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How do I permanently delete my account?

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Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#31

The GDPR is a huge deal and absolutely no joke. This is part of the compliance for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula... It has the potential to completely change the way tech giants are able to provide their services. Each "purpose" that data is collected for must be individually consented, and it's prohibited for purposes to be withheld if others are not consented to. This allows a u…

I assume that companies can deny services that cost them money if you don’t consent to services that create revenue. Is this true?

No, the EU doesn’t mess around. I don’t see any provisions in the GDPR allowing companies to do that.

I guess companies can charge money for services that cost them money, and give you money if you enable certain services.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#32
post #4

I'm waiting for the next time I'm in the EU to get the 'deluxe clean.'

Do you need to be an EU resident, citizen or just on holiday?

GDPR will cover anyone in the EU. Doesn't cover citizens outside of the EU, and does cover visitors to the EU while they are there.

EDIT: But it's also likely that they will enable the protections for everyone in the world, because the risk of accidental non compliance is huge. Similar to how the cookie notification is just displayed everywhere now.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#33

I did not know they really had this as an option. I'm glad to hear it's available. I'd like to know how thorough they are with deleting you, however. With stories of "ghost" profiles that they build on individuals who don't have accounts (and/or are not logged in), I would be surprised if they actually delete everything they know about you.

The option is a lie, I did this the fall after the Snowden releases, and then this past summer decided to see if the delete actually happened after the two week period that was part of that process then, everything from my account was still there, nothing was deleted.

fwiw I did this and it worked for me. It can take more than two weeks and if you login the process is interrupted. A good bet is to ask your friends when your messages appear as "facebook user". After that my login didn't work anymore.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#34

>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.

I’d be very surprised if Facebook is wasting half of their messages DCs by storing each message twice, instead of deduplicating them.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#35
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that companies can deny services that cost them money if you don’t consent to services that create revenue. Is this true?

No, the EU doesn’t mess around. I don’t see any provisions in the GDPR allowing companies to do that. I guess companies can charge money for services that cost them money, and give you money if you enable certain services.

GDPR doesn't need to reenumerate this. Selling service above cost is already allowed.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#36

I did not know they really had this as an option. I'm glad to hear it's available. I'd like to know how thorough they are with deleting you, however. With stories of "ghost" profiles that they build on individuals who don't have accounts (and/or are not logged in), I would be surprised if they actually delete everything they know about you.

Most of the big services whose stuff I've actually read have a clause somewhere in the ToS or privacy policy saying that "deleted" data is not necessarily deleted from all copies in their possession. I suspect the primary purpose of this is to allow them to have append-only or offline backups, since that's incompatible with users being able to reach in and nuke all their stuff.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#37
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.

Back in 2004 during the first months of Facebook, I deleted my account. When I signed up again a few days later, everything was still there with profile picture and everything.

[Updated: fix year FB was launched]

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#38
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d be very surprised if Facebook is wasting half of their messages DCs by storing each message twice, instead of deduplicating them.

It's probably not literally true that Facebook stores two copies of each message (or three or more copies for group chats), but it makes sense for Facebook to act like it does because that's how email and text messages work.

Re: How do I permanently delete my account?

#39
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.

Back in 2004 during the first months of Facebook, I deleted my account. When I signed up again a few days later, everything was still there with profile picture and everything. [Updated: fix year FB was launched]

doubtful since it launched in 2004
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