Lie

 

Once you post something anywhere on the Internet, there’s a very real chance it will stay there forever. A determined Google search will eventually turn it up. That isn’t Google’s fault. If you’d been thinking clearly, you never would have allowed your friend to post that picture of you motorboating an underage stripper in Tijuana. But now it’s there, and it’s not going away.

If you must misbehave online, do so under an alias, using an anonymizing technology. Never post your picture online, and don’t associate with your real-life friends. Never volunteer information, and if you have to, lie. Perform searches on variations of your name every few months, looking for evidence that your jerky online personality has been associated with the real you.

When you find something incriminating online, e-mail the administrator of the site hosting the evidence, and ask him or her to take it down. If you can get it taken down quickly enough, it might not be copied or archived anywhere. If the owner of a site refuses to remove pictures or other personal information about you, you may have to complain to his or her hosting service or Internet Service Provider, or even consider legal action.