Had people talking about central databases of personal info. I remember reading a few years ago that a company was working on facial recognition software, so you could just put someone’s face into a search program and find any photo of them anywhere (I don’t have more than 2-3 photos online, but there is nothing to stop strangers from taking my photo and uploading them, which bothers me). So I assume this trend will continue, and since congress is run by people in their 60s I don’t see any real pro-privacy legislation coming from the generation that can’t distinguish beepers from cell phones (according to Scalia).
I recently had my brother google my name and he found out what politicians I had donated money too. That isn’t too bad, but if I had wanted him to know I would’ve told him directly.
So what can a person do exactly to reduce their online trace? The only program I found that scours the internet looking for data to remove is myprivacy. There are programs to surf anonymously, and programs to scrub your harddrive. But nothing to stop people from finding things you said on chat boards 10 years ago, or people from setting up false accounts to embarrass you (like was happening in the OP of the thread I linked to), or people putting photos of you up online aside from myprivacy, as far as I can tell.
The thing is you really can’t remove your self, because other sites mirror the web. Archive.Org saves it. Or part of it at least.
Added to this is people have to put info on sites like this to register.
Added to this, people and friends can post YOUR picture and info as well.
For instance I have a very uncommon last name. A Google search will pull up about two things I put into the web in 1996, and three others who have my last name.
So for me with my last name, I would be easy to find, if I had even the slightest trace of Internet activity.
The best thing to do is to have a set of fakes. I use fake names, fake birthday and fake info to register on sites. My banking info is also not correct. This way anyone who knows my mother’s maiden name would get it incorrect. 'Cause the banks do not have my mother’s true maiden name.
All the scouring sites do is look for your name in a few places, and then ask the sites to remove your information. They don’t really have to do acquiesce to your request, but most do.
You can do this yourself if you want to. Other people will have to tell you specific sites to check, but you can always Google yourself and try to pull stuff down.
All of that said, I still have to admit that I don’t really care about privacy except in the sense where it can hurt me. Anything I do online I think “Would this bother me if other people know about it?” The only thing I’m really concerned about are credit card stuff and my home address (where a psycho could come and kill me.)
There isn’t really anything you can do if the info is legit. There will be some lawsuits for things like faked accounts and photoshopped images placed on the web to be harmful to the person in question and there will be be more cyber-bullying laws coming but a picture of you in a public place is fair game to put out there for the whole world to see. Those things are scattered among thousands of databases in various countries and no one can make them get rid of it without good reason. Even if they did, the same info is still likely scattered all around and could reappear publicly at any time.
The best thing you can do is to be really careful with your accounts on the big players like Facebook. Stuff is so easy and obvious to find on sites like that even potential employers have gotten into the habit of doing a quick search to see what you are like sometimes even when screening resumes.