Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
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Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#2I still get mountains of crap from a google workspace account I deleted a year ago
- google play developer updates
- google cloud service updates
- your billing info has expired! update it now or else!
I suppose actually deleting anything goes against google's DNA
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#3Part of this is leftover tech culture from Facebook's early focus on Growth, Growth, and more Growth. Allowing for easy deletion of accounts was fundamentally at odds with user growth.
It's refreshing to see that tech is now heading in a more socially responsible direction, but the industry still has a long way to go.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#4This is super duper common. Most companies that I've run across don't actually have a mechanism for properly deleting accounts.
My anecdote: Collage.com - I tried it, was unsatisfied with the results so I requested that they delete my account under CCPA (being a Californian). They said they completed. My account was renamed from email@domain.com to email@domain.com-deleted12344843223432 . My session wasn't even terminated, so not only could I see this, I could still see my not-deleted photos AND all the sharing links still worked.
I fought with them at length and their support insisted it was deleted and that this was just something on my computer. Logout/clear cookies/cache/reboot and it'll be all good. I know that's BS.
Even when they "escalated" the issue to a manager who said "Your account has been deleted and will not be reopened." - I could still take screenshots of my account homepage. At which point they stopped responding to me.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#5Part of this is leftover tech culture from Facebook's early focus on Growth, Growth, and more Growth. Allowing for easy deletion of accounts was fundamentally at odds with user growth. It's refreshing to see that tech is now heading in a more socially responsible direction, but the industry still has a long way to go.
I don't understand what a bunch of random companies have to do with facebook. In fact this problem predates the WWW...and predates the Internet!
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#6I've worked for several companies and let me tell you the truth:
* accounts are never deleted, period *
At most there's a column in the table which specifies whether the account is alive or not. That's it.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#7The company I know handles account "deletions" by pseudonymizing data, which is utter BS, any half-competent engineer can recover who the original person was. The engineering lead in charge realized he can get promoted by calling pseudonymization "anonymization" thereby fooling most, and not losing the data for the company. Those who knew he was making a mess were not included in the data deletion project, likely because it was inconvenient to hear the truth.
So that's how a huge company deals with "data deletion". I hope the DPA will come down on them hard but of course this clown will then just go and do this circus at another company, now promoted to high heavens.
I hate that privacy and security are full of snake oil peddlers, and it pays of extremely handsomely to be a snake oil peddler. It's not in anyone's interest for you to get caught (who wants to advertise their security is bad/they don't abide by GDPR?), so even if it becomes painfully obvious you've been selling snake oil, you'll only be asked to hand in your resignation, allowing you to do the same (but at an even higher level) at another company.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#8Part of this is leftover tech culture from Facebook's early focus on Growth, Growth, and more Growth. Allowing for easy deletion of accounts was fundamentally at odds with user growth. It's refreshing to see that tech is now heading in a more socially responsible direction, but the industry still has a long way to go.
It's almost never been about growth.
Actually deleting accounts means you're losing very valuable information about [past] customers, their behavior, geo, etc. Also some people may suddenly decide to delete their account and request its reactivation after a while.
It also means you cannot use this data for forensics which is not such a rare occurrence.
Storage is cheap, information is expensive.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#9This is super duper common. Most companies that I've run across don't actually have a mechanism for properly deleting accounts. My anecdote: Collage.com - I tried it, was unsatisfied with the results so I requested that they delete my account under CCPA (being a Californian). They said they completed. My account was renamed from email@domain.com to email@domain.com-deleted12344843223432 . My session wasn't even termi…
Name and shame. And please take the time to file a complaint.
Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions
#10Before requesting an account "deletion" for an account you have anywhere, always go through every single field and enter fictitious data. This includes adding fictitious photos and the like. The service may keep the previous iterations of the data, sure, but that's less likely than them keeping the latest version of the data, which is almost a certainty.