i did mail pg with a similar request (different account), and he essentially responded that he could not be bothered to implement deletion or do it manually.
Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about the US, but over here in the Netherlands any service must respond to a request to remove your records. They must comply, or provide a very good reason why your comments/submissions must remain. (In discussions comments can stay if required for the discussion to make sense, but the name has to go).
A real name has to go, but there is no requirement to remove a nickname or an account.
regulation outside the US may not apply here but this is not how the law works in the EU, which deals with the data itself rather than just identification.
not too long ago I compelled a telco who had pissed me off to send me a 200 page dump of all the data they had about me and subsequently delete all of it, using the legal system after they had initially refused.
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#23Sorry to those who are curious, but I'm not going to state my reason - it's not all that personal but is still well with in the realm of "my own business". Surely it's not a prerequisite for deleting an account. If I knew that there wasn't a standard way to delete accounts I probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place. It might help keep the number of temporary accounts, so there's a chance that it's a featur…
> I could probably exit the site very rapidly by way of a submission script
But that would certianly fall within the realm of "hacking"
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about the US, but over here in the Netherlands any service must respond to a request to remove your records. They must comply, or provide a very good reason why your comments/submissions must remain. (In discussions comments can stay if required for the discussion to make sense, but the name has to go).
HN is not in the Netherlands, so this is completely irrelevant. (Just like when some company in the US sends a DMCA takedown notice to the Netherlands.)
technically, YC has a European subsidiary (a startup funded by them).
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#25Considering how even non-personal information becomes identifiable in aggregate, this is a feature that any social site with a conscience should have. Otherwise, the risk to privacy is both impossible to gauge and continuously growing.
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
news.yc uses flat files.
Then instead of "delete" we will have to use "sed" or "grep -v" to remove the login... ;-)
use ack! - [http://betterthangrep.com/]
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN is not in the Netherlands, so this is completely irrelevant. (Just like when some company in the US sends a DMCA takedown notice to the Netherlands.)
technically, YC has a European subsidiary (a startup funded by them).
So ?
Europe != NL.
And even if, a subsidiary incorporated independently is not going to be liable for acts of the parent company unless they are actively engaged in the same activity.
And in this case they would not be, Ycombinator owns and runs the forum, that startup does its own thing.
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#28Sorry to those who are curious, but I'm not going to state my reason - it's not all that personal but is still well with in the realm of "my own business". Surely it's not a prerequisite for deleting an account. If I knew that there wasn't a standard way to delete accounts I probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place. It might help keep the number of temporary accounts, so there's a chance that it's a featur…
> I could probably exit the site very rapidly by way of a submission script - not my style, but does make me wonder if it's been tried before.
Is that your way of threatening ?
> And it remains an option if nothing else will do the trick.
Oh, yes it seems it is.
Well, here's news for you:
A surefire way to get yourself banned, not deleted is such a script.
That means all your information from the past is just as visible as it is today.
And I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask for a reason if you ask someone to do work for you, it's the polite thing.
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#29Considering how even non-personal information becomes identifiable in aggregate, this is a feature that any social site with a conscience should have. Otherwise, the risk to privacy is both impossible to gauge and continuously growing.
Or, alternatively you could simply think about the consequences of what you write before you write it.
ANY words you write on the internet or even in email start to have a life of their own right after you hit that 'reply' button. If you're the kind of person that would not stand by their words even years later then you probably shouldn't be clicking that button.
It saves others work down the line, and it saves you embarrassment.
Re: Ask PG: I'd like to delete my account.
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
technically, YC has a European subsidiary (a startup funded by them).
So ? Europe != NL. And even if, a subsidiary incorporated independently is not going to be liable for acts of the parent company unless they are actively engaged in the same activity. And in this case they would not be, Ycombinator owns and runs the forum, that startup does its own thing.
you misunderstood. it can be argued that once YC has established a sufficient nexus within a particular country it can be held to its laws (in this case, DE data protection and privacy laws which are far stricter than those of NL, afaik).
on a much larger scale, watch for the impending fight between the EU commission and facebook about this very issue.