Question: Social Media Digital footprints tracking your Internet activity are relatively easy to find. Maintaining online anonymity is difficult to achieve once you have established online social network accounts with your actual name. While deleting an online social network account is a fairly easy process, deleting all remnants of information relating to the account can be a more difficult task. Just because you no longer can sign in to the account does not mean your posts, photos, and personal information do not exist somewhere on a website. If you desire to remove an Internet presence for security or personal reasons, begin by searching for your name or account user names. Remove your profiles from any online social network account that is displayed in the search results. Each of the online social network websites has a process to close an account, generally through the account's settings page.

Next, contact the websites listed in the search results and ask that your name be removed. Many companies have a form to complete and submit. A third place to hunt for your information is on websites listing public records and people searches. Again, attempt to contact these companies and request that your personal information be removed. As a last resort, some services will perform these tasks for a fee.

Research This: Use a search engine to locate instances of your name or user names. Did the search results list these names? If so, which online social networks or companies have records of your name? Then, search for your name on at least two websites that have public records or people databases. Did you see your name on these websites? If so, do you want the details, such as a phone number or address, available for anyone to see? If not, attempt to remove this data and write a report of the steps you took and your success in deleting the personal information.