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Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

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Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#11

Post by itvision »

Ansil849 wrote: post #10

Before 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.

And precisely for that reason many companies nowadays don't allow to edit/modify certain fields unless you request support and provide a proof of your identity.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#12

Post by paulryanrogers »

zero_k wrote: post #7

The 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 bec…

One reason deletion may not be technically absolute is that tombstone records may be needed to gradually cull the data from things like backups and 3P systems. Usually though these should just be surrogate keys with no human significance. Then ultimately they get purged too.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#13

Post by Ansil849 »

itvision wrote: post #11
Ansil849 wrote: post #10

Before 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.

And precisely for that reason many companies nowadays don't allow to edit/modify certain fields unless you request support and provide a proof of your identity.

Yes, sometimes this requires sending a fictitious identification image to customer support.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#14

Post by fsckboy »

mrintellectual wrote: post #3

Part 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 refreshing to see that tech is now heading in a more socially responsible direction

what are examples of tech heading in a more socially responsible direction?

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#15

Post by d2wa »

blibble wrote: post #2

I 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! despite the fact I can't log into the account because it doesn't exist I suppose actually deleting anything goes against google's DNA

I've also had no luck getting Google to delete an unused Developer Account. They suggest I stop using my Google account and create a new one; abandoning all services in the process.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#16

Post by Ansil849 »

mrintellectual wrote: post #3

Part 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 refreshing to see that tech is now heading in a more socially responsible direction

What? Absolutely the opposite is true. Tech is now doing evil shit that was unthinkable ten years ago. Like Facebook using the phone number you put in as part of your 2FA for marketing purposes [1]. The only thing that's happening right now is tech companies are paying more lip service to giving a fuck about users, not actually giving a fuck about them.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/yes-facebook-is-using-your...

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#17

Post by motohagiography »

I had a service provider delete the hosted graph databases I used for my startup demo that even had some past consulting client data in them, while still continuing to charge me for several months for the service. Since I didn't believe anyone actually deleted data, I asked for a download of it, and they insisted it was actually deleted. It was absolutely shadey. Tainted my view of that technology as well.

Valuable lesson was next project I will likely have to figure out how to effectively shard and round robin containers across diverse cloud providers, as I don't forsee ever affording to be able to be treated that poorly again.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#18

Post by ShakataGaNai »

hereforphone wrote: post #9
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #4

This 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.

The afore mentioned Collage.com - I'm not afraid of naming companies that willfully and flagrantly violate the law.

And yes, I should have filed a complaint with the California AG but I never did for unrelated reasons. Too late now.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#19

Post by encryptluks2 »

hereforphone wrote: post #9
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #4

This 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.

Complaints don't do anything. We need people filing lawsuits. Politicians don't care, they are in bed with businesses and information collection companies.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#20

Post by bombcar »

itvision wrote: post #6

I'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.

Confluence even explicitly does this - you can do a “gdpr delete” which disables the user and replaces all info with random strings. It’s kind of hilarious.
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