MySpace.__del__(self) (aka how to remove your old myspace account)

Recently horrified to learn from a friend that MySpace was seemingly back and my old profile was considered highly relevant by Google when searching for me by name. I do try to ego-surf every so often to see what comes back, but this was new and not something I wanted shared with the world - of course 10 years ago when I was using it, worries about what was available online was not such a hot topic. Nowadays everyone wants to avoid some embarrassing photos showing up online.

So after being alerted I immediately began trying to get my profile removed. I found some articles saying send a photo with the old account url on a piece of paper to a certain email address but that bounced.

So I started trying to gain access to the account. Unfortunately it seemed none of the common passwords I used back then was working - I found out later MySpace had a breach of some sort and as part of restoration they reset everyone's password - so there was no chance of getting it right. I also no longer had access to the old email I used as I changed ISPs since then, so password reset wasn't an option.

Searching through the help, I could not find any direct way to contact MySpace.

But I did find a help topic about deleting your profile (https://help.myspace.com/hc/en-us/articles/202241380-Delete-your-Profile?mobile_site=false)

Of course - this is only if you are already logged in. There was a glimmer of hope though - since within that article there was a link "Do Not Have Access To Old Email"

False Dawn.. all this article does is link to every common free email provider's "how to recover your account"

This was no help at all. I spent weeks hunting online for alternatives - I found a phone number that is listed as belonging to MySpace on a website called GetHuman.. don't waste your time. I did a whois on the myspace domain - phone numbers there were further time sinks.

As I continued to dig around the MySpace site, hoping for some assistance I had a brainstorm and also found an email address that does reply. I think either of these options can work - though I ended up following through with the former simply because it was faster and I'm not sure if there would have been other hoops in the latter.

1. Create a new MySpace account, be sure to upload a decent profile picture with your face.
   Then - go to your old account and report it as someone else pretending to be you. This deleted my old profile in under 24 hours.

2. You can email [email protected] (there is a disclaimer saying they wouldn't respond to the type of inquiry I was making, but I tried anyways and they did).
   What they offered was to send a reset password request to a different email. Not sure how secure that is or how they would ensure that it really was you. Then you'd still need to go through the process of deleting your account. It generally took between 24-48 hours per reply.

Once the profile url is showing a 404, you can start the process of getting items deindexed from google. TBF to MySpace - their help topic about this is exactly what needs to be done (https://help.myspace.com/hc/en-us/articles/202086574-How-Do-I-Remove-Images-Appearing-In-Google-Search-)

However for completeness I will include that info here - it is pretty straightforward.

Simply use this google tool (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals)

Do this with both the profile URL and then any image showing up in google image search - using the actual google link for each image. Usually within about 24 hours after they are submitted they will stop showing up in google search.

Hope you find this guide helpful.