In the United States:

1. Stop direct mail by sending your name and address (all versions) to:

Mail Preference Service Direct Marketing Association Box 9008 Farmingdale, NY 11735-9008

2. Stop telemarketers by sending name, address, and phone # to:

Telephone Preference Service DMA Box 9014 Farmingdale, NY 11735-9014

3. If you still get calls, you can say: "Under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, I want to be on your 'do not call' list." You can stop pre-approved credit card marketers by calling 888/5OPTOUT.

4. If you buy something by phone, say: "Do not rent, sell, or trade my name and address." Every time you call an "800" number, the Automatic Number Identification System tags you for direct marketers.

5. Disable the "cookies" that track your web surfing: www.junkbusters.com; or surf anonymously: www.anonymizer.com

6. Even the U.S. Postal Service makes bucks off selling your name (you're tagged when you fill out one of those permanent 'change of address' cards). To exit the National Change of Address System, call the National Customer Support Center at 800/236-3150. (hmmm. but doesn't this activate the ID system in #4?...still worth a try)

7. Don't fill out warranty cards (the warranty is still valid).

8. For a fee PrivacyScan will search 1,600 databases to see what information exists about you (the average person is on about 200).

9. If you change your name (a marriage license gets you on more lists), get a passport, etc...you'll have to do all of this over again.

10. For those who desire more radical anonymity: pay cash for everything; drop medical insurance; renounce Social Security; give up your driver's license; read Trent Sands' Reborn In The U.S.A.: Personal Privacy Through A New Identity and Hide Your A$$et$ and Disappear: A Step By Step Guide To Vanishing Without A Trace by Edmund J. Pankau; also I Am Not A Number! Freeing America From The ID State by Claire Wolfe (I think; Loompanics, 1998)

11. Political activists looking for information on how to lobby for an amendment to the Consitiution on privacy can read The Privacy Rights Handbook by Beth Givens.

12. Or do like Diogenes suggested: the quickest road to invisible is to get rid of anything anyone else would want.