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,
but already licking my lips. waiting to further enjoy it later.
have a great day.

Hi

Just read about you in Aftonbladet (swedish newspaper) and wanted to say thanks for you trying to help - THANNKS!

/Anders

I also suspect something creepy with FB. I had a MySpace profile (and ONLY a MySpace profile) but suddenly started receiving emails asking if Joe Bloggs could be my friend on FB! It was okay, coz I knew "Joe" - BUT, I had never even visited the FB website and suddenly I had a profile??? WTF?? I don't dig that at all (but do Digg it, LOL)

The upside is that I've renewed acquaintance with a lot of ppl on FB and seen groups that I was interested in ... BUT I don't like the Stalinist attitude of these dudes. I agree: you should be able to kill ALL detail in one click. NOT to give that is very, very fishy.

cheers

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.

That's a good point that I hadn't thought about. It seems that not even Death itself can liberate you from Facebook membership.

Just read about you in Aftonbladet (swedish newspaper) and wanted to say thanks for you trying to help - THANNKS!

Thank you for reading!

I agree: you should be able to kill ALL detail in one click. NOT to give that is very, very fishy.

Yeah, that's the whole point - [sinister] what reason could there possibly be for not allowing people to close their accounts? I suspect it has to do with more than just inflating their membership statistics for investors.[/sinister]

Hello,

you say,

"Your personal data, especially on the web, is something that will be increasingly valuable to corporate and government interests - and increasingly important (and, perhaps, difficult) to protect."

No offense, but weren't you aware of this before you got a Facebook account? I mean, why even get one if you are so concerned about your privacy? (I am, too, and for this reason choose not to have any of the MySpace/Facebook variety accounts).

Great info. Thank you for sharing!

Hi GS,

Thanks for your comment.

To answer your question, yes of course I was aware of the issue concerning personal data before I got a Facebook account - though perhaps not to the extent that I am now.

As a web professional, voluntary self-exclusion from Facebook can seem pretty damning. Not because it's a great, intelligently-built network (it isn't) or because it uses some hot new technology to bring people together (it doesn't), but because everyone is looking there right now.

However, the cost of that membership is too high for me. If you take a step back and see what people are agreeing to, it's pretty amazing to witness how everyone is just piling all of their data, photos, private information, and relationship metadata into this one big monolithic system that makes no illusions about using it as it sees fit. It's a psychological profiler's dream come true.

We agree on that; and I concede that it was a mistake to join Facebook.

I do, however, use other social networks. last.fm is useful to me; so is digg. But none of the data I have up on them can be used in any useful way to compromise me now or in the future; that's more than can be said for most people on Facebook.

The sticking point, of course, is that I can leave those other networks whenever I want; while Facebook users can never leave.

Yellow,

saw your quote on nytimes.com
Nice Work canadian online comunity developer!!!

I'm creating a new social networking site called AssBook
So be on the lookout for it

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/technology/11facebook.html?pagewanted=...

FasadKiJar

another approach is to spam people or do something else to get your account suspended. get it reactivated, and then do it again. they threaten to permanently delete your account after that. might work.

Just a fleeting 'philosophical' thought:

I am amazed at people who had spent a certain amount of time on FB, filling their account with a certain amount of content, expect to delete all that accumulated virtual energy with just one click.

If you move from your house, leave your job, finish a project, decide to break off a relationship, basically anything into which you had invested a certain amount of energy, you need to (should?) clean up the clutter you had left behind.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree FB practices of retaining information are WRONG, but at least they've taught you about *wink* sharing confidential information with a lot more consideration in the future.

(and, with small letters, in brackets: as well as rid you of some childish irresponsibility. Maybe.) *wink*

What about signing facebook's emails ( like you list above ) up for spam and all kinds of marketing material? If we had a whack of people signing up these addresses they would be overwhelmed ...

hey steven.
i just violated their terms of service by adding as many friends as possible on my profile, kept going past their "slow down" function and getting temporarily banned five or six times until i told them to go fuck themselves and they deleted my profile in its entirety, info, pictures, everything.
worked like a charm...
cheers.
rb.

plus, i never posted any information that was real about myself, my birthdate, name, location, or any work or personal info.
i do regret posting pictures of my children, but i deleted those before i wanted out.
cheers.
rb.

I too had this same problem.. i tried to delete but facebook refuses to delete my information.

now i have a fake profile filled with tons of applications... it makes my page impossible to load on a average computer... LOL

just think of all the pictures/ information stored on their servers... things could seriously be misused... or sold.

Too funny, don't people have a friggin life anymore? Somebody pull the plug and quick!

