Online Class

This App Deletes Your Personal Information From the Web

It's nearly impossible to fully delete yourself from the Internet, but a new app from online privacy startup Abine says it will significantly cut down on your online footprint.

DeleteMeMobile [iTunes link] — which launched for iOS devices in the Apple App Store on Monday and already has several thousand users — aims to strip your personal data from many of the largest websites that collect and sell it, including Spokeo and Intelius.

These sites collect a huge amount of information about you, from estimated net worth, religious and political affiliations, children's names, websites visited and articles read (yikes).

"Hundreds of data brokers you've probably never heard of track everything people do, online and off," Sarah Downey, Abine privacy analyst, told Mashable

"Hundreds of data brokers you've probably never heard of track everything people do, online and off," Sarah Downey, Abine privacy analyst, told Mashable. "This collection of digital data is leading to the creation of a 'digital you,' and increasingly, decisions are being made based on this version of you, such as your credit scores, ability to get loans, insurance premiums, online shopping prices and whether you're hired."

The DeleteMe app is free to search what kind of information is out there about you and it comes with one removal from any data broker site. After that, there is a $24.99 subscription for three months with unlimited deletions. The app is similar to the company's web-based DeleteMe service.

Here's how the app works: After downloading it and providing some basic information to sign up, the app searches data-broker sites looking for information about you. About eight results listings will pop up for the typical user. A user can click the results by saying "This isn't me" if it's not a proper match or hitting "DeleteMe" to remove the data.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deleteme-mobile/id549886663?mt=8

6 Gmail Labs That Will Make Your Life Easier

With all that email you get these days, it's easy to get buried. For those millions of you who use Gmail as your main email client, either for your personal email, or through work or school, allow us to make some suggestions.

Whether you're chasing Inbox Zero or just want a little more efficiency, Gmail Labs may be your solution. Labs are add-ons you can use to customize your experience; they can save you time by supercharging your Gmail. These "experimental" features can break at any time, or eventually be incorporated into Gmail itself, but since every click counts, we're willing to take the risk.

Check out our gallery above to learn how to enable Labs and see which ones are worth your time. Let us know your favorites in the comments.

Why Being Young Doesn't Make You a Social Media Expert

Rebecca Levey is a co-founder of KidzVuz.com, a video review site by and for tweens. She writes about technology and education at Beccarama and is a White House Champion of Change for Education. Follow her at .

On the face of it, my 10-year-old twin daughters are the poster girls for the "digital natives" generation.

They've had a Leapster since age 4, and have been online since they were 5 — first playing on Webkinz, then Club Penguin, Moshi Monsters, and other online virtual worlds. They can navigate PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and Photoshop like pros. We had all the discussions I thought we needed to have — don't give out your password, don't give out personal information, report inappropriate behavior — and I keep their computers in the living room or kitchen where I can constantly look over their shoulders.

Being the digital mom I am, I thought I had covered all bases. But what I hadn't counted on was social media being an entirely different beast, and rendering my digitally savvy girls into digital Mr. Magoos.

I live a good deal of my life online. The ease with which I move between Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, chat and other social media is second nature and central to my work. It never occurred to me that my daughters would have no idea what they were doing when they entered the social media space. After all, for me it's just an extension of my "real" life. But I quickly came to realize that of course is the crux of the issue when it comes to tweens and teens online: they are just starting to figure out what it means to be social in their real world. Adding in social media amplifies and intensifies all of the bumbling mistakes, mean girl tendencies and just out right naivitee.