Can I delete my Skype account? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#61

Post by jedrek » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 3:31 PM UTC

product50 wrote: post #58

buro9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all forums do this or some form of this. Your account and personal information may be deleted, but all of your comments, submissions, conversations, threads or whatever you call the collected bulk of user generated content will remain. The reason for this is that a forum is a collaborative effort, a collective work, and the contributions of other people's content might only make sense in the context of yours.…

reddit doesn't do this You can delete your account and all your associated comments if you want to.

Yeah... And it makes a lot of older threads nearly unreadable...

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#62

Post by doctorshady » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 3:40 PM UTC

monsterix wrote: post #6

I recently deleted my Linkedin account. But their junk emails continue to dirty my email even now. Next in the line is Skype, and then probably Facebook. Thankfully, I never shared my genuine data with Facebook or opened an a/c on Instagram or Whatsapp ever so I'm good at a certain level when it comes to Facebook. In my opinion Twitter is the only option that is sane at the moment.

Funny you say that, I've been constantly getting spammy emails from Twitter.

In all fairness to them though, they've been much better about that recently.

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#63

Post by laurent123456 » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

lyndonh wrote: post #8

Skype as software has a lot of issues. Before they were bought by Microsoft the software worked quite well; on my Mac I'm still running an ancient version. Why ? - it got replaced by a version that takes up half your screen, I think they were trying to make a single version for desktop and iPad. After a public outcry they reduced the size somewhat. The latest version has about 3 extra options about the amount of data…

Exactly, ever since Microsoft took over Skype definitely went downhill.

Another "feature" they've recently added is that it's impossible to actually logout of Skype [1]. Even if you close Skype on all your devices, logout everywhere, your friends will still see you online. I even uninstalled the client from all my machines but was still online after that.

The official response is that it's how it should work, that Skype is like a phone and people should be able to send you messages and call you at any time. Of course ignoring the fact that people get upset when they see you online and you're not answering their messages and calls.

Since November last years, there have been quite a few complaints about this but nothing has changed so far.

[1] http://community.skype.com/t5/Mac/I-show-up-as-Online-when-I...

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#64

Post by toufka » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

kintamanimatt wrote: post #28

emeraldd wrote: post #17

Here's a question, would actually deleting the account lead to the possibility of someone later impersonating the original account holder? Especially since the "buddy" lists appear to be independent?

The way a lot of other sites do it is to disallow new accounts to be created with the same username as a deleted account. Reddit does it like this.

What then happens when the site ages significantly? Pulling a Yahoo is pretty scary in my mind. I'm still curious about how those with common, re-purposed emails have fared since yahoo reset all their unused accounts.

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#65

Post by coherentpony » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

lyndonh wrote: post #8

Skype as software has a lot of issues. Before they were bought by Microsoft the software worked quite well; on my Mac I'm still running an ancient version. Why ? - it got replaced by a version that takes up half your screen, I think they were trying to make a single version for desktop and iPad. After a public outcry they reduced the size somewhat. The latest version has about 3 extra options about the amount of data…

Are there any open source solutions that support both Mac OS X and linux?

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#66

Post by __david__ » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #47

okasaki wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

username+whatever@gmail.com is delivered to username@gmail.com, so if you add the service name when you sign up it's very easy to block unwanted traffic. It also tells you which service sold your email to spammers.

Unless the spammers simply run remove the extra part from the address. A better way is to get your own domain and use a different alias for each service.

I've been doing the + thing for more than 10 years now. My observation is that spammers simply don't remove it (it's just not worth their time).

More importantly, legit services that are on the spammy side (or have broken unsubscribe links) will absolutely never remove it.

Back a few years when Ameritrade had a bunch of its user's emails sold to spammers, I just changed my email on the ameritrade website and started blocking my +ameritrade address. It worked like a charm.

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#67

Post by __david__ » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #32

monsterix wrote: post #6

I recently deleted my Linkedin account. But their junk emails continue to dirty my email even now. Next in the line is Skype, and then probably Facebook. Thankfully, I never shared my genuine data with Facebook or opened an a/c on Instagram or Whatsapp ever so I'm good at a certain level when it comes to Facebook. In my opinion Twitter is the only option that is sane at the moment.

username+whatever@gmail.com is delivered to username@gmail.com, so if you add the service name when you sign up it's very easy to block unwanted traffic. It also tells you which service sold your email to spammers.

Also, if you run your own sendmail you can just add the following completely readable snippet to your sendmail.mc:

  LOCAL_CONFIG
  Kplus regex -d+ -s1,2 ^([^._]+)[._](.+)$
  LOCAL_RULE_3
  R$*  $* $: $(plus $1 $)  $3

That allows you to use "username.whatever@example.com" or "username_whatever@example.com" as well as the "+".

A lot of web sites' idiot email validator regexes won't allow "+" in emails. But every single one allows "." and "_".

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#68

Post by Kequc » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

if_by_whisky wrote: post #56

grrowl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's representative of the values they hold as a company. If you can't be bothered allowing your users' control over their own data, it says a lot about their deeper intentions.

Most companies give you less control though. Setting a deleted flag is worse, isn't it?

There is a certain accountability that is assumed after I delete my account for that account not to show up again somewhere some time. If all they do is set a flag in a database maybe that's good enough. But if they wanted to go further maybe they could scrub the data associated with it too. But that shouldn't be my domain, that should be their domain to take these measures. I should simply have to state my intention.

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#69

Post by saraid216 » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

cliveowen wrote: post #34

buro9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all forums do this or some form of this. Your account and personal information may be deleted, but all of your comments, submissions, conversations, threads or whatever you call the collected bulk of user generated content will remain. The reason for this is that a forum is a collaborative effort, a collective work, and the contributions of other people's content might only make sense in the context of yours.…

I believe users should always be in control of their data (and since it's been produced by them, it their data). Also, if their software breaks after deleting an account the problem is entirely on their part.

> and since it's been produced by them, it their data

I've never understood this definition of property, especially since it necessitates so much giving-away of property in order to make society function.

Re: Can I delete my Skype account?

#70

Post by rhizome » Sat, Apr 05, 2014, 7:01 PM UTC

eik3_de wrote: post #39

buro9 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe users should always be in control of their data Total control? Does the person who made this submission have the right to delete it even though by doing so they delete your data? Do other users have the right to delete your data? Total control for you means denying someone else the right to delete this conversation. Do other users have the right to redefine your data by changing the context surrounding it…

I agree that posts shouldn't be deleted. But should the user be able to anonymize his posts when he deletes his account? Such that the username 'JohnDoe' is replaced with 'DeletedUser20140405.42'. IMO that doesn't destroy the readability of the conversation.

Since when has "readability" been a fatal flaw in any discussion medium? It simply doesn't matter, and there's no reason to apply distinct IDs over a collector or a simple piece of text like Reddit does.