Protecting Your Information Online

Most people don’t realize what a massive beast the internet has become.  Information is freely available on practically any topic you can think about.  The problem there, is that the same can be said about information concerning you.  This means your private information, like phone number, name, address, can all be found fairly easily online.  But there are steps you can take to ensure your identity isn’t as freely given away, to anyone lurking online.

Just do some searching yourself.  Find the places where your information appears.  Try a Google search even.  Type in your phone number and see what results you find.  Anything that you don’t approve of is completely under your control to change.  Google usually provides a link under each result, which you can use to contact them about removing the information.  If you don’t like what you find, use that to contact them and have your personal info removed.

You can do the same thing with the other major search engines as well.  Sites like Yahoo,  Bing, or even AOL’s search function.  You’ll also want to check up on popular phonebook sites.  Websites like Switchboard.com, White Pages, Phonenumber.com, Anywho.com, etc.  You’re able to remove your information from any site that you feel uncomfortable with.  Identity thieves have used these sites in the past to serve their schemes.  Probably not the worst idea you’ve ever had, if you want to choose to keep your personal information as personal as possible.

Other than that you should be careful about what information you expose on social networking website.  Those are common target areas for identity thieves to learn enough about you, to steal your identity.  Try to limit the amount of information you freely give when you social network.  That means not using your full name, and not posting phone numbers, or addresses where anyone can view them.