Have you recently checked your Myspace account?

You probably should. I've deleted my account long before Justin Timberlake took over. Or so I thought... Recently I googled myself, just for fun. I was surprised to find an old photo of mine, which led me straight to... my old Myspace profile. How on earth was it available again? I couldn't figure out the correct username/password combination to log in, so I followed the "Forgot password?" link. I entered my username, but I got another error message: "The username you entered could not be found". The username is the last part of the profile's URL, so how could it not exist?! None of my email addresses was recognized, either. Then I thought:

I didn't care if this was a bold marketing move or an error in their system. I wanted my profile deleted, and my photo removed from Google search. It was more difficult than expected, so here I share my journey with you.

Regain access

I've found out that regaining access to my profile would be difficult. Myspace doesn't even offer a contact email address... I forwarded my request to their Twitter account @AskMyspace (does not exist anymore), and surprisingly I got an answer a few days later. I had to fill in a declaration of ownership. Then, I was asked to provide some information like the date of birth and zip code listed on the account. I don't like to reveal such information, so I often use fake data. This could be a problem, since I didn't know what data I had entered so many years ago. I hoped that I had used my correct information back then. Fortunately, my profile picture was edited a bit, and I still had the original file. I attached it to the form assuming this would prove my identity. It actually did: I could finally log in again!

Remove the photo

The second step was to remove the photo. It wasn't embarrassing, only outdated — with long hair and stuff. I've deleted it from my Myspace profile, but apparently they didn't delete it from their servers. I could still find it on Google image search. Fortunately there is a Google removal tool. I entered both the URL of my Myspace profile and the image URL, hoping for the best, and a couple of days later my photo was removed from Google.

Delete the account

This part went smoothly:

1. Log in to your Myspace account.
2. Go to Myspace account settings.
3. Select "Delete Account" and confirm it.
4. Hope, that the account doesn't reappear magically.