That's pretty funny. I particularly enjoyed the handy food chain reference guide. Have you been working out? & I feel certain that lolcats should have been on there somewhere.

and your commenting system makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon

i submitted this to digg, it's that awesome. i'm not sure yet whether your comment system makes me want to gouge my eyes out, though.

Ella: I have been working out, thank you for noticing!

Thanks Julien.

Re: Eye-spoon-gouging: Really? What's wrong with the commenting system? Is it the captcha? The rich text editor?

comment system does not want me to gouge eyes.

Thanks for sharing, and what you think of the link from my name?

I don't actually see any issue, providing I don't form a bank heist Facebook group for my next project.

Shit, wrong link (sorry) here try this:

http://www.chrishambly.com/node/141

Hi Chris,

Yeah, we discussed that a while back. It's just one more reason why I simply choose not to be a part of these kinds of things.

s.

dude you had me giggling on this one! i am almost throwing up! (Not sure if its the drugs or the laughing):/

One of the ways I recently found out to remove all your Facebook data in one sweep (ok...maybe not in one, but in like seven steps instead of 1032) is to open another, entirely new Facebook account with no data in it, remove yourself from any networks in your previous account, and then de-activate it. Then, in your new Facebook account, change the primary e-mail address to the one associated with the old Facebook account. Since Facebook uses email addresses as the usernames for logging-in purposes, the next time you login to your new account, it will display a message asking you to confirm deleting all data related to your email address (read old Facebook account).

And since your new account has no data in it whatsoever, you can then email the Facebook people to delete the new one too.

This method involves opening a new email account but with so many (and so many crappy) web-mail services, that should hardly be a problem. I tried this method a month back (trust me...there are some crazy girls out there!!), so I am only 87% sure technique will wokr. It worked back then, but their policy might have changes by then. So let me know how this works out.

And then, in the precious time we saved being away from Facebook, we can plan a guirella army to prevent Facebook from taking over the world..just kidding...no...seriously...

--

Mudit

Surely there is something in the Data Protection Act which covers this.

I beleieve that upon request any holder of personal/sensitive data must provide you with a copy of the data and/or edit and/or delete it as desire.

I had a problem with Yahoo!, more specifically the Yahoo! Answers section. They removed a question of mine claiming I had violated the terms of use, when prompted to provide details of the question and which parts of it broke the terms of use I recieved a lame response telling me that it was in their terms of use that they do not have to provide reasons. To which I replied with a request of all personal data and posts made by myself that was held on their system. I sent that email just over 2 months ago...still no response.

It seems that these big companies don't care about the law, their users, their users privacy... all they want is money... money... money. One small person isn't going to win a lawsuit against them over a miniscule amount of data held on their systems. The internet is becoming a bad place...it just get's worse

P.S, I don't see any problem with the commenting system, works well for me

So I take it you're not going to Facebookcamp Montreal then?

Maybe as a protester?

That would be awesome.

Put some egg on their facebook etc..

Are you going?

I try to stay away from anything with camp in the title on principle. Unless the camp in question involves nifty cocktails and drag-queens. Seriously, no. I don't think I would enjoy it.

Why does your captcha work and mine doesn't???

Oh yeah and also yours work but it always thinks my first answer is wrong always.

Fkucking captchahs[as

Sorry to break it to you.. but there was a FAR easier and quicker way of getting all of your Facebook data erased than what you had to go through....

 I have several college friends that have had their facebook accounts terminated due to violations of service. I think you have 2 warnings and then they close your account. The warnings I know where for the following reasons:

1.- opened a facebook group called "stanford biatches you ain't hot" (someone complained, facebook took down the group, and sent a warning to each admin)

2.- uploaded an album full of pornographic material (same story, someone complained, etc, etc)

Nitrostar, they only deactivate you for that. your information would be locked into their servers forever since you can't login.

