrolled to classmates.com and paid their premium services, you should be aware what personal

information you have given out to them.

Is this personal information obtained legally?

Several years back, only organizations could access to your personal information were federal

government agencies, police departments, and licensed private investigators. Thanks for Internet and

newly passed laws such as Open Public Records Act or Public Records Act from different states,

databases such court records, county property records, state records are open to public to search

online. People search databases obtained your data from OVER 20,000 publicly available government

records and commercial data sources, the information obtained is from legal sources. As a result,

anyone can investigate and locate private information LEGALLY on anyone - potential job applicants,

new dates, neighbors, relatives, celebrities, coworkers, friends, and of course, on you too.

How to Remove Information from State and City Records? Variesdepends on the state and city rules and polices on personal records

Interestingly enough, most sensitive personal information can be found from online public records in

various states and counties.

How to remove information from public records in the states and counties? Some states and counties

would allow you to remove/block some personal records from showing in the public through legal

process.

In most cases, it would require a court order to stop showing your private information from state or

county public records.

A Must READ:

(1) Report from NASS.ORG, it contains very detailed information on how the states put public

records on the Internet, and they have proposals to the state on how to protect sensitive information.

(2) Open Government Guide - it contains information on every state's open records and open meetings

laws. Each state's section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws

in various states.