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How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#21

Post by sdan »

creato wrote: post #16
sdan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of company, I don't want them to keep any "backups" of what I delete. In my view, if I say I want to "delete" my account, I don't want a single trace of my existence on that platform from then on. No emails, no backups, nothing.

By definition, any really effective backup (off site, offline) can't simply be modified instantly when you click a button in a web UI. The reason it takes months for backups to clear out your deleted data is that's how long it takes for the entire backup to be discarded and replaced by a new backup that reflects your deletions. While the data is likely inaccessible forever in this case, the reason the company can't j…

That's a reasonable reason for my data to be on their servers. However, what validates that they actually do it?

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#22

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

tzfld wrote: post #20

My concern about these deletion request is that you are totally at the will of the platforms, that they actually will delete your data. This already imply trust towards them. And if you have trust they handling data with responsibility, why would you need to ask for delete?

This is how I feel about it.

I don’t have any faith that I’m going to be protected from current / future persecution because I ticked / didn’t tick some box on some control panel on some service provided by Morally Bankrupt MegaCorp.

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#23

Post by cpeterso »

why-oh-why wrote: post #18

A few months ago someone posted a tool that cleared this and old tweets as well, but I can’t remember the name. I wish there was a tool that regularly nuked my Facebook history as well, from comments in random groups to likes across the site. I have no use for things I commented 10 years ago.

"Twitter Archive Deleter" is a Glitch app that walks you through deleting your whole Twitter archive without having to give access to a 3rd party service. I haven't used it myself.

https://twitter-archive-deleter.glitch.me/

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#24

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Roritharr wrote: post #19

Usually, as with turning off location history, I feel this only hurts the user, as I don't believe any relevant parties won't have access to the deleted entries if the need arises. The only person who doesn't have access to that data will be the subject the data originated from.

This is what it boils down to for me.

Plausible deniability.

“We don’t have your data because you told us to delete it. Chortled chortle.”

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#25

Post by gman83 »

tzfld wrote: post #20

My concern about these deletion request is that you are totally at the will of the platforms, that they actually will delete your data. This already imply trust towards them. And if you have trust they handling data with responsibility, why would you need to ask for delete?

Well users imply trust towards a platform when they hand them their location data in the first place, right?

I imagine that even if you trust the platform holder to handle the data responsibly, you might still worry what someone could do to you if it fell into the wrong hands due to a hack, or some future government that might abuse it.

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#26

Post by anonytrary »

nieve wrote: post #17
bambax wrote: post #7

> For those who don’t want Google to create a record of their location history at all, there’s a switch for that. On the My Activity page, click Activity controls and scroll to Location history and turn the switch to the off position. Yes, that's what I do. But then Google Maps on the phone nags you constantly that it should be on. Removing the nagging would be an immense improvement and proof of commitment to privac…

Be very careful about combining Inactive Account Manager with telling Google not to store activity data. I started getting countdown to deletion warnings telling me I needed to log in to show I wasn't inactive, but no matter how often I did it was ignored completely until I turned on activity tracking. I'm not sure if this is a rare bug or working as intended, but it could go badly. In the end I turned off Inactive a…

This sounds like The Monkey's Paw. They granted you your wish of tracking no personal data, now they can't even verify your account's identity, and their inactive account cleanup job has scheduled you for deletion. Very interesting! The line between necessary data and personal data is a finer one than I thought.

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#27

Post by anonytrary »

bambax wrote: post #7

> For those who don’t want Google to create a record of their location history at all, there’s a switch for that. On the My Activity page, click Activity controls and scroll to Location history and turn the switch to the off position. Yes, that's what I do. But then Google Maps on the phone nags you constantly that it should be on. Removing the nagging would be an immense improvement and proof of commitment to privac…

If they can't keep a cache of your recent locations, it would be difficult for them to apply optimization of your location, prediction of your car's path, etc. and Google Maps would be a much more jarring experience, akin to a GPS device. I think they do need the client to send recent locations per request if they want to deliver an optimal experience.

For example, what if I wanted to implement loading automatic nearby locations? Naively, I could fetch the results within a radius R of the current received location. However, that's not good if I'm on the highway. The smarter algorithm would take into account the car's position, velocity, and angular velocity to calculate a better spot to query around, or perhaps a different shape to query in other than a circle with radius R.

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#28

Post by crusty511 »

cpeterso wrote: post #23
why-oh-why wrote: post #18

A few months ago someone posted a tool that cleared this and old tweets as well, but I can’t remember the name. I wish there was a tool that regularly nuked my Facebook history as well, from comments in random groups to likes across the site. I have no use for things I commented 10 years ago.

"Twitter Archive Deleter" is a Glitch app that walks you through deleting your whole Twitter archive without having to give access to a 3rd party service. I haven't used it myself. https://twitter-archive-deleter.glitch.me/

Perfect. Twitter have been ignoring my request to delete my data.

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#29

Post by [deleted] »

sdan wrote: post #21
creato wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, any really effective backup (off site, offline) can't simply be modified instantly when you click a button in a web UI. The reason it takes months for backups to clear out your deleted data is that's how long it takes for the entire backup to be discarded and replaced by a new backup that reflects your deletions. While the data is likely inaccessible forever in this case, the reason the company can't j…

That's a reasonable reason for my data to be on their servers. However, what validates that they actually do it?

[deleted]

Re: How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct

#30

Post by thrownaway954 »

sdan wrote: post #9

Only flaw I see with this and stuff like FB saying they "deleted" your account is: "It's deleted" is (or could be) another term for "You can't see it anymore, but it's there somewhere" Haven't gone into ToS, but regardless, there's no way we can determine if it's really gone.

that's exactly what happened to the people who requested (and PAID mind you) to have their Ashley Madison accounts deleted. All they did was mark a deleted bit in the database and from what I remember these PAID $70 USD to have their account deleted.
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