Ask HN: Degoogling and personal search engine results management best practices?

A friend of mine is trying to take more control of search engine results when you Google him. He doesn't have much social media presence but still comes up in people search directories like peekyou, mylife, spokeo, and Whitepages. 1. Does anyone have experience removing themselves from such sites? Is it even possible? 2. Are there other general best practices that can be followed, aside from not using or anonymizing social media, setting boundaries with friends and family about posting about you on social media, and reaching out directly to smaller sites that have content about you? If it's helpful, this friend is in California. He's specifically worried about former employees of the company he works for, since he is involved in terminations sometimes.