Go back in time and stop yourself from ever creating it.
RMS, is that you?
How do I permanently delete my account?
51–60 of 158 posts
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#52How 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]
The standard flow for "deleting" your account actually says "deactivate your account", and the fine print is explicit in that everything comes straight back when you log in again.
There's also a hidden link in the support pages somewhere that's supposed to actually delete your account (which is what's linked here)
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#53The 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…
So I have to consent to be shown ads? So every site has to by default block all their own ads?
No, they can show you ads that don't use your data. You'd have to allow them to use your data to give you better ads, but you'd just get worse ads in the meantime.
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#54Not to beat this horse to death, but was reflecting on the same earlier today:
https://segahmeer.com/post/stepping-out-of-sergey-brin-shado...
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I have to consent to be shown ads? So every site has to by default block all their own ads?
No, they can show you ads that don't use your data. You'd have to allow them to use your data to give you better ads, but you'd just get worse ads in the meantime.
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.
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I have to consent to be shown ads? So every site has to by default block all their own ads?
No, they can show you ads that don't use your data. You'd have to allow them to use your data to give you better ads, but you'd just get worse ads in the meantime.
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 the consent was among useful consents. But smaller advertising companies would have a much harder time getting consent, especially if people don't recognize the name as providing anything useful.
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?
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they can show you ads that don't use your data. You'd have to allow them to use your data to give you better ads, but you'd just get worse ads in the meantime.
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?
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they can show you ads that don't use your data. You'd have to allow them to use your data to give you better ads, but you'd just get worse ads in the meantime.
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.
It's been looking really creepy after I purchased a Plush Cuddle Death Star, because now it keeps showing several repeated ads for them right next to each other. I already have one, and now they want me to buy a whole cuddly fleet of them! Oddly enough, I haven't seen any ads for the R2D2 mug I ordered with it.
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#59I “deleted” my account years ago using this link (back in 2014), came back last year and found that it was never really deleted. I happened to click “login” when I realized my password manager was still filling in my password (to be expected), and it logged me in just fine, same profile page... it was as if I never clicked delete.
I deleted it again, and it finally “took” this time, but I have no idea what happened before. My best guess is that iOS was still logged into it through its facebook integration and that counted me as having logged in before the grace period expired. Either way it left a really bad taste in my mouth.
(I was a facebook user in 2005 and kinda stopped using it around the time they stopped letting you have your “news feed” just be a simple time-sorted list of your friends’ posts. Neither of my attempts to delete my account were any kind of statement — the site was just boring to me and I never found myself posting much.)
Re: How do I permanently delete my account?
#60How 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]
I would assume essentially all the code since then has been rewritten. I wouldn't expect any behavior from back then to remain.