The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office may be feeling a little more satisfied today. Last month it entered into discussions with Facebook about how users can maintain their privacy and control their data, in particular, deleting their data and acounts from the site. The talks were prompted last November when Channel 4 News detailed how Facebook was being investigated by the ICO after a complaint that a user could not remove his account or any of the data – photos, wall posts etc – associated with it. But today Facebook has told the New York Times that it is now possible to delete an account from the site entirely.
However, although the account is supposed to be deleted and wall posts of deleted members also disappear, some traces remain. Facebook’s privacy officer says “Facebook’s servers no longer contain the information needed to connect that user ID (e.g., name, e-mail address, networks, etc.) to the person associated with that account.” So it sounds like you might see the odd post on a wall from a deleted user but then you can get to their account.
Whether this will be enough to satisfy the ICO remains to be seen. But I would hazard a guess that it is not any government-style investigation that is exercising Facebook’s owners, but a revolt or possible mass exodus from the users themselves if Facebook can’t get the whole privacy issue right.
Total waste of time on the ICO’s part. Nice as it is for Facebook users, the ICO is toothless against the real threat to privacy; the government, which by definition is the most incompetent holder of people’s information and has a lot more of it than Facebook. And it’s not voluntary whether you give it to them or not. And they’re passing laws to get their hands on even more of our data.
Facebook aren’t the threat. Widespread dissatisfaction with a private company’s service results in bankruptcy; widespread dissatisfaction with the government results in tanks.
You are waaaay too confident in the automagical qualities of perfect markets; when you have a dominant player, widespread dissatisfaction with a service results in, uhm, not much…? e.g. Microsoft, oil companies, etc etc.
quiero brrar mi cuenta en facebok
deceo canselar mi cuenta de facebook
cancenler my account in face book inmediali
Deseo cancelar mi cuenta de facbook y no he podido, no he encontrado la manera o obcion de hacerlo
quiero cancelar mi cuenta en facebook por mi seguridad y la de mi familia,igualmente abrir otra en un futuro pero ya que tengo mas experiencia no cometere los mismos errores ,,mucha gracias