That was an awesome article Steven.
A person must stand up for one's rights even if some Facebook employee named Lucy is being a pain in the ass.
The main reason why I am still at Facebook is to talk to people that I saw like 10years ago.
Now Myspace is the biggest load of bullsh$t in the world.
Peace

You might be right, and a few people mentioned that possibility both here and on digg.

But like mentioned below, there's no way to know if they really erase your data or if they just deactivate your account.

Besides, there should always be a 'close your account' button, and if I had done it the easy way, I wouldn't have been able to write the article.

Thanks very much Duey!

I do think it's a privacy rights issue. I don't think Lucy was being a pain in the ass (if anyone was, I was); she was just following orders and doing her job. I'm pretty sure she had to ask her supervisor to read every response before replying.

Yeah, it was neat to find people from high school on Facebook, but that novelty faded quickly for me.

There will always be something new coming... myspace, facebook, twitter, etc etc etc ad nauseum. None of them will last, even when they got bought out for exorbitant amounts of money by yahoogle.

"When all the Facebooks have faded into dust, my blog will still be left standing."

That seems like a good idea... I haven't tried it though, and I don't think I will. But I'd be interested of someone else tried this now to see if it still works.

A guerilla army to prevent Facebook from taking over the world is a great idea... let's start a facebook group about it!

One question: why couldn't you just remove all information from your profile, and change its email address to a nonexistent one? They might hold all your current information indefinitely, but I'm quite sure they don't hold backup records of what your information *used* to be, indefinitely.

Well, in both cases I need to 'remove all information' from my profile, so once I've reached that point, why not just go ahead and close my account?

Dude, no one golfs after a Freemason meeting.
They take place at night, it's tradition. Maybe after a charity breakfast, as they're wont to do...(I was a mason for years. I stopped attending after I took up an agnostic Buddhist view. Not in-line with the oath I took, so I couldn't honestly be a member)

In any case, here's my solution for the time being: I don't do anything online that I wouldn't want the world at large to know. I'm also a firm believer in copyleft, so do what you will with my images, but don't claim it's yours(I have witnesses...)!
If something must be really private, I use coded hints about it and then tell the person IN PERSON or on the phone.
Google is so damned convenient, and overall they do good things. They're not perfect. I did a little research when I saw that they were scanning my email for ads(which I've actually clicked a few times...not that great of stores...), but the policy seems sound.

Facebook always seemed creepy, and some recent stuff I've learned about them confirms that.

I'm quite certain that some people golf after Freemason meetings.

I'm just being dumb.

"Not doing anything online that I wouldn't want the world at large to know" isn't a solution, it's a cop-out. If everyone kept following that we'd be restricting our free speech to the point where we'd be afraid to say anything that offended Facebook or Google.

Re: Google, overall, they do not do good things. Any company that grows to their size and controls as much information that they do needs to be treated with caution. If you want to use their services, feel free. But I find them as 'creepy' as you find Facebook.

I still have no interest in FB (it went from non to less than none!). My stuff is on Flickr and I use Gmail, however... I am slowly learning more about some of these issues, and, well... what solution is there for a non developer? You summed it up beautifully ("Is this really the only choice we have left? Shitty web companies vs. shitty web companies that keep and distribute your personal data ad infinum even when you request your account to be closed?").

My question is, what is someone like me to do? Someone who knows basic html stuff, but no more, someone who is not quite stupid or uninformed, but who has a lot of work to do and a family to care for (ie no extra time)? I can follow instructions, I installed my sql db for my WP blog, etc., but I'm at a loss as to how I could, for example, organize my pics online, allowing for comments and links like Flickr does, without doing everything manually (and at this point, shelling out more dollars for some service is not a possibility) or bugging someone like you 25 times a day -- something I don't enjoy: I want to be able to deal with own shit. I just feel at a loss, like us "ordinary folk" (and sorry I don't include you in this particular ordinariness!) have a choice between bowing out completely or being royally screwed. Y'know? (Hey! The Internet is all grown up: it's turned into the real world! Great...) I would kinda like another option... Thoughts, ideas, redemptions?

