How long is your digital shadow?

Not a day goes by when I don't find myself increasingly concerned that my digital shadow is becoming longer than I would like.

My activities online are tracked by Google, Apple, facebook, linkedin, yahoo, Microsoft, twitter, foursquare, flickr, youtube (I know, Google) ... the list goes ever on and on.

The most frustrating aspect of this is that I am pretty much entirely responsible for this. I constantly register for new and innovative sites that pique my interest like ifttt or pinterest. Each time I do this, my shadow lengthens. My secondlife account is dead (really, was that ever going to actually gain proper traction outside of the geekmind?), but it's still there somewhere. So many sites have my online identity, arcticflea, registered on them as a place holder just in case I ever want to use their services... yeesh I have quite litterally no idea how many sites, wether social networking startups from the early years of this century or one time shopping websites, my personal details are held on. And yet I continue to register on more.

With the number of facebook based "What colour was the traffic light outside Maceys when you had your first bagel" type pages increasing at what seems to be an exponential rate, friends and aquaintances are adding further to the glittering baubles that make me want to 'click to see this', and I am proud that I at least manage to ignore these morsels.

Ultimately I don't think there's much I can do about it, so whilst my concern is growing, my sense of apathy is keeping just ahead of it. I suppose that is what worries me the most.