Can You Disappear?
> ERASING_FOOTPRINTS...
The "Right to be Forgotten" is a nice legal concept. In practice, the internet has the memory of an elephant with a hoarding disorder.
The Mission: Remove my primary personal details (Phone, Address, Old Photos) from Google Search within 24 hours.
Phase 1: The Data Brokers
Google doesn't host your data; they just index it. The real villains are "People Search" sites (Whitepages, Spokeo, etc.).
> ACTION: Sent opt-out requests.
> RESULT: 3 honored it instantly. 9 required "ID Verification" (Irony: Giving them ID to delete my data?).
difficulty:
8/10 (Tedious)Phase 2: The Old Accounts
I found an old MySpace, a Photobucket, and a random forum account from 2009.
The Problem: I don't have access to the email addresses used to create them.
Customer Support: "Please login to delete your account."
Me: "I can't login."
Customer Support: "Then we can't delete it."
There are photos of me with an emo haircut that will outlive the sun because I forgot the password to `hotmail.com`.
Phase 3: The Google Removal Tool
Google has a tool where you can request removal of results containing sensitive info (phone/address). I submitted 5 URLs.
Result: 3 Approved. 2 Denied ("Information is public record").
> STATUS: STILL_VISIBLE
Conclusion
You cannot disappear. Not fully. You can make yourself hard to find, but once data leaks into the "public record" or gets scraped by a third-tier data broker in Russia, it is there forever.
The only way to disappear effectively is to flood the zone with noise (Fake accounts, confusing data) rather than trying to delete the signal.