Steve,
Thank you for raising such public awareness.
There's something that came to my mind just now, do you think they can store your credit card number by any means? For example if you buy anything through the network? I mean do they treat your credit card number as your personal information and keep it indefinitely as well, isn't this illegal?

I see that FB is now conceding a bit ... check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/technology/13face.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&...

Things are looking up but I for one don't trust them at all. Pity tho: their interface is more attractive and nicer to work with than MySpace.

cheers

another approach is to spam people or do something else to get your account suspended. get it reactivated, and then do it again. they threaten to permanently delete your account after that. might work.

Yeah, others have mentioned that in the comments here too. However, there's no real way to know if they actually delete your account, or just deactivate it and hide your profile.

If you move from your house, leave your job, finish a project, decide to break off a relationship, basically anything into which you had invested a certain amount of energy, you need to (should?) clean up the clutter you had left behind.

Your comparison is not valid; we don't create revenue for the people moving into our house by giving up our personal data, Ysa. The "clutter" is actually our own personal data and is the building block of Facebook's profits; why should the onus be on us to remove it?

There is no such thing as "virtual energy"; the digital world is binary, and the beauty of informatics is that it let us manipulate data en masse.

What about signing facebook's emails ( like you list above ) up for spam and all kinds of marketing material? If we had a whack of people signing up these addresses they would be overwhelmed ...

I wouldn't be adverse to that, but it takes a lot of energy to move a campaign like that forward. Care to start?

i just violated their terms of service by adding as many friends as possible on my profile, kept going past their "slow down" function and getting temporarily banned five or six times until i told them to go fuck themselves and they deleted my profile in its entirety, info, pictures, everything.
worked like a charm...

Good work! Any way to game the system is a good one in my book. We should make a list of all these techniques that people are using to close their accounts and put it all in one place.

Hmmm... it's mind-blowing that we need "techniques" to close our accounts.

i do regret posting pictures of my children, but i deleted those before i wanted out.

Those pictures of your children are still there. All photos on my closed account, even now, are accessible via a direct URL in my browser. More proof that they keep all of our data.

now i have a fake profile filled with tons of applications... it makes my page impossible to load on a average computer... LOL

Hah, that's pretty brilliant. If more users did that, it would create some serious / hilarious problems.

There's something that came to my mind just now, do you think they can store your credit card number by any means? For example if you buy anything through the network? I mean do they treat your credit card number as your personal information and keep it indefinitely as well, isn't this illegal?

It's not illegal, but it's scarier with Facebook than with other networks. Assume that if you've ever fed your credit card information through Facebook, that it's stored there forever along with the rest of your personal data - even after you deactivate or delete your account.

I see that FB is now conceding a bit ... check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/technology/13face.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&......

Thanks for the update WillBill - I agree with you totally and have posted a follow-up article on their response here.

I think it's time for people to look at who runs facebook. The following link was provided earlier, and on How to Permanently Delete your Facebook Account group in facebook.

http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

That's scarier to me than advertising people.

BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!!

Heh. I find it funny that you can insult someone for telling you that a company is keeping your private information. What do you want him to say? Would you like him to lie and tell you everything is going to be OK? My guess is that you are either the myspace user or the mac fanboy on the pyramid. If you're the myspace user, your private information is at a great risk, simply because of the insanely easy to execute cross site scripting attacks one can issue. If you're the Mac fanboy, I can't yell at you for it. ^^;; After all, an OS is a preference for most people. (Others have no reasonable alternative given the circumstances.) Please refrain from insulting someone for their views on an experience they've been through, when you've never been through it. If you have been through this situation and know of a better way of doing it, please let us know. It would help thousands.

Minoru Hacker Guy,

Thank you for your comment.

Heh. I find it funny that you can insult someone for telling you that a company is keeping your private information.

Who insulted who? Did someone insult each other in the comments? Please let me know. If you're referring to the comment above yours, I didn't feel insulted.

Hi, Can you give me the email address of this facebook customer service rep?. I cant even seem to find one listed on their webpage. I have deactivated my accoutn and like yourself am finding the process more painful than pulling my nails out. Why is it this hard? It is after all my own information.

Thanks

Hi Sush,

Somebody already posted these in a previous comment, but for your convenience, the addresses we have are:

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

Good luck!

Steve

can someone help me understand exactly what's going on here.
from reading this, and other articles, i have pieced together the following:

Facebook keeps a record of your data (pictures, messages, age, location etc.) somewhere in their system.
They for some (unknown?)reason do their best to keep this data even when you 'deactivate' your account.
The reason is most likely something to do with thirdparties, that for some (again unknown?)reason want this information.
The most likely reason these third parties want(buy?) this info from FB is for marketing/spamming/promoting?

Is that about right? If so, then:

-I'm guessing FB aren't the only ones doing this. Is everything i'm typing right now being stored somewhere, available to anyone with the proper knowledge?