Forget Facebook. The new threat for MySpace is YUWIE.. you get paid when people view your profile. Clever idea, giving advertising revenue back to the user. You also get paid for the profile views of people you refer. Check it out here.

Haha, nice story. Did you consider just polluting your Facebook so much they get pissed out and delete it for you? I can't imagine them deactivating it, considering that you could then simply reactivate it with a login. On second thought, they might keep your info anyways. 'Teva. PS: What's the issue with people knowing your name and who you're friends with? Unless you are a criminal or a ninja I don't see the point of keeping that info private.

Interesting article.

Try also this one. Change your email address in your account settings and delete the old one.

Theoritically you should be able to connect with your new email only. However the old one still works to connect to your account.

This shows how Facebook does not delete any of your personnal details from its database.

I boycott facebook;

From day 1 and until it's waning popularity death I will continue to boycott it - although jumped into facebook through my boyfriends account (with his permission) on a curiosity to what the fuss/fad was all about - I was bored after 30 minutes of 'cyber-stalker'-esque urges to check out what people I'd, intentionally, lost contact with were doing.

My boyfriend prior to this found about about the 'deactivation' rather than deletion of the account.

A database is a database is a database - all links and relationships between tables do not need to be removed for deletion to occur in 1 table, namely the user account! so why does it have to be this way for Facebook?

I'll try it. I asked how to delete my profile and I got the same template responce. I'll give it a go this weekend after pasting the link to this blog as a reason why I want to get off Facebook. I waisted so much time on Facebook.  

I've attempted to do as Mudit suggested. I didn't see a delete response, but it seemed tdelete my info anyways. I've asked customer service tp delete all accounts associated with both e-mail (message sent from both as well. I'll keep you posted as to my success or lack thereof

Brian.

What email address do I send my request to delete my existing account. By your story, I've deleted all my info, mail, pics, etc. Thank you for this blog. It was extremely helpful and informative.

I would also like to know what email you used to contact facebook to have the account deleted. I have tried info@facebook.com...but get an autoreply message. I don't want an auto reply message, I'd like to get hold of some person and have them delete this dumb account. I have already deleted all other information from my account.

Thanks

Yeah, they don't delete any of it from their servers, they just obfuscate it. It's as if they keep 'revisions' of all your old / changed data every time you edit something, which is scary for many other reasons.

Hi everyone,

Here are the unpublished email addresses I was contacted by from Facebook:

comment-info-rt@facebook.com
privacy@facebook.com
info@facebook.com

Just hit all of them and hopefully someone will get back to you.

Yeah, let us know what goes down. Did you get a response from Customer Service yet?

Yeah, the whole system is setup in a very creepy (to me, anyway) pyramid scheme-esque (I'm at the top, my friends are below me, and their friends are below them, etc) hierarchy centered around the user. I also find it incredibly boring and not useful.

You're right - there's no technical reason whatsoever to prevent me from deleting my account, so why are they so goddamn keen on keeping one person's account data forever? Your guess is as good as mine, and it's a disturbing thought.

I just got one now!

-------------------------------

Hi Brian,

Sorry for the delay.  Your account has been deleted.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Roy
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

--------------------------------------

I can't log in using either e-mail I used, so it's definitely more than just  "deactivation". Mind, I also sent e-mails to them saying I would post ANYTHING to my page, if they didn't.

So, it worked! You guys are great! Thanks for the tips gang!

Brian.

P.S. I just don't get anyone who doesn't care about their privacy. It's the road to totalitarianism. 

thanks...im still receiving an automated email though. i am hoping someone will respond to me soon. i have been doing this for two or so days now...and have sent several emails. and nothing as yet. how long did you have to wait to get a response??

Cool!

Interesting how 'Roy' replaced 'Lucy'.

Your guerilla tactic of "Or else I'll post crap to my page!" was pretty smart too - wish I'd thought of that.

