Enter your first and last name into the search engine. What do you see? Old profiles on social networks that you haven’t used for years. Comments on forums. Photos. Data from leaked databases.

Many people want to fix this – for privacy reasons, after changing jobs, because of inappropriate content, or simply because the digital footprint has accumulated and become too large.

You cannot completely disappear from the Internet. But it is possible to significantly reduce your presence. Here’s how.

Step 1: Assess the scale – find yourself on the Internet

Before deleting, you need to understand what to delete.

Look for yourself:

  • First name + last name in Google and Yandex
  • First name + last name + city
  • First name + last name + place of work
  • Your phone number
  • Your email address

Write down everything you find. This is your to-do list.

Step 2: Delete or deactivate old accounts

Most people have accounts on dozens of services that they have long forgotten about: old forums, dating services, gaming sites, news aggregators.

How to find forgotten accounts:

  • Look in your mail for letters with the subject line “Welcome”, “Confirm registration”, “Account activation”.
  • Servicejustdeleteme.ru— a directory of sites with direct links to account deletion pages and an assessment of the complexity of this process.

Important nuance:Many services distinguish between “deactivation” (the account is hidden) and “deletion” (the data is deleted). Just look for deletion – and read how many days after that the data is actually erased.

Step 3: Delete or clear major social networks

VKontakte:You can delete your account in Settings → Basic information → Delete page. Data is deleted 7 months after deactivation. If you want to stay but hide, close your profile and delete old posts and photos.

Instagram/Facebook:Settings → Your information on Facebook/Instagram → Deactivation and deletion → Delete account. Data is deleted within 30–90 days.

Google account:myaccount.google.com → Data and privacy → Delete Google account. This will delete Gmail, YouTube history, Google Photos and all associated data. Very radical – think twice.

Step 4: Request removal from search engines

Even if you delete a page on the site, it may still appear in the search engine cache for a long time. You can request removal directly.

Google – “Right to be forgotten”:Go to pagesupport.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905and submit a request to remove specific URLs from searches. Google is required to review such requests—especially for outdated, inaccurate, or sensitive data.

Yandex:Yandex also accepts requests to remove personal data from searches. The form is available at Yandex.ru/support in the “Personal Data” section.

Important:Search engines remove specific URLs from results, but do not remove information from the sites themselves. If the data is on the site, it remains there.

Step 5: Remove yourself from personal data aggregators

There are sites that automatically collect public information about people: names, addresses, phone numbers, relatives, place of work. In Russia this is less developed than in the West, but similar services exist.

Search for your name on such aggregators and use the opt-out forms that they are required to provide under the law on personal data (152-FZ in Russia, GDPR in Europe).

Step 6: Clean up professional networks

LinkedIn, hh.ru, Rabota.ru – if you are not looking for a job and do not want to be publicly represented, deactivate or delete profiles, or limit visibility as much as possible.

What cannot be deleted

Be realistic: some data is impossible or extremely difficult to delete:

  • News articles and media publications— editors, as a rule, do not delete materials. You can try to negotiate or ask through the court, but it is difficult.
  • Website Archives— The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) stores snapshots of pages. There is a deletion request form, but it doesn’t always work.
  • Data that has been shared widely— if information gets onto hundreds of sites, it is almost impossible to remove it from each one.
  • State registers— data on individual entrepreneurs, court decisions, registration of legal entities are public by law.

Realistic outcome

Complete removal from the Internet is a myth. Butsignificant reduction in digital footprint– a completely achievable goal. Deleted accounts, cleared old profiles and requests to be removed from search will give tangible results.

This takes time – several hours or days, depending on the scale of the presence. But then you control what can be found about you on the Internet.

Conclusion

Start with the main thing: search for yourself on Google and Yandex, make a list, delete accounts you don’t use. This will already reduce your digital footprint by 70-80%. The rest is optional and necessary.