-Again, if this information, or information i'm giving out on other sites (ie Myspace, hotmail, gaming forums etc.)is being stored, what is being done with it? Why is it being stored? Again does it come back to marketing and spamming? Or should we be concerned about individuals knowing where we live and having access to our bank accounts etc.

-I'm assuming this is what is meant when people talk about leaving your "footprints" online.

-What sort of actions can I/we take to prevent this breach of our privacy? Are you saying I simply can't communicate with friends online? use eBay? browse pages?

It kind of seems like whatever is happening, it's far too huge and too complex to stop. It's like you've got two choices: (1) Use the internet and give up your basic rights to privacy, or (2) don't use the internet.

Hi Mrs Incognito,

Thank you for your questions. Here are my responses:

Facebook keeps a record of your data (pictures, messages, age, location etc.) somewhere in their system. They for some (unknown?)reason do their best to keep this data even when you 'deactivate' your account. The reason is most likely something to do with third parties, that for some (again unknown?)reason want this information. The most likely reason these third parties want(buy?) this info from FB is for marketing/spamming/promoting?

They keep a record of all your data (including political affiliations, religion, friends and contacts, location, etc) permanently. They go to great lengths to holding onto this. The reason has to do with third parties, possibly for marketing, possibly for government / tracking initiatives.

-I'm guessing FB aren't the only ones doing this. Is everything i'm typing right now being stored somewhere, available to anyone with the proper knowledge?

You're right, but there's a big difference - no one has ever done it in such a structured, comprehensive and complete manner as Facebook. The information we willingly provide to Facebook allows them to build a very complete profile about each and every user, available to whoever Facebook chooses to provide this information to (or whoever can hack into the Facebook server, which is not all that difficult).

-Again, if this information, or information i'm giving out on other sites (ie Myspace, hotmail, gaming forums etc.)is being stored, what is being done with it? Why is it being stored? Again does it come back to marketing and spamming? Or should we be concerned about individuals knowing where we live and having access to our bank accounts etc.

For most sites, I think it's safe to assume that they store and share this data to generate marketing revenue. However, for larger entities such as Facebook, Google or Yahoo, many believe that their data is being used in a more serious - and sinister - way.

-I'm assuming this is what is meant when people talk about leaving your "footprints" online.

Yes, though keep in mind that some footprints are larger, deeper and easier to track than others.

-What sort of actions can I/we take to prevent this breach of our privacy? Are you saying I simply can't communicate with friends online? use eBay? browse pages?

You can expect a reasonable amount of privacy proportional to a reasonable online usage pattern. Using eBay, chatting with your friends and browsing pages likely won't land you into the deep end of privacy matters. Submitting your entire personal data profile to Facebook, allowing Google to scan all your purchases and emails, and using your Yahoo ID every time you go online, however, will definitely result in your privacy being compromised in a more serious manner.

It kind of seems like whatever is happening, it's far too huge and too complex to stop. It's like you've got two choices: (1) Use the internet and give up your basic rights to privacy, or (2) don't use the internet.

The point is not to stop what's happening - it's to educate users into understanding their rights when they go online. One of those rights is a reasonable expectation of privacy. An educated user base can and will change the status quo of monolithic companies abusing their positions of power / popularity to blatantly defy privacy principles. The choice is, unfortunately, not as simple as you put it. Some of us want to use the Internet, yet be in control of how our data is shared and who we share it with.

I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

Thanks heaps for the reply, it's cleared up alot.

You right though, it's certainly not an unreasonable request to be in control of how our data is shared.

There are no guarantee's that even if i delete my FB account they'll delete all my records as well. I guess all i can do is hope any information i've put out there in cyberspace is not used against me in someway.

It is rather concerning realising that these major corporations are building and keeping profiles of all of us - without our knowledge or consent. Sort of scary thinking what it is they plan on doing with it...

Can somebody tell me the email address of the person/ people I have to contact at face book to get me removed? I have removed everything possible from my account, deactivated it but now dont know who to mail as per your instructions above!
cheers thaks
liam

Great read. Article Im using for my paper on facebook invovles your situation so thanks for my future A+ term paper

Great article! Not-so-ok-cupid has a similar sort of approach... I deleted my account a long while ago, and it manages to show up on the first page of google searches for my handle (I know, I know, I'm a dumbass for using my usual handle - but I'm an honest kind of gal). I just wrote this letter:
----
Hi there,

I don't mean this personally to whoever is paid to read emails like this, but....

What the hell, you lazy bastards?