From Facebook, I sometimes had to wait 2 - 3 days for a response. If it takes longer, I'd simply write them back again, making sure to CC all the addresses.

thanks..i got through..got it deleted! yay

I really would like them to change their privacy policies, and to add a "delete" function. I did find the site fun, but not at that sort of price.

respekt!

The german facebook-clone studiVZ, which is crappier in any other aspect, at least provides an option for complete account deletion...

Howdy gang I recienty joined the gang of folks ttrying to get my account info on facebook removed. I went in and deleted my information thankfully on had it a few months and wasn't that busy. sent them an email asking to remove the account and got this response. Hi Ian, I see that you have deactivated your account. In the future, please feel free to use the 'report' buttons located near most pieces of content on the site to report people or offensive material to Facebook. If you are not able to use the report buttons for any reason, please write to us at info@facebook.com with a link to the person or offensive material and a description of the problem. We will then review this material and take the appropriate action. Of course, these reports will be kept confidential. If you reactivate your account, your profile will be restored in its entirety (friends, photos, interests, etc.). Reactivating the account simply requires that you log in with your email and password. Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks for contacting Facebook, Diego Customer Support Representative Facebook are they any other steps I should take to getting my info removed peramently I reciently saw reports about third party useage of my info thank god I never filled out my personal info on the site. Our ISP rogers wants us all to go to that flicker thing I won't be using it they got rid of there shared photo section I kinda read their web site privacy and was disgusted.

Is it at all possible that people who wish their accounts deleted, have their information saved in the Facebook server archives for the purpose of including these "inactive but saved" profiles in any member count done by the company, in an effort to give inflated membership numbers for the purpose of making Facebook seem to be growing? Facebook has had its' sights set on overtaking Myspace for some time. It is my hypothesis that they keep your accounts in their archives for this exact purpose. Again, just an educated guess. Thoughts or comments anyone?

That's an interesting hypothesis, but I think they'd get called out on it. Although in the theory they can easily lie about it, and I wouldn't put it past them.

At any rate, if it's the case, it's a 'best' case... :\

Inspired by your page I decided to "fight" Facebook from the inside, and started a group called "How to permanently delete your facebook account" that is gaining fast in popularity.

More and more people are getting concerned with Facebook's privacy issues.

For everyone still member of the site, here's a link to the group.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

That's definitely very interesting - and I don't have to bring up the irony of creating a Facebook group for people to leave Facebook.

I'd be curious to see:
a) how many people join this group;
b) if it actually has an effect on people closing their accounts;
c) if it gets shut down by Facebook.

Keep us posted - and maybe post a screenshot of something of the group homepage for those of us who don't have facebook?

Hi!

Thanks for this post. I plan to follow your footsteps soon, mainly because I dislike FB's privacy policy but also because I'm a bit too addicted to it and it gives me social stress.

Did you have to delete only those wall posts which were on your own wall or also those which you had written on someone else's wall? And what about comments on someone else's pictures, notes and stuff like that - did you have to delete those too? Is there any easy way to even see where you have commented?

Hi Wavemaid,

I think I had to delete everything - including things I'd written on other people's walls. I can't quite remember though, and I think that they may have eased up on it since I wrote this article. Try deleting only your own items first, and then writing them. That might work.

Good luck!

Let's see if I can get my Facebook deleted... meanwhile...
Look at this series! http://pyyno.temppeli.org/amerik/index.html

Yes does anyone know what info about you, if any, they store on their servers even after you delete your account? I keep emailing to ask and I keep getting the same "all info is removed from the site after account deletion"

Hopefully all info is deleted, but there's no way to be sure. Just ask them to specify the difference between "Server" and "Site" in your next email.

They closed my account in one day, ok that I had already removed all the crap. It has to be considered however, that maybe removing that crap is necessary in order to not to break some of their apps, which may be badly coded. Anyway, I do think the privacy policy of Facebook has an orwellian stench to it. I register with a false name and junk email later, to see how it develops. By the way, I think the estimates of 50 million facebook users widely circulating in the media are exaggerations, the true figure must be way lower, and even form that, all the users who have been "forced" to register by their buddies but who have never logged in since should still be substracted. On the whole, I think that privacy considerations on the whole are a big issue in the internet, but facebook is not the whole face of the devil.

