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How to un-google yourself

Posted Dec 4, 2009

With Christmas parties looming we couldn't have wished to spy a more useful article than Wired's how-to series which outlines how to keep your online persona clean our of mischief. If you have any sort of party looming - miss this post at your peril.

Before the festive season turns blurry around the edges - sharpen up on the top tips to remove the evening after -  we've showcased the best tips from Wired's How To Wiki series that will ensure no-one gets to see you doing a Daniel Brent dance on the office desk.

Picasaweb, Flickr and other image searches -

Though wedding websites are usually safe, public photo albums are probably not. It's therefore a good idea to politely request removal of your last name from friends' public photo albums.

On Flickr and Picasaweb -

If you find yourself tagged in a photo that you really don't want people to associate to your name, you'll want to un-tag yourself. Under the picture where you are tagged it says "Remove tag."

SmugMug is often a professional, password-only site. Perhaps recommend this site to the friends who have sensitive photos of you.

Facebook
Though you should already have a private Facebook account in the interest of, well, taming your Googlability, here’s how to hide yourself, anyway.
Log into your account. Hover your cursor over the Settings tab, and click on Privacy Settings.
Click Profile to control who can see what on your profile. Just about everything should have “Only Friends.” Ditto for Contact Information (which is the second tab under Profile).

It's also advisable you check the information you've posted elsewhere on Facebook. Your profile might be super-stealthy, but that doesn't help you if you've posted your phone number on a public "Lost my phone give me your numbers" group or you put your home address as the location for a publicly viewable event.

Hide in the Clutter
If you can't eliminate embarrassing web content you may be able to add enough innocuous content that a searcher would not easily find what you would like to remain hidden. For example, use specific user name for web comments.

Clip from episode The Office... The David Brent dance.

For more tips on how to un-google yourself see howto.wired.com/wiki/Un-Google_Yourself

Source: Wired.

 

TAGS: un-google. wited technology facebook daniel brent the office tech news