"OkCupid may archive information, including personal information, you provide in the course of using our services and any other aspects of the OkCupid Web site. We store that information on servers that are controlled by us or by third parties who have agreed to comply with our commitments made under this Privacy Policy and with whom we have a contractual relationship. Archived information will not ordinarily be erased unless and until your entire account with OkCupid is deleted, and even then we may retain some or all of your information on back-up files; provided, however, we assume no obligation or guarantee to archive any information and do not warrant that any archived information will later be made available to you."

So does archiving information include the right to display inactive users in google searches?

Hundreds of inactive users show up in google results as such. No, you're not legally required to have those pages be "no crawl" to search robots, but it sure would be nice for folks to not have OkCupid accounts associated with their handles in perpetuity.

C'mon, be less evil.

Cheers,
Beth
----

Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know of a solution?

Hi Tye,

Good luck on your term paper!

Beth,

Of course, the issues raised by this post and the comments within apply to all social networks and not just Facebook. Google rank is a strange creature, though, and sometimes it's hard to find where the fault lies when they're still bringing up pages that you requested be closed from somewhere else.

I don't see what the big deal about Facebook's privacy issues is. You really think that these other sites that supposedly offer "easy" ways of deleting accounts don't still retain the personal info? You really think that your personal data isn't floating around somewhere in the ether of cyberspace? Our information is scattered all over the world nowadays. It's not even relegated to the Internet. Every time you fill out a form somewhere, they require your social security number and a ritual sacrifice of your first born and perhaps your pet. There's simply no escaping this reality. We live in the information age, and being paranoid about what information Facebook is or isn't retaining is simply an exercise in futility. If they're not selling your information, someone else is. I suppose you can take precautions, but honestly, we're all the biatches of the society we've helped create.

--Jeremy

dude i deactivated my facebook account,deleted all the notifiaction apps n shit, and finally i got this form them
"You can reactivate your account at any time by logging in with your email and password."

now how am suppose to contact the customer service representative so that they completely del. my account so that i can't "You can reactivate your account at any time by logging in with your email and password."

ricky

got it ! didn't read all the commetns before!

: )

Papersun,

No one ever said that other sites don't retain our personal info. They just don't harvest and request things on such a personal and structured level as Facebook does, and on such a large scale. If you think this is about paranoia you're looking at it from the wrong angle; it's far more about ensuring that people recognize the dangers and problems with submitting too large a part of their lives to a single corporation or entity.

Hello all,

Wow, I am glad to have found this website. After hearing rumors about Facebook's secret ops on people (whether they are true or not); nonetheless, this concerned me. I was desperately looking for ways to delete my Facebook account and then I found this website. I followed your steps Steven and it worked (or at least I think so)!

____________________________________________________________________________________________
Here is my communication with Facebook:

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:16:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: E-MAIL ADDRESS
To: privacy@facebook.com, comment-info-rt@facebook.com, info@facebook.com
Subject: Delete Account Completely

To Whom It May Concern:

I have deleted ALL of my private information on my profile. That being
said, I wish my account to be deleted permanently with my e-mail ( E-MAIL ADDRESS ). Additionally, the procedure to close an account on Facebook is needlessly convoluted and unclear. To bring itself inline with privacy policies dictating good behavior on the web
(see http://www.privacyinternational.org/ ), it would be a good idea for Facebook to give users a one-step option to close / delete their account instead of just 'deactivating' it, which is misleading (if not blatantly dishonest) to users. If you do not comply with this request, I will take further action. Again, delete my account and please notify me when my profile is completely deleted. Thank you.

James

--------------------------
FIRST REPLY FROM FACEBOOK
--------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:20:09 -0700
From: "Facebook Support" Block Address
Subject: Re: Delete Account Completely
To: E-MAIL ADDRESS

Hi,

Facebook User Operations has received your inquiry. We should get back
to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Help page
(http://www.facebook.com/help.php). There, you'll find answers to many
common questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Facebook User Operations

---------------------------
SECOND REPLY FROM FACEBOOK
---------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:52:35 -0700
From: "Facebook Support" Block Address
Subject: Re: Delete Account Completely
To: E-MAIL ADDRESS

Hi James,

We have deleted your profile information and removed your email address
from our login database. Please let me know if you have further
questions or concerns.

Thanks,

Brooke
User Operations
Facebook
____________________________________________________________________________________________

To my surprise, it took faster than I thought it would. I was believing it would take at least a couple days or so. Sorry Steven for using some of your words in my e-mail but I figured it would give it an "edge" in order for them to do it or else, ya know? lol Well, thanks again. Great advice and more people ought to know about this.

MetalHead,

It's good to see that they're at least trying to clean up their act a little. I'm glad all the uproar raised by us forced them to change their policies a little (not enough yet though), so that you can get your account closed much more easily.

No worries about using my stuff, that's what it's there for.