I found the "How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Account" group on Facebook. I then came to this site. I worked my ass off deleting every piece of information possible, raising my security settings to the highest possible level, changing my name to John Smith and associating a new (created solely for this purpose) E-mail address with the account. I then still E-mailed the above-listed addresses and received a response the next day saying that all of my account information had been deleted.

Oh, and I made my blog private, delted my MySpace, Photobucket and deactivated my YouTube account (YouTube leaves your channel page up and also requires you to delete your videos individually first, but at least they tell you). And just for good measure I'm going to change my E-mail address and delete the old one.

It *is* possible to get Facebook to close your account without deleting everything first, see:

http://blogs.sun.com/alanbur/entry/how_to_leave_facebook
http://blogs.sun.com/alanbur/entry/how_to_leave_facebook_followup

Hi Alan,

Yeah, from reading your posts, seems like you did things the right way, as opposed to my whining and moaning. I hope this trend sees increased pressure on Facebook and their ilk to at least match the rest of industry in terms of privacy policy and data management, because now, they're lagging behind pretty bad.

Well, does "i removed all my private data" imply that you actually DID delete every little post etc??

What a pyrrhic victory that would be.

Answer me this please.

Yes I did, and it was, as you say, a pyrrhic victory, but worth the price. If all this debate about Facebook's privacy issues eventually forces them to fall in line and give users a way to opt-out of their system, then it was all well worth it.

hey there,
thanks for the "workaround" of how to get rid of your FB account. i will definitely try to wipe out all of my information ever posted on FB.

tho there is one question remaining:
what about the third-party-applications-companies ? who let you install their api by giving them your data...? is your data also erased here ?

cheers

Hi Olaf,

The 3rd party apps question is a valid one, but also one that I can't answer. I suppose it depends on where and howh these 3rd party apps store their information, which isn't something I know (or am particularly interested in).

Please let us know what your experience is, however.

How on earth did you find someone to contact. I am currently in the process of deleting all of my facebook data, but there is no piece of information anywhere on the site about how to actually get my account _deleted_

Hi Arve,

As mentioned previously, the 3 addresses I copied on all my dealings with facebook are:

comment-info-rt@facebook.com
privacy@facebook.com
info@facebook.com

Yeah, they layer their site in such a way that it's supremely difficult to get contact information.

Good luck!

s.

You realize that they make it hard so that if a predator was to be convicted the authority's can find out how he did it or track him down?

Nope, that's bullshit. It has nothing to do with tracking pedophiles or predators, especially on Facebook, which has an older crowd, than, say, Myspace.

Hello,
I am in the process of trying to delete my facebook account - not just deactivate it but delete everything on it.
I followed the advice of a post on here by 'Fed up with FB' about changing the email addresses.
I did just this and now have a new empty (and now deactivted) account with facebook under my old accounts email address.
Does this now mean that everything is gone off my old account?

I also emailed them to delete this new account and I got an email back saying I could deactivate it. I told them I already had and wanted everything deleted as I will not be returing and hence do not want my information stored.

So, I am wondering if anyone can give me insight into if all the stuff from my old account is really gone now?
Thanks for your help with this. This page has proved to be extremely helpful in my quest.

Hey there,

I can't testify as to whether or not Facebook really deletes your data using the "empty email" method mentioned in the comments here previously. However, based on Facebook's behavior with this stuff in general, I think it's a safe bet to say that they still kept all your data... somewhere.

At this stage, I think it's safe to say that your best option is to file a complaint with TRUSTe about your problem. If enough of us complain (for legitimate reasons, of course), then it could force Facebook to step back into line with regards to how they treat our personal information.

Hope this helps - good luck!

You're a shitty, unfunny, stupid, Maddox knock off.

Thank you for your comment! I don't know who Maddox is, but I will definitely keep an eye out for him.

