Mike's NBC-TV stories

Quick Guide: Erase Yourself from the Net

The Internet can be a pretty intimidating place. Web companies can track your online activities. Your privacy can be exposed. Fortunately, there are some ways to find out what others know about you and how you can stop them from monitoring you.

One of the handiest tools for smartphones and web browsers is called Ghostery. You can download to your computer or mobile device and it shows you what companies are tracking you and then gives you the power to block scripts, images, objects and framed documents from companies that you don’t trust.

A Website called Find Me Online offers extensive links to all sorts of places where information about you may be publically available online. You have to enter n your name and use all the tools listed here, but if information about you is online, it finds it. And there are lots of tips on ho   w to have your information removed.

But probably the best tool is called Just Delete Me. This allows you to, in effect, erase yourself from the Internet. It’s a huge directory with direct links to various web services that you can click on to delete your account and personal information.

Ghostery www.ghostery.com

Find Me Online www.find-me-online.net

Just Delete Me http://justdelete.me

Mike is a veteran journalist whose video "PC Mike" reports have been distributed weekly to all 215 NBC-TV stations since 1994, making him one of the most experienced tech reporters in the country. His tech stories and videos have appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, the Today Show, The New York Times, USA Today and in numerous national newspapers and magazines. In addition to the PC Mike tech blog, he also publishes the Roadtreking.com RV Travel Blog in which he travels North America in an RV reporting about interesting people and places.