If, like me, you are actively resisting DOGE and the Trump administration on the record, i.e., with your name attached to your efforts, then I would like to encourage you to step up your online privacy protection game, for your own safety and the safety of those close to you (being doxxed or swatted is no fun, nor is having MAGA people show up at your front door to threaten you, nor is being dogpiled and harassed online).
I want to make two specific recommendations.
First of all, DeleteMe [full disclosure: you get a discount and I get a gift card if you sign up through that link] has been recommended to me by numerous people who are experienced in this space. DeleteMe is pricey, but I believe it’s worth it, for two reasons:
- Their customer service is extremely good. I have had to reach out to them several times with questions since I signed up, and every time, they responded quickly, their response was relevant and useful, and I did not have to go multiple rounds with them to get to someone who actually knew what they were talking about. It reminds me of the early days of Zipcar, when they still cared about customer service, until they got too big and were acquired and their support became terrible.
- They handle removals from a lot of web sites. Here are the stats from the first privacy report they generated for me after I joined:
Second, I recommend signing up for the Block Party App and using it to check and update the settings for your social-media and social-media-adjacent (e.g., Venmo) accounts. It costs about $100 per year, though you may be able to get a 50% discount with the offer code “JOINTHEPARTY”. You can try it out for free on one site before you sign up. It’s impossible for any of us to keep track of all the settings etc. that need to be tweaked at all of these sites to protect our privacy. The folks at Block Party do it for you and make it easy as pie to check and update settings.
It may be impossible for you to totally scrub your presence from the internet, but that’s not the goal. Every bit of information you are able to remove or make harder for the bad guys to find will slow them down. As the Block Party folks put it, if you can make it go from taking 30 seconds to 30 minutes for a bad actor to find something private about you online, you’ll dramatically decrease the number of people willing to go through the effort. Think of it like putting an alarm-system sign on your lawn to encourage burglars to skip your house.
Let’s be safe out there!