Now what you need to do is re-open your account with the same username and email and see if they "fill in" the blanks and use information from your previous account. Better yet, fire off another email and flat out ask if they have any of your personal information still on their servers.

I was able to get my account completely deleted (without actually having to remove anything manually) by e-mailing privacy@facebook.com, telling them that I planned to violate the terms of service by eg uploading bestiality. Now when I try to sign in I get the following message:

Incorrect email/password combination.
Facebook passwords are case sensitive. Please check your CAPS lock key.

I'm sure they keep a record of my crap somewhere. Which is really disturbing.

Hey thanks guys, the e-mail switching trick mentioned here finally got my facebook account deleted! I left them this message as I deactivated my fake account:

I made this account to make my other account get deleted. Feel free to delete this account too since I'm not coming back. I got nothing good out of this place (just some shallow contact with "friends" I have better ways to communicate with than using this site); also I'm tired of all the shitloads of utterly useless group/applications invitations, those things spread like cancer, I would get tons of those every day, even when I blocked the damn things. So yeah I have nothing useful to do here and I don't think anyone else does really, good riddance and have fun making further use out of our shitty society's collective stupidity

... you still have your facebook link in the footer

Nice fuckin art-icle. its a good one. came across it trying to cancel facebook account. ass goblins.

Thank you so much for your help in 'deactivating' my facebook account. I was so over it and couldn't work out how to get myself out of it!

Thanks again.......

I planned to violate the terms of service by eg uploading bestiality

Yeah, I imagine the Facebook bestiality group wouldn't be the kind of publicity they'd want.

you still have your facebook link in the footer

Huh? Where? I've never had any link like that.

Facebook absolutely retains your personal data. The government, first and foremost, and probably groups with money who want to work on mass purchase scales, will at some time want access to that data. Even beyond the visible life of Facebook will be the business they do with what they have after.

Fighting the Man or the grid probably just got that much harder if you got on Facebook. Sux.

Well, that's not as crazy as it sounds. Other failed .coms have done the same.

I opened a facebook account about a month ago just to check it out. Today I decided I was fed up with all the stupid invitations for applications, requests, posts and "your friend did this", "the other one did that" and so forth. But, oh what a surprise, when I decided to delete the account I only had the option to deactivate it. Before proceeding I looked up in the www about deleting the account and came across this site. Well I did everything stevenmansour suggested and my account was (or wasn't really?) deleted. I actually sent the e-mail at privacy(at)facebook.com telling them I deleted all personal data in the account and wish to have it removed. I got a reply within a few hours from another three-letter named employee (Joe, Pam, Sam etc!) that my account was removed from their systems (or at least this is what they claim!) Anyway when I tried to login afain it didn't say anything about reactivating my account.

Thanks for the advise!

Hi again,
here's an update of the current status of my group "How to permanently delete your facebook account" as requested.

a) There are currently 2440 members of the group and an additional 1436 who hasn't replied to invitations.

b) Although it's hard to tell if it has an actual effect, I have received a lot of positive feedback. Some from people wanting to delete their account immediately, some joining the group for "future reference". Actually quite a few PMs from people wanting ME to delete their account!

c) I haven't received any response/warnings from Facebook's staff.

Here's a screenshot: http://www.freeimagehost.eu/image/69c3611819605

I semi-regularly post updates to the group about Facebook's "evil deeds" and public apologies, but don't actually encourage people to leave Facebook. (That would be, as you point out, mindbogglingly ironic! ). I just promote the idea that IF one would like to leave, it should be as simple as clicking a button...

For those of you still members of Facebook and interested in the group, check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

Happy new year!

Hey, my account has been disabled for apparent misuse. How can i go about deleting all my data, even though now i actually cant login. Data Protection Act is such a great act in UK but dnt know how much i can use it with Facebook.

How can you be sure your personal profile/information is deleted? Facebook can have your information backed up somewhere else. I absolutely believe that Facebook is functioning with the government and/or the freemason-secret society/NWO groups and cataloging all you idiots personal information. Your birth date, hometown, who you know, who you are related to, what you like to eat, your likes/dislikes, your relationships, your thoughts, your actions are all being watched.