I just now contacted facebook about the situation, I have already tried the forgot password option, I think the hacker has change my email and password also....... what should I do??? man please help me if u can... thx alot.

Sorry khaled, I don't work for Facebook so I can't help you. Try emailing Facebook instead.

i recently tried to change my age in my facebook account, and then they personally deleted my account for breaking the rules. however, i am thirteen AND i am enrolled in a high school.
anyone know whether or not i can get my account back?
the lady that emailed me about their final decision to close my account didn't reply to anything i sent, so i sent an additional message to customer service from the site.
my account was well established, and i am sort of upset that everything i had on it just got wiped off the face of the earth...:/

Well ns, not much we can do here since 1) most of us choose not to be on Facebook, and 2) none of us work for them.

It's a good example, though, of why you should never rely on Facebook to store all of your valuable stuff.

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

Quote:

We have deleted your profile information and removed your email address
from our login database. Please let me know if you have further
questions or concerns.

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

Just saw the above from an earlier "reply" from Facebook.

Did anyone else notice they said they "deleted your profile info" not "All personal data stored on our servers" and "removed your email from our login database" not "deleted your email from our database(s)"

This makes me worry, and happy that I found your site before I got into facebook full tilt.

Hello,

I just found this sight in my effort to find info about deleting my son's FB account. In a post way up on this page, somebody said something along the lines of that the reason FB makes it difficult to erase your info is that it helps track pedophiles, etc.

The response was, "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."

Unfortunately, this is not completely true. My son, and a scary # of kids he goes to school with are 12, have lied about their age, and have registered themselves as part of a high school group. Not really understanding what FB was, I didn't make a big deal about it. At the time, it somehow didn't make it through my thick head that I was condoning lying. My son was so excited about FB because by the end of the evening his horizons had been dramatically broadened - lots of friends, etc.

In an effort to learn more, I created an account for myself, and invited him to be my friend. He remains my only one. I am seeing things that are clearly not intended for kids. The Bathroom Wall being the most recent. Not to mention the fact that I noticed today that our phone # is right on his profile for the world to see. A reverse phone # look-up provides our home address to the world. This is so scary. He sister is 9, and her name has been mentioned by others on his wall. The name of the school they attend is readily available. I feel like they and all of the other kids are sitting ducks.

I had a conversation with him about some of this a few days ago, but hadn't actually noticed yet that our phone # was on there. I am quite confident that when he is further educated, he will be "scared" into agreeing to delete his account. The tough thing is that all of those kids are blissfully unaware of what the big picture is with FB, and I know that my son will feel as though he is compromising himself socially. Anyway, if anyone has anything constructive to say or anything else I should know, I'd sure appreciate it. Please don't berate me for not being on top of what he is doing on the internet. The computer is very visible in our kitchen, and he told me what he was doing with FB. I (and he) simply didn't understand the reality of it.

Thank you.

Hi Incognito,

Thanks for your input and for sharing your experience. When I dismissed the comment that purported that FB keeps user information to help track abuse and dangerous situations, I wasn't saying that that kind of thing doesn't go on in Facebook - just that it's not a reason of theirs to spy on their users. I'm sure that Facebook, along with most other networks aimed at adults, have lots of young people on them.

In Facebook's defense, their service is clearly marketed as not-intended for kids (though they probably don't do enough to enforce that). As much as I like to swipe at Facebook , there are tons of places even in the real world (bars, clubs, etc) "not intended for kids" but where they get in anyways. Hiding behind a computer screen just makes it easier for thme.

It is, in fact, scary that your number, full name, and other photos and personal info is on the site.

Heck, I'm in my 20s and I felt like I was compromising myself socially when I first left Facebook... now, though, it's the other way around - less time spent on fake virtual connections means more time to spend on real, meaningful relationships.

Thanks again,

s.

Hi lucy,
I have two facebook accounts and I want both of them deleted. The first one I have had I dont know the password and i deleted that email i used for it a long time ago but I still can see it on facebook. Please help me and delete both.
thanks

I find you on the Net, when I start to search for help in a matter of permanently closing Facebook account; Few minutes ago, I was deleting my account, and in the middle of this, somehow I was interrupted!!!! this was a message from bullies from Facebook:

-Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I'm totally p....d off!!!!!!!!
help me!!!
Tanja

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

An interesting story/experience and I can certainly relate to your concerns about privacy.

[But] why did you not think about this as an issue before you made public so much of yourself?

You have "publisher's remorse".

I just can get you out of my mind. There is no pill to erase the memories.

Don't put anything anywhere on the web unless you want to nail it to the tree in the town square of every town in America (now the world) for everyone to read and have it stay there forever - long after you wish you hadn't put it there.

