Managing Your Digital Footprint

What is a Digital Footprint?

Your “Digital Footprint” is the massive trail of data you leave behind every time you use the internet. It includes the photos you post on Facebook, the comments you left on a news article in 2012, the items you search for on Google, and public government records involving your home address.

Data Brokers (companies that make money by selling your privacy) scrape all of this information, package it into a neat profile, and sell it to advertisers, or worse, make it available on public “people search” websites.

Active vs. Passive Footprints

• Active Footprint: Data you intentionally submit. (e.g., Tweeting your vacation photos, filling out an online survey, posting on a forum).
• Passive Footprint: Data collected without you knowing. (e.g., Websites tracking your IP address, apps recording your GPS location, Facebook tracking which videos you watch).

How to Shrink Your Footprint

If you want to disappear from the internet, or at least make it very difficult for scammers to find your personal information, follow these steps:

1. Opt-Out of Data Brokers

Websites like Whitepages, Spokeo, and MyLife exist solely to display your home address, phone number, and relatives to anyone who searches your name.

• You legally have the right to demand they remove your data.
• You can do this manually by scrolling to the bottom of their websites and clicking “Do Not Sell My Info.”
• Alternatively, use a paid service like DeleteMe or Incogni. These services automatically send legal takedown requests to hundreds of data brokers every month on your behalf, forcing them to scrub your address from the internet.

2. The Google Search Test

Open a private (“Incognito”) window in your web browser and search your full name in quotation marks (e.g., "John Doe"), followed by the city you live in. Look at the first three pages of results. If you see old accounts from websites you haven’t used in years (like an old MySpace or Tumblr account), log into those websites and permanently delete the accounts.

3. Stop giving away real information

When a website asks for your phone number or email address just to read an article or get a 10% discount, they are farming your data.

• Use a service like SimpleLogin or Apple’s Hide My Email. These tools generate fake, disposable email addresses that forward to your real inbox. If a company gets hacked or starts spamming you, you can simply delete the fake email address with one click.
• Never give a cashier your real phone number or zip code just to save $1 on batteries. Politely decline.

The Golden Rule of Privacy

Assume that anything you type, upload, or click on the internet will eventually be made public. If you wouldn’t want a hacker, your boss, or your grandmother to see it, do not put it on the internet.