

Facebook Keeps A History Of Pokes, Along With A Lot Of Other Data - tilt
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/09/27/facebook-keeps-a-history-of-everyone-who-has-ever-poked-you-along-with-a-lot-of-other-data/

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jgroome
This is a big revelation to people?

Reminds me of when a friend of mine clicked on "Messages" and was shocked to
see IM and Inbox conversations from 2007 with people she no longer knows. I
had to say... What did you expect? When did Facebook ever say anything about
deleting data after a certain time?

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koopajah
There is a difference between people here knowing (or at least suspecting)
that facebook keeps all that, and the lambda user. You would be ok if gmail
kept a copy of every email you sent, received, the "drafts" you saved at one
point? We can suspect they keep everything and still hope they are not in the
end.

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bobbles
I can't speak for anyone else but I would _expect_ gmail to keep all of those
emails.

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narcissus
I think that koopajah was implying "even after you delete it" with regards to
whether or not you would be OK with Google keeping a copy of your emails.

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koopajah
Yes I was. I always assume the worst from a website, so I think that google
keeps even a copy of the drafts emails even after deletion etc. But not
everyone thinks this.

And I think it's wrong to think that most people can/should assume this
without being tech-savvy etc. A lot of people use facebook without even
realizing that google indexes pictures profile, wall posts, comments to
facebook application. You cannot ask them to understand that facebook is able
to log EVERYTHING you do on a page (clicks, mouse movements, etC.) and has the
technical/hardware means to sort/keep/monetize these data

They should know, but they really don't.

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kalleboo
This doesn't surprise me at all. Storage is cheap, and it's a lot easier to
never delete anything than to devise some system to go and clean up old
"useless" information (which at some point you may find useful, e.g. this new
Timeline history stuff).

I know often in the stuff I write, instead of deleting data, I toggle a
"deleted" column. I always have the option to delete it for real later if I
need the storage/clean up the index.

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exit
<http://facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=data_requests>

european union residents can cite "Section 4 DPA + Art. 12 Directive 95/46/EG"

you can black out everything on your id except name, date of birth, and photo.

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lambada
Need to correct the following:

EU Citizens (including UK citizens) can quote Art. 12 Directive 95/46/EG

But Section 4 of the Data Protection Act only applies to UK citizens as it is
a UK law, hence only UK citizens can cite that law.

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tonfa
But most european countries have a privacy/data protection law.

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asto
They're using that cookie that stores the user-id post logout to figure out
who's using which computer. Which means the cookie sticking around even after
you log out wasn't unintended as Facebook tried to imply. The lying bastards!

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asto
I'm not sure why I got downvoted. Maybe I wasn't clear enough about what I
said? Here's a link to a blogpost I made 5 mins ago that explains what I meant
properly -> [http://blog.arunbalan.in/2011/09/28/hey-facebook-ive-got-
a-q...](http://blog.arunbalan.in/2011/09/28/hey-facebook-ive-got-a-question-
for-you/)

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dbattaglia
I always assumed they keep this kind of data in RAM only </sarcasm>

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pork
With their heavy reliance on memcache, you're probably not wrong.

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romey
The only bit that was surprising to me was the history of computers that
you've logged in from, and the history of other users that have logged in on
that computer. While I can see the value of identifying public computer, it is
rather unnerving to think of the "Eye of Facebook" following me wherever I log
in. Although it would be neat to be able to access this data and create a
timeline heatmap of where you logged in most over the years.

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kennu
I think legislation is soon needed to define a maximum time (e.g. one year) of
storing a user's accumulated information unless he explicitly opts in for
longer storage.

I don't really care if Facebook personalizes ads based on my current
interests, but eternally storing private data (and making it difficult or
impossible to delete the older data) is a completely different issue.

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cwe
Can Americans get copies or their full files as well? Downloading your profile
data does not have the depth of detail this does. I would love to have it all.
For myself, though, not to share with everyone (like timeline).

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mariuolo
How is that news?:O

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mschonfeld
Shocking.