That's the new old web.

once again...why did you guys leave your real information on ANY WEBSITE????!!!!....

Nice to see that I am not the only person who are annoyed by facebook!

I have the same problem with deleting my account. i just emailed facebook asking them to delete my account permanently and still waiting for answer. I deleted all applications, pictures, friends etc. Is it possible that they will ask me to delete all wall messages i posted?(but i can't since i just erased all contacts, hence not able to track down all my posts). What i know about databases, to delete a table entry(in this case the main "personal info" table) doesnt require deleting every entries in other tables referring to that main table.

Another thing that annoys me, is that they require you to use your real name, so entering a nickname like "sunshine" will result in an error. When everyone are using real names it is alot easier to find lost friends on facebook etc, but it should definetely be an option in my opinion, or else you would think that they are using this information for other purposes.

Anyways they should rename facebook to historybook since everything is stored forever, and as we all know history cannot be erased. But let us all hope that facebook is just another trend that dies out, hopefully soon.

Hey, as a FB hater/afficionado,

do you know if facebook officially "owns" all the data in the email you provided them with (username/id thing) .... this idea scares the shit out of me, more than my actualy facebook account. . . . . . . i have so many things in there......

thansk for asnwering.. no one else really knows.

Thanks for this post, Steven. When you mentioned the ex-flame, that was one of my biggest factors in pushing away this godawful Facebook stuff. Before the exes just had to deal with stuff - cards, pictures, clothes left behind, etc.

Now we got what... wall posts, messages, photos by other people. It's like a time capsule mocking you right in the face.

But honestly, joking aside you raised good issues here. I don't like thinking that we've been debased into automatons - just going with popularity votes / "it's so easy" w/o thinking about what we're really getting into. I wondered why I could always go back and everything was left as they were before; even MySpace isn't this hard-a**ed about letting its users go. I went away just fine from MySpace. I'm giving myself 'til the end of the week to completely unplug - collecting real life friends' contact info and all that. Those pictures will definitely not be missed.

Just my personal opinion.

Simple solution... don't give out your private data. Gave it away of your own free choice and then whine when it's out there for the world to see. Get a clue people, once something is out there on the internet it is essentially there FOREVER. Sure they could delete it but that's not so say there aren't already thousands of cached versions out there which are completely out of their control.

Fricken hilarious... seriously... the very next site Stumble Upon sent me to after hitting this site....

http://www.spokeo.com/?g=su_i

Oh wow! How fun is this page!

I have just deactivated my FB account and I was wondering why I did it....So I decided to google "Why I left facebook" to see what others had to say and behold I got in here. Been reading for about half an hour and now I'm just wishing I never bothered with FB in the first place.

Oh well...I dunno what to do next...I'll just wait for the free-flow-of-information bomb to explode and then pick up the pieces...in the meantime I'll try hard to divorce my mind's nagging convictions about the truth this page has provided from my day-to-day life. All in the hope that I can carry on in sound-proofed indifference...or whatever..lol....

Somebody please bring back April 12th so I can stop myself from joining the Stalinist website called facebook!!!!

This has been interesting reading. I joined facebook a few days ago finally.

@Shawn McKay, Tanja: The only way to get your undeletable account problem sorted out is by contacting Facebook directly. Hope you got everything fixed.

@PreciousLife, ???, Fred Flinstone:

[But] why did you not think about this as an issue before you made public so much of yourself?

I'm not arguing about how public we choose to make ourselves and our identities. The data we put out there on the web is, by definition, open - my gripe lies with being subversively usurped from being in control of our own data and content, and relinquishing that ownership to Facebook and other organizations.

@PK: Did you successfully get your account deleted?

@Incognito1: Not sure what you mean. They don't own anything in your email account of course.

@Incognito2:

I don't like thinking that we've been debased into automatons

Same here. The commodification of our personal relationships is one of the great tragedies going on right now, and [almost] no one seems to give a shit.

@Le Pew: Stalinist? Don't you mean Fascist?

@Spyko: Don't do it man!

hey, well I just deactivated my facebook account, I dont quite know what does that even mean,I really dislike facebook and there es pretty much nothing anybody can do because there is actually pictures of you that are actually other people's and facebook property, come on what the fuck where we thinking in the first place. it is very very bad, I would definetely manually delete my shit, but thats not really gonna chge anything, and it is gonna take me like 3 years, etf do I do? Im really frustrated... I AM,

Hi Diana,

You're right; you don't have much recourse when people post stuff - like photos of you - on Facebook. Whether or not you're still on Facebook doesn't matter either, because there's no way to know exactly what content of you is floating around within Facebook.

