

Ask HN: Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? - digamber_kamat

IF I delete my profile from Facebook or Orkut does that mean the respective companies will also delete all my data from their databases?<p>At least do they ensure that such data will not be used for any purpose?
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ams6110
Even if it does, whatever was public may well be cached in innumerable places
all over the internet.

You pretty much have to assume that whatever you post on sites like that will
be "out there" forever.

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adrianwaj
in my experience - no, unless it was on archive.org.

If you change the source page, the cached pages elsewhere will update with
those changes. Thus you can make a source page blank, and the cached pages
will follow.

However, if you delete a source page outright, the cached pages still might
remain intact as a record: thus better to blank out first for whatever the
elapsed time of the cache might be until it refreshes - then delete - just so
as to be safe in case the cache keeps deleted files.

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tokenadult
A link for Facebook users on the subject tells how-tos, but doesn't verify
what happens technologically when one asks for a full account deletion.

<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703>

From the ToS:

<http://www.facebook.com/terms.php>

"You may also delete your account or disable your application at any time."
But that's in a section that only applies to advertisers.

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radu_floricica
Google for example makes it pretty clear that, given the complexity of their
backups system, they'll never be able nor try to delete your data completely.
I'm guessing most companies are the same, backups are essentially read-only.

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lucumo
Even if a backup is done in a trivial way, you really don't want to start
messing in backups as part of normal operations. A simple bug can destroy the
wrong data. Without a backup, that data is lost forever. And making a backup
of a backup so you can mess in the primary backup completely destroys the
usefulness.

~~~
radu_floricica
I don't mean they should mess with the backup. Only that talking about
deleting the data is not very productive since the data won't ever be
completely deleted. What can be talked about is data usage, confidentiality or
specific "deleting" mechanisms.

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bingaman
FWIW, I have tried to completely delete my Facebook account and it did not
work. They have no reason to delete your data, it's valuable information that
you freely gave to them.

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known
I think it is not possible. Assume A & B were chatting. Facebook cannot
unilaterally delete A or B's data unless both A & B decide to delete their
profiles.

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jsean
No and no. My guess is that it's done using a flag in their db.

user_active = 0

or perhaps more efficiantly

user_deactivated = [date]

~~~
chaosprophet
Actually, there is a difference between deactivating and deleting your
Facebook profile.

However, I still don't think Facebook removes all user data once an account is
deleted. Might have to dig into the TOS to find out.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
In the UK you can request the company (for a payment of costs) to provide
details of all personal information they hold on you.

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adrianwaj
just remove all the data from the fields:

before-

interests: "sports, hacker news, etc."

friends: 100

after-

interests: "-"

friends: 0

I did that once.. delete what you can.

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tkahn6
You have to either ask them for a complete account deletion (I've never heard
of this working - although it may) OR you have to manually delete everything
you've ever done. Obviously this takes awhile but it is doable. I cleaned out
my account a few years ago this way.

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calyth
You're talking to a bunch of idiots that even when you made privacy settings
that you don't want other apps to know your name, it still shows through.

Expect nothing from these goofs.

~~~
slvrspoon
the key thing is to not give your personally identifiable info out in the
first place. have 2 profiles: one for 'namespace' discovery and 'general
friends' and another for real friends and posts that contains no PII links. is
there an app for that?

