Can I ask a website to remove my personal information?

Can I ask a website to remove my personal information?

Hacker X (Computer Security Expert) gives expert video advice on: How can I protect myself on the Internet?; How can I keep my identity private while surfing? and more...

In theory, if you write to a website and ask them to remove all of your personal data they are obligated to do so. Again, that's in theory, I'm not sure it's in practice. Much like the real world, the more legitimate an operation or business is, the more likely they are to comply with these kinds of policies. The more fly-by-night, shady, unknown or small-scale businesses and operations may not remove personal data when asked. In my experience, legitimate businesses do follow these practices. And some of the smaller companies that don't immediately remove personal data it's not always for malicious purposes, sometimes it's difficult, they don't have someone to maintain a website and they don't mean any harm, but nonetheless your information hasn't been removed. Persistence is often key in seeing that your personal information is removed from sites that you do not want it to reside in.