Try contacting them directly to ask them if they can automatically delete your profile for starters.

hey
Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

how can i fix it

Sorry incognito, I have no idea.

after reading most of the comments on here ive decided to give FB the big FU. i sent an email requesting deletion of all my info. hope i get what i want.

hi dear
my acount on facebook is disable by admin and i cant p[en it what i can do plz i need ur helping plz

So, here's a new one....I asked facebook to send me a mail on wot i have to do to completely delete my account. I finally got a reply with a link saying, to completely delete your account, click here...hey presto! Took me right back to my fb profile exactly the way i left it!

I was so angry and then amused and then angry again....

The struggle continues people....

You raise a really good point. About a month ago, I was having a discussion with a group of friends about Facebook privacy. Among this group of friends are people who know one of the top original developers of Facebook quite well, and others of us have friends working at Google, which is known for its extremely stringent confidentiality policies toward their employees.

It came up in the conversation that Facebook does in fact keep a cache of all deleted info (that you have since removed from your profile, i.e old "versions" of your profile) on their servers, much the way Google Search does.

Furthermore, at that point in time, Facebook and Google were in the middle of talks for Google to buy this cache of old information stored on the Facebook servers from Facebook.

I don't know what became of this. Although I personally did not hear this information from someone directly affiliated with Google or Facebook, I know who my friends' source on the Facebook side is, and I think this source is very reliable. And all this stuff really does freak me out.

I HATE FACEBOOK i didnt even set the account up ???????????? but ive just Changed my status to a link to this page. There privacy Policy is BOLLOCKS

That isn't *really* why you're on Facebook. -They only want you to think that. If those people from, like, ten years ago are so important to you, you'll send them an email, call them, or low and behold, send a letter with photos that they can put up on their fridge. It's a popularity contest. The same one you had in high school, only now you're showing off your diamond ring or your newborn instead of your Guess? jeans. I had a long discussion on "social" networking the other day with a therapist, and got the same story, especially with Facebook and others that send a cute little announcement to all of your friends when you have any "social" activity on your page. It's Sheila telling Johnny in the cafeteria: "Guess who Sarah's seeing now?". Sitting in front of your computer is anti-social, not social. Read Farenheit 451. Facebook and others like it are the family on the wall.
Thanks for posting this. I deactivated (I think they do this because they know it's addictive, and that people will jones to return) mine a while ago, after it destroyed my relationship. (I'm in my late 30's by the way. Pathetic.) Now I guess I need to take more steps.

Furthermore, at that point in time, Facebook and Google were in the middle of talks for Google to buy this cache of old information stored on the Facebook servers from Facebook.

It does sound a little far-fetched, but based on what we've seen from both of them so far, it actually wouldn't surprise me anymore.

It's a popularity contest. The same one you had in high school, only now you're showing off your diamond ring or your newborn instead of your Guess? jeans.

Thanks for your comments, Incognito. This is the message I try to get across wherever I talk about social networks. We're watching the slow commodification of our interpersonal relationships change the ways we relate to one another - in essence, we're handing over the power to Facebook and co the ability to mediate our personal relationships. I shouldn't need to be a customer of Facebook in order to be able to stay in touch and up to date with my friends.

Hi, I have a question regarding this:

http://www.new.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

would this mean everything is erased? EVERYTHING?

including messages? sent and inbox?

When I click that link, incognito, I don't see anything about deleting accounts - just a generic contact page. Maybe you need to be logged in to see it?

Once you joined any applications on Facebook all your data is passed on to them.. even if you manage to purge your info from facebook there is no way you can delete your information from these third party FB application developers.

If you don't believe it, just make an FB account and sign up any FB applications. Then, copy down the your 'profile' page of that application. After that deactivate your account and 'delete' you account.

Make another FB account and join the applications that you joined before, then type in the profile page that you had copied down before and you will see that you 'deleted' account is still there!! The applications doesn't even know that the account had already been removed from facebook, let alone delete any stored info from the deleted account.

i never work with facebook i think this is not so intresting and i dont have many expirence with this
http://www.keyeagle.com

nice post

http://tibbipaylasim.blogspot.com

Great post, wonderful comments. Really interesting to follow the life of this thread over more than a year (that's pretty amazing longevity in an internet age of fire-and-forget). Facebook was useful to track down a couple of old acquaintances overseas that I genuinely wanted to get back in touch with and had had no luck finding anywhere else -- but now that I "have" them in my rolodex again (how quaint!) I have little reason to "interact" with them via FB. I send them email directly, we talk on the phone -- and we meet up whenever we can... fancy that, old school social networking. Call me ancient, but I prefer it.

I've had a pretty minimal FB account for a couple of years, and never really did "get" what the whole Wall, poke, game thing was about -- struck me as a weirdly plastic and inferior substitute for, you know, actually interacting with people.

