Note that "anonymization" has been legally found (DSB-D123.270/0009) to be acceptable to meet GDPR "erasure" requirements. However, this requires irrevocable overwriting of PII rather than just slapping 1000 on the end ;-) If they'd changed the username and email address to some random string, however, they would most likely be compliant.
Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
51–60 of 167 posts
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
He said in his tweet about this that when he does it to Europeans (specifically Germans, I think) they just get even madder. I mean great if there are legal requirements for invoices, but who enforces them, how likely is enforcement, and what’s the end result for a US-based company with no physical presence in The Netherlands?
The real issue is with the local (European) company when they claim the expense against profits and the tax inspector turns their nose up at the invoice/receipt. Being in the UK, we tend to work on a system where things are taken in context and you can defend such decisions. Maybe other tax regimes are more restrictive, but the British way is always that you can have a debate with authorities and usually they will se…
That all sounds like the local company's problem right?
If they want to claim the expense they can find a competing company who issues an invoice.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#53I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all, and it goes all the way down to foreign key constraints introduced by a well-meaning but inexperienced developer that unnecessarily couple the accounts table to many other records.
In that case it seems simpler to introduce an IsDeleted flag than to have a convention that 1000 goes on the end of the name.
Sure, but that just covers up the lie better. Maybe a flag "ToBeDeleted" and any stilled logged in sessions see account is scheduled for deletion.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#54Not suprising from the Times. They don't like to publish retractions.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#55I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all, and it goes all the way down to foreign key constraints introduced by a well-meaning but inexperienced developer that unnecessarily couple the accounts table to many other records.
> I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all
Probably not. I bet that goes for so very many organizations. It is far easier to reinstate an accidentally (user) deleted account if it is merely marked as deleted than if it were truly deleted.
Now, how NYT is handling this is ... well, it's bad.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#56It’s odious that it’s impossible to delete accounts except in rare circumstances. Ever try? All anybody does is temporarily disable them unless you go through an hour with their tech support. Dark pattern at best, holding on to your data forever to continue selling it at worst
Now a days it is a dark pattern. But in the days before "sell everything you can about your users" became the rule, businesses optimized for the accidental deletion by users. They could easily reinstate you and your data would still be there. It used to be considered good customer service. Times change.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#57I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all, and it goes all the way down to foreign key constraints introduced by a well-meaning but inexperienced developer that unnecessarily couple the accounts table to many other records.
> I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all Probably not. I bet that goes for so very many organizations. It is far easier to reinstate an accidentally (user) deleted account if it is merely marked as deleted than if it were truly deleted. Now, how NYT is handling this is ... well, it's bad.
probably the fact that a good portion account deletes are users doing something they want to undo in the next few days. Soft deletes make this much easier, then going back and deleting anything older than X days is simpler than expensive customer support tickets of "how do i login it says my account is deleted"
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#58I’d bet (a small amount of) money they have no ability to delete accounts at all, and it goes all the way down to foreign key constraints introduced by a well-meaning but inexperienced developer that unnecessarily couple the accounts table to many other records.
Regardless of the constraint on the key, the design fact remains that deleting a user record that might, for example, have associated transaction data (like subscription payments) is a little complex.
You don't want to cascade that deletion to a record of credit card charges, but you also need to make sure that all queries respect that the user record might now be deleted - ie make it an outer-join.
It's far more robust to add an active/inactive field.
The longer an organization has been around, the more interconnected the database is, and the more consequent changes are needed to accommodate a core database change.
I would be surprised if many many organizations have some hack like this under the covers.
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#59Note that "anonymization" has been legally found (DSB-D123.270/0009) to be acceptable to meet GDPR "erasure" requirements. However, this requires irrevocable overwriting of PII rather than just slapping 1000 on the end ;-) If they'd changed the username and email address to some random string, however, they would most likely be compliant.
Wouldn't they also need to replace saved billing details, like address and full name, to anonymized garbage?
Re: Instead of deleting account, NYT appends ‘1000’ to username and email address
#60NYT is notoriously the worst at customer service and account handling. I tried to get a previous invoice from them previously and after 1 week of calling customer support and being passed around, I still wasn't able to get it.
Honestly, the stories i've ready about how difficult it is to cancel your NYT account are a contributing factor to why I don't subscribe. I love NYT, but if it's not as easy to cancel as it is to sign up then count me out.