Does the Internet know more about me than I do ?

Its more of a question than a conspiracy thought.
The thing is this. I had to reboot my computer because of various problems. From the reboot, I thought that everything in my computer is wiped(nothing to hide), but when I went back onto my home page I decided to create a new e-mail for various reasons. The strange thing was that I tried a unique e-mail, but it gave various suggestions.....Those suggestions included my surname....WTF.
Has the internet got that clever or am I missing something here ? Not sure if my ISP is remembered, but its never happened before. Any ideas ?

reply to post by flylead


I'm not sure what you mean by "wipe", but merely rebooting your computer will not, in and of itself, erase any files. Check to see what the privacy settings on your browser are. Run a scan to check for viruses and spyware to make sure there aren't any files that may contain the personal information that a website could see.

We would need more information.

By reboot do you mean reformat?
Is it a large service that you signed up for? hotmail, gmail etc? If so, which?
The new email you created, is it through a service that you already have an old email account?
When you signed up, did you include ANY information that could link you to your old email, or give any personal info? (your full name, dob etc)

Originally posted by flylead
From the reboot, I thought that everything in my computer is wiped(nothing to hide),

Not at all. Cookies, login info, some passwords, browser history, etc. are all kept by default. There are some privacy settings in some browsers to wipe those on quit, but you have to turn those on yourself ahead of time.

Nothing personal was "on the internet". It was all on your PC, right where you left it.