The Billion Dollar Business Of Data Collection - Part II - Securing and/or Removing Access to Your Data

This is Part 2 of a 2 part article 

Part I here

Privacy
We all value our privacy and for obvious reasons we're not going to post our bank account, address and social security numbers on the internet. 

However, you may be surprised or maybe even shocked on just how much information about you can be found on the internet. 

Just drop your name on 'Thatsthem.com', 'Spokeo.com' or any other 'People Search" websites and you'll find information about yourself likely you'd rather not have public. 

A common thought is that once it's on the internet it's out there forever. 
But to a certain extent you can delete some of that information, or at least have it not available to the public. 

Limit your information on social websites
Social websites should be the first to limit your info. When applying for a job, often employers will drop in on Facebook or Twitter to determine just really who they could be hiring. 

Having a social account is one thing, but posting on Facebook about Fridays party with a picture of your best friend next to the toilet is another. 
Better yet, select and edit your privacy settings within Facebook..... choose WHO YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR POSTS. 
Check out the Facebook Privacy settings here. 
Facebook Privacy Settings

Twitter has a basically on/off approach when it comes to privacy and 'Tweets' 
Either the 'tweets' you post can be public or private. 
Twitter Privacy

Under the Safety section within Twitter settings, you have the option to prevent your tweets appearing in the search results of those you have blocked on the microblogging platform.

Google 
Make sure you visit your Google Account page, where there are a number of settings that can boost your privacy, reduce data collection, or remove you altogether from the searches. Privacy checkup: 

The Google Privacy checkup allows users to prevent Google from saving your searches and other Google activity to your Google Account, as well as turn off your location history. 

You can also choose to disallow Google from saving YouTube search & watch history and a record of videos you have watched, your contacts, device information, voice and audio activity including recordings harvested from interaction with Google Assistant, and other data. 


'Opt Out' from data collection firms
One of the more permanent actions to take to have a third party service remove your data from data collection sites. Two such services are Onerep.com and Deleteme.com.
Both services will conduct 'Opt Outs' for data collection firms. It's a tedious and time consuming but worth it when it involves your privacy.

Remove personal information from websites
If someone's posted sensitive information of yours such as a Social Security number or a bank account number and the webmaster of the site where it was posted won't remove it, you can send a legal request to Google to have it removed.

Google Data Removal Request

Depending on what kind of information/data we have of ourselves out there on the net we have to take certain steps to restrict, completely remove access, or totally delete that information.