How to Remove Your Personal Information from the Internet at no cost

Affording someone else to delete your personal information isn’t a good idea suitable for anyone. If you’re a Do it yourself type and are comfortable doing the work yourself Here’s the perfect place to start the Smartbackgroundchecks opt out.

How do you remove your personal information

In essence, you have to visit every people search and data broker website to request that they delete your personal information. There are around three hundred of these websites which means this process can be long and time-consuming. We have a list of these websites at the conclusion of the article, to assist you to start. Make use of a spreadsheet to keep track of your progress on the various websites. In order to give you an estimate of the time it could take , based on the amount of your information is in the wild. We believe it could take about 30 hours to complete this for the first time. It is also recommended to take this step every at least every six months or so because some websites will store your information to their database if they discover it in another location.

Opt-out process Overview

The process of removal is usually located on the footer of their site or on their privacy policies or on their terms and conditions.

There are typically four types of opt-out procedures that you can find on a search engine or data broker’s site. For each of these kinds you’ll have to visit the site first, and locate a link on their site that reads “Opt out,” “Removal,” “Remove my personal information,” or something similar. Then, you click the link and follow the steps that they provide. Here’s a quick overview of the various processes you’ll encounter:

1. Search for yourself on the main page. Click an unblock link on your record, and then follow the additional steps
2. Find yourself on the main page, then get the address of your record and submit it to the removal page. Finally, follow their other steps.
3. Look up yourself on the removal site, then select a link from your file, and then follow the next steps.
4. Complete the removal page, and then follow their other procedures (this is a non-sensical removal, as you aren’t able to view the information they hold regarding you)

Other steps

Many websites require additional steps to opt-out. It varies by website however, some sites are difficult to erase your personal information. Here are a few things you’ll discover during the process:

Captchas. Prepare to tap on chimneys, buses vehicles, trucks crossingwalks, fire hydrants, crosswalks and much more.

Verify your phone number You must provide them with an authentic phone number, and then answer to their automated calls and enter the number on your screen

Validate email address by clicking the link within an email that they send to you. Certain websites have multiple accounts for the same person and require an unique email for each.

fake delays It can take up two minutes to view your records while the website pretends to be scanning their databases and the web for your personal information

VPN blockage: A few websites will not allow VPN’s therefore when you are using one, you may have to disable it

Contact us via email. Contact us via email asking that your record be deleted.

Payment: Some sites require users to pay a fee to remove your personal information. This is a dirty.

Types of records and how they generate money

There are a few data brokers, but not all people search websites will tell the data they hold for free. These are the kinds of records available and the ways they earn money. Certain websites use some combination of these methods.

The blind removal Certain data brokers won’t let the purchase of only one record. They typically sell large groups of records to corporations. These types of sites you need to provide your information blindly, hoping they can remove it once they have a record that is similar to.

Behind paywalls Some websites conceal your personal information behind paywalls. You will have to pay for access to your information. It is usually one dollar for a week of unlimited reports, and 30 dollars per month after the initial.

All data, link to the larger website Certain websites display all the information they hold for no cost. They usually earn profits by showing you your data from a paid website with more information and also receive the commission when you purchase from the larger site. You must remove your personal information from both sites in order to prevent it from being displayed on this kind of website.