Go ahead and throw away your freedom and privacy - [facebook] it's "hip" and "cool"

Magnus:

Thanks for the update! Yeah, it is pretty ironic as you say... but it's a cool idea nonetheless, and it's amazing that you have so many members already! Very cool. Keep up the good work.

Has:

As of right now, you're out of luck when it comes to accessing your private data (even just to delete it). I thought UK privacy laws were better too (at least better than our pitiful Canadian ones), but enforcement seems to be a whole other issue.

Incognito:

That's just the thing - there is no way to be sure. I don't know if I believe in the rabbit hole as deeply as you do, but we agree that people are giving up way more than they are getting back by using an incredibly lame social networks such as Facebook.

haha, i love how my name is "incognito" that's actually my favorite word in a way, anyway. I salute you for this awesome post or whatever it was. WOW. it was so entertaining. I would say better than harry potter books because I actually read every word of this! Kudos to you man. So, even though our facebook is like say completely private, facebook can still access our things? That sucks! It sucks even more for those losers that have their cell phones, land lines, and addresses on there, thinking it's all "private." Anyway, I have one more question. So, the events I create and I give away my address, phone numbers are stored? So, if I delete my events, will it be permanently deleted? Once again, thanks for this post. haha.

Hey 'Incognito',

Thanks for your comment - glad you enjoyed the post. Yeah, Facebook and their employees can still see whatever, whenever on your profile. And you're also right about how crazy it is that people put all their contact information on there as well.

I'm not sure about how it works with events, but I wouldn't give Facebook the benefit of the doubt at this point - I'm convinced they just store everything.

Hey,

Thank you so much for this post! You have no idea what a big help it's been.

I got a facebook about 9 months ago and kept the damn thing, quite unwillingly for the past 9 months, because I have had no way of deleting it..that was until I found you & came across this post!

So thanks again!

Hey Alyssa,

Glad I could help - hopefully Facebook will eventually give users choice on how their data wishes to be used, instead of forcing themselves down the throat of every user regardless of they want to continue to be a part of their network or not.

Cheers!

WOW, YOURE NOT MADDOX.

STOP WISHING..YOU GOT OWNED FOR HAVING TO MANUALLY DELETE EVERYTHING LOL

Who the hell is Maddox? You mean that guy from the A-Team who always stayed in the van?

PS - Caps Lock key on your parents' computer is on the left of the keyboard, between 'Tab' and 'Shift', skipper.

Here's the body of what I got:
--------
If you deactivate your account, your profile and information associated with it are immediately made inaccessible to other Facebook users. However, we do save your profile content (friends, photos, interests, etc.), so if you want to reactivate in the near future, your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and expect their information to be there when they return to the service.

Since the information and content you upload is often stored in many different places within the Facebook file system, there's no easy way for Facebook to remove it all at once. Keep in mind that Facebook does not use deactivated account information, and profile information ceases to be available to general users of the service immediately upon deactivation.

The permanent deletion of this information from all our systems is hastened by your efforts in removing content from the account before deactivation. If you intend to permanently delete all information from your account, you may log in and delete any content or information you don't want stored before deactivating. Once you've done this, let us know, and we'll remove your login email from our system.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,
--------
I don't think they do anything except remove the ability to login to your old account - the key is: "If you intend to permanently delete all information from your account, you may log in and delete any content or information you don't want stored before deactivating."

Sigh.

You're an idiot.

You are not Maddox and you are not funny.

As an Apple fanboy, I would like to take this moment to say...

FUCK YOU.

You're an idiot.

A dingo ate your baby, mate.

You are not Maddox and you are not funny.

You need a dentist.

As an Apple fanboy, I would like to take this moment to say...

FUCK YOU.

Privacy is dead.

