With so much discussion about privacy, confidentiality and government snooping, is it any wonder that some people have decided to move off the grid and become "Web invisible"?

Others more closely monitor their Web profiles and either partially or completely remove themselves. And what about those who choose to remove themselves as a matter of principle? They may see their personal information as personal — and view corporate or government use of this information as exploitation.

To see for yourself what is stored about you on Google, you can use their poorly documented Google TakeOut. This "service" allows you to download (but not delete) all of the data that Google has collected. Facebook has a similar service, accessible from the middle of the General Account Settings page.

While it is almost impossible to remove yourself from the Web completely, there are a number of things you can do if you do want to reduce your footprint:

1. Avoid social networks

Don't sign up for them if you want to have at least a modicum of control over your data. If you do have accounts, you can delete them, and also delete the information that is associated with that account.

To delete your Facebook account, start here. For Twitter, start here; LinkedIn, start here. YouTube, a Google service, is a bit different: start here.

Unfortunately, following these instructions will not remove 100 percent of "you," as shared resources are never deleted. This means that if someone has tagged you in a photo within Facebook, or has a message from you in their LinkedIn inbox, deleting your account will not delete these items.

2. Remove what you can from the cloud providers

If you have set up a Google+ account, within Account Settings you can actually delete your Google+ profile features, while still maintaining a Google account. Of course, if you use Google services (such as Gmail, calendaring, etc), Google still has access to your data, customized ads will still be displayed, and your behaviors still tracked.

The same goes for Apple's iCloud and the various Microsoft cloud services. Don't use "rented" cloud services: use your own server to host your email and other cloud capabilities if you really do want them to be private.

3. Beware the index data funnel

When data is posted within social media, some of this data is indexed by Google, Bing and all of the public (and private) search engines. When data is removed from the social sites, there is no mechanism for it to be removed from the search engines it is there literally forever. The saving grace is that as the data ages, it is pushed further and further down in the index, and therefore less likely to be found by a person browsing casually.

In addition to the traditional search engines, the Internet Archive (the Wayback Machine), keeps snapshots of almost every website since the Web's inception. Even if you were able to scrub Google, a record of your (public) data at a particular time is always available.

4. Use the Web anonymously

Most major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.) support a mode where you can supposedly go to websites anonymously. What it really means is that the browser will not keep cookies, history or other information on the computer that you are using. To enable this mode, look for menu choices such as private browsing, inPrivate and Incognito mode.

Note, however, that this will not keep your identity private from the search engines, websites that you visit, advertisers, social media sites, etc. To browse anonymously requires three things:

  1. the installation of browser plug-ins that disable third-party tracking technologies
  2. a change of behavior to use search sites such as www.duckduckgo.com, which explicitly don't track
  3. the use of proxy servers or VPNs to ensure that "regular" sites see you as truly anonymous (e.g., Anonymouse.org or Hideme.be)

5. Beware of the mobile connection

Unlike a traditional browser, your telephone has a definitive link to you. It is almost impossible (without using proxies and VPNs) to be truly anonymous using a mobile phone either with data or with voice.

While not everyone is keen on removing themselves from the Web, there is a definite sensitivity to it — from lawmakers who are increasingly adding more stringent privacy legislation, to users who are becoming increasingly cynical.

As marketers, we must recognize that helping our target users achieve what they want is the only way they will return the favor and help us achieve what we want. Creepy data-mining, email spam and other nonfriendly activities will do more harm than good.

This week's action plan: How does your organization use data? Are you being transparent enough with your users? Make sure that you are, and that the balance of utility clearly falls in their direction.