A while back, P-Money made a post about Facebook, and it's privacy agreement. Well, if you were looking for another reason to give Facebook a miss, check this piece by the New York Times about trying to leave Facebook (via Slashdot). It actually gives real stories of people trying to delete their accounts and information from Facebook, but not being able to.
I think it all just serves as a warning to be careful about what you sign up to. Be sure to read those privacy and TOS agreements. You might think you don't care about privacy right now, but if/when you do, you'd hate to find yourself in that situation.
If you want a way to completely remove your account (hopefully), try this guide by Steven Mansour. It'll not only instruct you, but it gives a few insights into why it's so hard.
By the way, I know I'm being fairly hypocritical as someone who has Myspace, Bebo, Flickr and Blogger accounts, but you've got to pick and choose your battles ;)
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4 comments:
I knew there was a reason why I am a late adopter.
:-/ I'm sure that Facebook is not the only social network that makes it difficult to delete accounts.
And in any case - I know a few people who've managed to delete their accounts without any problems (and yes, recently!) Perhaps the New York Times and Slashdot just interviewed nubcakes who turn on a printer and wonder why nothing's happening on the screen!
Summary: Have an objection to all social networking sites, or none. It's not right for Facebook to be targeted when it is probably the least retarded of the lot.
Cmae - Haha. Same
Marshy - I'm sure it isn't. In fact I'm emailing another social networking site (people fisher) about removing my account from there as there's no easy way of doing it myself.
I too know of people who have managed to delete their accounts. I linked to one such person who offered a guide on how to do it because while it's easy to deactivate your account, it's a bit more involved to actually delete your account and information from their servers (the point of the article linked).
I don't think I have to have an objection to all social networking sites to object to one. I'm not objecting to social networking as a whole. I don't even think I'm objecting to Facebook. I'm just pointing out that you may want to consider what is said about it before joining up with it.
I mean I object to some of Microsoft's business practices, but Windows is the most convenient OS for me.
And anyway, I said I was being pretty hypocritical anyway ;)
So it's easy to see my post as an attack on Facebook if you want. Or you can see what I said in the second paragraph and take it as a warning about net privacy as a whole, and being smart about what you sign up to.
It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't delete all my info before deactivating any account.
So if/when I leave Facebook, I'll do that.
However, I am enjoying Facebook and was hoping you might join me on it to play Scrabble/ Pirates/ Reversi or something else.
I do have MySpace and Bebo accounts too, but never really figured out what to do wit them
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