“Once it's online, it stays forever.” True or a myth?
Why deleted things live on - backups, cache, the Wayback Machine - and what you can actually do with the right to be forgotten, removal requests and the limits.
The phrase “once it’s online, it stays forever” is both true and false at the same time. Erasing yourself from the network completely is nearly impossible, but reducing your footprint is entirely realistic. Let’s look at why deleted things live on and what can be done about it.
Why deletion doesn’t take effect at once
Backups. Sites constantly back up their databases. A post or photo deleted today may sit in a backup for months or years - until its retention period ends. The copies are eventually deleted (storage costs money), but not instantly.
Other people’s screenshots. Anyone could have captured your post. You delete the original - the copy is already spreading beyond your control.
Search-engine cache. Google, Bing and others used to keep cached copies of pages. Since early 2024 Google stopped showing its own cache - instead it links to the Wayback Machine by the Internet Archive.
The Wayback Machine. A non-profit project, archive.org, that has been
“photographing” billions of pages since 1996. Through it people find old versions
of sites, forums, and even long-deleted posts. Priceless for researchers - and a
problem for privacy. It has a form to request removal of specific URLs.
The right to be forgotten
In 2014 the Court of Justice of the EU established the right to demand that search engines remove links to outdated or irrelevant information about a person. Google has a dedicated form; Ukraine has similar provisions in its personal-data protection law.
Understand the limit: this removes links from search results but does not delete the information from the source site. And the right is not absolute - public interest and freedom of speech can outweigh it: removal will be refused if the matter concerns crime or corruption.
What you can do yourself
- send a removal request directly to the site hosting the information (GDPR forms, appeals to administrators);
- ask Google to remove it from search results;
- send the Wayback Machine a request to remove specific URLs;
- paid services (DeleteMe, Incogni) automatically send requests to data brokers - but they require your logins or personal data, which is a risk in itself. Weigh the need against the risk.
Takeaways
- Erasing yourself from the network completely is nearly impossible: backups, other people’s screenshots and archives live independently of your “delete” button.
- The right to be forgotten removes links, not the source - and does not always work.
- Reducing your footprint is realistic, but the best strategy is to think before posting, not after.