Keep Your Home Address a Secret With Google Alert
Removing your home address from people search sites is a long, tedious and sometimes expensive process. So, once you’ve done that, you’ll want it to take root. Unfortunately, BoingBoing says, this is not a one-time process . Even after you are removed from the list, your name will appear in new databases.
Their solution: set a Google alert for your name and address. Then you will receive an email whenever a new site publishes your name and address. You can catch each new instance and request deletion.
Go to the Google Alerts page and find your name and address. The site will show you a preview of the results. (If you get too many irrelevant results, put quotation marks around your mailing address or your name.) Click Show Options and change How Many from Best Results Only to All Results . Click Create Alert .
Please note that if you donate to political campaigns, your name and address may appear on a financial disclosure document on a government website. This is a funny thing I learned from googling my name and address! I can’t imagine this will be a problem!
In addition, as Boing Boing points out, this method only grabs public records, not paywall databases. To remove your entry from them, use the services listed in our previous post .