buttsex

I saw this article [1] and it seems like something I should do? I show up in a lot of those directories if you search my name. I've heard people say that doing this only "validates" that my info is real to those sites. I've heard the same thing about unsubscribe links in emails, that clicking them only confirms with the spammer that you are a real person.

Is there any evidence to these types of claims? Any downside to actively trying to remove my info from these types of sites?

[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2849263/doxxing-defense-remove-your-personal-info-from-data-brokers.html

I'm in the process of moving away from my gmail account and would like a personal domain for my email and website. I already own firstnamelastname.com, the problem is that my first and last name together are really long and I'd like something shorter, for email especially (i.e. me@lastname.com). I'm thinking of getting lastname.co since lastname.com is taken and the guy won't give it up (funny since lastname.com was registered in Colombia and I think he's Colombian). My last name is short so it looks nice. I could come up with some hacky domain names but I like the simplicity of lastname.co

In this day and age, is there any downside to owning a .co TLD (besides typos). I plan to use me@lastname.co for email and I'd like to make some aliases for different services (dropbox@lastname.co, contests@lastname.co). I would host a small blog at the domain name, I don't really promote myself too much, and if you Google my name it would come up at the top any way.

What do you guys use?