Save Money By Protecting Your Personal Info
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
It’s crazy how much personal information is on the Internet. With only a name, it’s easy to find someone’s age, address, phone number, and sometimes far more detailed info, including legal and financial information. Using this information, in combination with as little as one highly-sensitive piece of info (like a compromised Social Security or drivers license number), a thief can easily steal your identity.
Six months ago, I wrote a set of simple steps you can take to dramatically reduce your risk of having your identity stolen. Last month, a valuable new tool became available to further protect your information and enhance your privacy.
On April 27th, Google announced a wide range of options to “remove your personally identifiable information from Search”. This is a big deal. Under the new policy, you can ask Google to “de-index” (remove from search results) many websites that offer your personal information. The sites will still exist, but if they can’t be found on Google, they might as well be off the Internet.
Here’s how you do it:
Search for your name and other identifying info on Google. I used my first name, last name, and the town where I currently live, and then my first name, last name, and the town where I grew up.
Make a list of the addresses of any websites that have your personal information. I found at least 15 websites that had my address, old phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
Answer the simple questions and input each of the addresses and the search terms you used to find them.
After a day or two, Google will email you with a list of the websites they removed from search results.
Try more searches, and then resubmit as many additional requests until as much of your personal info is taken down from Google as possible.
Over the past few days, I’ve submitted three requests to Google to take down information. Although they denied one of my requests, they ultimately removed 14 websites that were selling access to sensitive personal information, including my current address, phone number, email address and several old physical addresses. One small step for privacy!
And now, Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
A good, sober, and non-sensationalist take - Let’s Take Monkeypox Seriously
More and more, I’ve noticed people not responding to emails. This may be generational, but more likely it seems many people are simply overwhelmed by the daily onslaught of email and realize they can’t answer everything. Some interesting stories of email bankruptcy in How to Care Less About Your Email.
Apple Shipped Me A 79-Pound iPhone Repair Kit to Fix A 1.1-ounce Battery - Apple’s response to increased customer demand for the ability to do their own iPhone battery replacement (and new “Right to Repair” laws) is to send you 79 pounds of tools. And to charge you a $1200 safety deposit, forfeited if you don’t return the tools in one week. I can’t imagine many people taking them up on this “deal”.
And on a lighter note, Guy Fieri, Elder Statesman of Flavortown
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.