- Google and Facebook currently allow you to delete your data, and both say that they really mean it. I doubt that this policy will be around in a few years, so it's worth taking advantage of now. Even if you want to still use these services, it's worth 're-incarnating' yourself without decades of data and phone numbers, email addresses, etc. tied to a name. This is easy for Google, but very difficult for Facebook; it's explicitly against their TOS, and algorithmically enforced. If you've got spare cash, it's easiest to buy a $40 dollar burner phone and do it over 4G; spare your IP address, and the sign-up flow is slick (paid for UA channel).
- The email address, phone number, credit card number, and the SSN are still the canonical forms of identity in the data industry. You can almost always transact without an SSN, and the rest can be re-generated so that they don't follow you around, with some money and effort. For example, buy a burner domain, and use a different email address for each service (e.g. joespizza@user_id.lol).
Abine Inc. (I'm a customer, no other affiliation) offer a service which:
* Generates burner emails, and forwards mail to you
* Gives you a virtual phone number which forwards calls and texts (but which you can ditch/rotate)
* Virtual credit cards, no real name needed
I rolled my own solution for the email thing, but the cards and telephone numbers work great. Making-up outlandish names to buy cinema-tickets and burritos with is still entertaining my wife and I after a whole year!
They also have a service called 'DeleteMe' which I think is basically paying an intern to click-through all the opt-out forms of the data brokerages on your behalf.
If google and facebook - who make their money off data - are willing to delete data for free, then they probably have some legal mandate to do so. If so, then they will continue to allow deletion while the laws remain in place.
- The email address, phone number, credit card number, and the SSN are still the canonical forms of identity in the data industry. You can almost always transact without an SSN, and the rest can be re-generated so that they don't follow you around, with some money and effort. For example, buy a burner domain, and use a different email address for each service (e.g. joespizza@user_id.lol).
Abine Inc. (I'm a customer, no other affiliation) offer a service which:
* Generates burner emails, and forwards mail to you
* Gives you a virtual phone number which forwards calls and texts (but which you can ditch/rotate)
* Virtual credit cards, no real name needed
I rolled my own solution for the email thing, but the cards and telephone numbers work great. Making-up outlandish names to buy cinema-tickets and burritos with is still entertaining my wife and I after a whole year!
They also have a service called 'DeleteMe' which I think is basically paying an intern to click-through all the opt-out forms of the data brokerages on your behalf.