This website makes me sad

D:

Who my friends are is just no one's business. It's just that simple. Is it so wrong to not want the entire world to know who my friends are? How about if I'm not a criminal, but the government thinks I am? (like all these wiretapping stories).

This is why you should never give control of your email address to other people, b ut keep control of it everytime.

I hate spam so much that, over the years, I developed a system with which you will receive cero spam every day and when for some reason you receive it, you could delete the source of it at will, because you control the email flow to you, instead of other people controlling the flow.

Watch the system here:
http://www.SafeComputer.org/email-solution

If I were to delele my facebook account, would they still have access to all the ISP's I have used and my home and cell phone number?

Good information in this article and comments... Thanks for the efforts

How do I reach facebook?

Face book is a pain in the ass. It's nothing more than a morons way of performing a background check.

Privacy is dead.

This website makes me sad

Privacy doesn't die; our instinct to protect it does.

Who my friends are is just no one's business. It's just that simple. Is it so wrong to not want the entire world to know who my friends are? How about if I'm not a criminal, but the government thinks I am? (like all these wiretapping stories).

Most of us aren't criminals, and the long-discredited argument that right-wingers use ("if you don't have anything to hide then you shouldn't worry about your privacy") implies that our private information will never be shared with those who would use it against us. The only answer is, unfortunately, voluntary abstinence from resources that require us to share this data - something harder and harder to do in today's connected world.

If I were to delele my facebook account, would they still have access to all the ISP's I have used and my home and cell phone number?

There is no way to know. Assume, however, that they kept all records of everything you've ever posted - or anything anyone else has ever posted about you.

Hi i want to reccomend you very useful rapidshare search http://loadingvault.com. You can find there a lot of new movies, games and music. Enjoy it!

You pussed out and complied with her demands. lol.

At this point, you have two choices:

- You can stop giving me the run-around, and just delete my account so
that everyone will be happy, or

- You can refuse to comply with your own privacy policy and user
standards, in which case I will be forced to escalate this situation.

-Lucy, "no"

Dear Lucy from Facebook,

I've removed all my private data.

Close my account.

hey, i guess you are making such a big deal out of it u can deactivate it and then you will disappear from others people lists etc...
why ure making such a big of deal
for me i dont have that much of personal informations i mean what did u have your credit card number on your profile??

Marianne,

It's a big deal not because we don't want to appear on other people's lists, but because we're not comfortable with the idea that such a complete personality profile of ourselves is made available to so many organizations without our knowledge or consent - and that once we make the bad decision / mistake of giving all of it away to Facebook, we can "never" back out or change our minds. That is where the issue lies - other networks let you leave, Facebook doesn't. It's not difficult to understand.

These are serious, important questions that we're trying to get answers to, and if you're fine with sharing your identity with all of Facebook's partners, that's fine, but most of us aren't.

Lmao! That was cool dude. I was just wondering - if I delete a wall post that I posted, will it still exist in their database/servers?

On their privacy page it says, "You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content." <--- Does this mean that even if I delete a wall post that I've posted before, it will still exist on their database?

Thus, following on from my previous comment, even if you delete all your info from your Facebook, does it mean they still keep archived files of your data even after they've terminated your account (not deactivated)? Which you have worked hard to achieve?

Hi Feise,

if I delete a wall post that I posted, will it still exist in their database/servers?

As far as we know, they keep an archive of everything you post, ever. I don't doubt that even after closing my account, they kept all my personal data... somewhere.

I was wondering how they originally planned to edit accounts of people that have died...

The thing is that you cannot even do that for someone who's actually dead, for you will be hacking his account.
You may only deactivate it, remembering that you have to check the "other" box when they ask why you're considering deactivation.
If you're thinking about deleting every single thing posted, then it's also OK, but assuming you also have email access, you're about to "lie" : you're not going to say you're doing this for the person's dead... and that's because you're a "hacker". From a dumb external point of view.

Just too bad.

Fbook staff are buddhist people, somehow X-]

I'm sick of it.

Ha Ha Ha love it.
admit to half readin rushing off to work,