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How do I permanently delete my account?

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Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#101

Post by yorwba »

justhw wrote: post #76
Steeeve wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit naive to think that a service provider would scrub their systems on individual requests. It's not practical to perform a delete in some environments. It's certainly not practical to go through backup files and delete references in others. Everybody goes through a data recovery scenario at some point. What you should expect is best effort. Nobody is going to re-train their neural networks that reference…

> Then there's the practicality of things. If you delete your account here on HN, would you expect all conversations that you participated in to be removed? All references to your comments? Or all comments that you made removed? There's been few debates here about the definition of to 'delete' which I won't get into. However, as a user, it rubs me wrong when companies equate simple username disassociation with deleti…

> A user has the right to have removed all content they've produced regardless of whether it's linked with other posts.

Do they though? Maybe I'm understanding it wrong, but I thought the GDPR only applies to personally identifying information, not all data ever generated by a user. So by disassociating the user name and the post, the post has suddenly ceased to be personally identifying information and no longer needs to be deleted.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#102

Post by remarkEon »

saagarjha wrote: post #29
remarkEon wrote: post #23

>Some of the things you do on Facebook aren’t stored in your account. For example, a friend may still have messages from you even after you delete your account. That information remains after you delete your account. Why? What possible purpose does this serve?

I’m all for the ability to delete Facebook accounts, but I think that once you’ve willfully shared a message with someone, deleting your account shouldn’t delete your messages. Chats feel like “shared” ownership of the messages in them.

But by that logic literally any post on Facebook should be preserved. Commenting on a status is a “willfully shared message” right? What makes Messenger different? Just the limited audience?

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#103

Post by tscs37 »

e12e wrote: post #78
a254613e wrote: post #73

It's kinda ironic that all the people here are complaining that facebook might not actually really delete literally every single bit of information that you have, while hacker news doesn't allow you to edit your comments, delete them, or delete your profile. This sort of functionality should exist on every platform that even has accounts. Does anyone know if GDPR (or similar law in the future) will actually force HN…

> Does anyone know if GDPR (or similar law in the future) will actually force HN and other sites that don't have this feature, to remove accounts, at least EU ones, upon request? As far as I know, the GDPR is more of a clarification (along with some explicit guidelines for fines), than it is new legislation - so hn and similar sites would already be in breach, if they didn't allow the deletion of all profile data. I'…

>But afaik hn does no business in the EU - so it's not clear what sanctions would be applicable.

Since EU citizens are registered users, it applies.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#104

Post by remarkEon »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #27
remarkEon wrote: post #23

>Some of the things you do on Facebook aren’t stored in your account. For example, a friend may still have messages from you even after you delete your account. That information remains after you delete your account. Why? What possible purpose does this serve?

It's pretty obvious: A message between two people exists as two separate units in two separate locations. Deleting the account deletes only one copy, namely the copy that exists on your end. The digital analogue is a text message -- deleting the text message locally, say by physically destroying your phone, doesn't actually erase the message on the other side.

See my above comment. I don’t see how Facebook can reconcile deleting your comments on things like statuses and preserving messages in the Messenger app. Maybe that just means they aren’t actually deleting your comments.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#105

Post by cel1ne »

onion2k wrote: post #22
justhw wrote: post #17

How do we really know that this is actual deletion and not a deleted="true" in their databases? > It is inaccessible to other people using Facebook. The wording does sound very convincing but I really don't think we can just believe their word. After all it's Facebook.

How do we really know that this is actual deletion and not a deleted="true" in their databases? We don't know that. If you're feeling charitable you could believe they're being honest, but if you not then you just have to wonder. There is no way Facebook could prove they don't have a secret server with your data on it somewhere. Proving that would be impossible.

As far as I know they have to provide schematics and documentation about how and where they process data.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#106

Post by cel1ne »

justboxing wrote: post #86

Not defending facebook, but almost every social site these days, and even SaaS applications, make it impossible to DELETE your account out of their systems. Unless laws are passed in the US to force their hand, this sort of behaviour will continue. Anything and everything you post on the internet, is FOREVER. Because chances are some dev somewhere has simply flipped an IsDeleted bit to true / 1 in the site's database…

The GDPR law in the EU allow us-companies to be fined: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2007530-how-the-eu-ca...

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#107

Post by bogomipz »

a254613e wrote: post #73

It's kinda ironic that all the people here are complaining that facebook might not actually really delete literally every single bit of information that you have, while hacker news doesn't allow you to edit your comments, delete them, or delete your profile. This sort of functionality should exist on every platform that even has accounts. Does anyone know if GDPR (or similar law in the future) will actually force HN…

Why is it ironic, you are user "a254613e" that's literally all anybody on NF knows about you. That's pretty anonymous no? HN has no real name policy or even requirement of a verified email to participate.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#108

Post by dnt404-1 »

e12e wrote: post #87
Buge wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I need to explicitly accept targeted ads from every company that shows targeted ads? Does this mean every website that shows targeted ads, or can a blanket large provider (e.g. Google) get a single consent and apply it to all websites hosting Google ads? This seems like it would give a market advantage to Google, because they have products that people want and can likely get a fair number of people to consent if t…

> And how does this apply to logs? It's common for web servers by default to record urls visited and IP addresses. Would that be legal without explicit consent? I'm not certain on the details, but in eg Norway that is already much in line with the GDPR ip addresses are considered personal data , and as such regulated. However, there are provisions for storing such information for auditing purposes (both security, tec…

Can one collect data without "personal data" by anonymizing those specific attributes (ip, phone number)?

Also, say, I want to collect data about the performance of the web application. Can that be collected, or does it require explicit consent as well?

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#109

Post by microtonal »

BigJono wrote: post #57
djrogers wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch how you use those words - if one defines ‘better’ and ‘worse’ in the context of my privacy, then ads that don’t do creepy things are better.

Is there anything inherently bad about a site using your data to serve you more relevant ads, as long as your data is not passed on to a 3rd party?

Is there anything inherently bad about a site using your data to serve you more relevant ads, as long as your data is not passed on to a 3rd party?

Is there anything inherently bad about a stalker passively observing and recording your every move, as long as they don't disturb your daily routine or pass the data along?

Even if you find the stalking behavior (cross-site tracking) of ad companies acceptable, there is a significant risk that your data leaks or is stolen. So, I should be able to decide who I trust with saving intimate data and who I don't.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#110

Post by icebraining »

BigJono wrote: post #57
djrogers wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch how you use those words - if one defines ‘better’ and ‘worse’ in the context of my privacy, then ads that don’t do creepy things are better.

Is there anything inherently bad about a site using your data to serve you more relevant ads, as long as your data is not passed on to a 3rd party?

Except we know that not passing data is a pipe dream. Between hacks and governmental abuses, no company can promise that, no matter how honest they are.
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