Incognito, you're right.

Make another FB account and join the applications that you joined before, then type in the profile page that you had copied down before and you will see that you 'deleted' account is still there!! The applications doesn't even know that the account had already been removed from facebook, let alone delete any stored info from the deleted account.

A natural by-product of the application layer on Facebook is that applications can bypass lots of the so-called "privacy granularity" that Facebook purports to offer (thereby nullifying even that thin veil of privacy). Every time you use a new application, you're forced to "trust" that it won't compromise your data.

thingwarbler,

I share your views about real vs. virtual networking. I've written extensively about the outsourcing of our personal relationships to web companies, and the commodification of friendship.

FACEBOOK SUCKS!

Facebook now sells their user information to wink.com which in turn sells it to others including reunion.com the Mother WHORE of all data mining scams. Reunion.com uses this info as well as other to create their bogus "user accounts" that only exist for their(reunion.com) benefit. They in turn use these bogus accounts to entice new users making it look like they have an inflated number of valid accounts. In these bogus "user accounts" that they create, reunion.com lists critical personal information such as cities lived, relatives,(which may include mother's maiden name) and age information. Attempts to OPT out of reunion.com using this information which they should not even have in the first place are ignored. TrustE complaints have not resolved the situation, they merely rubber stamp any of reunion.com's responses and close the case, even though the profiles are still partially available on their search results. Deleting your facebook account in my experience does not remove your picture from wink.com and reunion.com. These companies have to be stopped somehow, or someone has to come up with a way to neutralize the information so it has no meaning, only to people that really know you. I have thought of flooding these web sites with bogus information about your own profile, and if enough people do it the databases would become worthless for marketing purposes... just some thoughts.

I found this while searching on how to find a deleted video once posted on FB. Let's just say that the video was not complimentary. The poster said he/she deleted it. Meanwhile, anyone who is a friend to poster could have seen the video while it was up, copied and kept or passed it on. Is it possible to find out if FB still has this somewhere? Thanks.

Rolando,

Do you have any links or references to back up what you're saying? I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case, but I'd still be interested if indeed Facebook is selling / sharing their information.

Nobody,

Short of knowing the exact link to the video that was posted, you can't really know for sure if they still have it or not. Consider it a lesson learned on why not to let stuff like that make it out to Facebook in the first place.

Steven,

Thanks I appreciate you taking the time to respond. Belive me, if it were my choice the video never would have been made, let alone saved or posted anywhere. It came from some disgruntled students with a score to settle against a staff member. Unfortunately, no one copied it when they viewed the vile video. If it had been directed at me, I would be persuing this in a much more vehement manner. As it is, other personnel are saying "kids will be kids" and they have done their punishment. Yeah. But thanks I do appreciate the info.

I have all the links as well as screen captures. I have also kept records of all my correspondence with reunion as well as TrustE. As of today the problem is not resolved. After reading reunion.com privacy policy it seems that wink.com is owned by reunion.com, so Facebook shares their information with that company which in turns propagates it everywhere. I did an experiment with facebook to see how often they sell the information. Instead of deleting my account, I changed my name somewhat ( I'm hispanic so I have lot's of last names) and then changed my picture to a laughing Monkey, so far the old picture which was from an inactive FB account is still up on reunion.com, it's been about two weeks since I reactivated the FB account and inserted the Monkey. One last thing, I think this information sharing or selling between Facebook and the reuinon.com spammers is recent, because I have been fighting my privacy thing with reunion for several months now, and the facebook Pic just showed up. Steve, if you want all the detailed info Email me and I'll send it to you.

Hi Steven, thanks a lot for your post, its very helpful! Just one question, you're saying you have to delete every comment you've ever made. Is there any way to have all the comments I've made anywhere (pictures, walls, etc) displayed in one place, or do I have to look through my friends' profiles one-by-one to find every(!) picture, etc I've ever commented? Oh god, I don't even remember where I have ever commented, there were groups I used to be a member of and then left, how can I find posts I made there? Your response will be soooo apreciated!!!

Here is the delete link. It is different from deactivate.

First log-into Facebook. Then click this link:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081019074222AAo0ual

lol
2 days ago , i have uploaded photo on facebook , and delete it

i kept da link before that

the photo still in the facebook

Rolando - you're right. That is very interesting. I had no idea that Facebook shared such a large amount of the user's profile with reunion / wink.com . You should write up a post about this, I can't find much information about it anywhere.

Narka, I don't think that you have to delete every post like I did, anymore. In the comment below yours is the delete link which (supposedly!) deletes all of your profile, including your content. If you do decide to go through with it, please let me know how it goes!

dj.r4iden, that's disappointing. I thought that Facebook 'fixed' that policy of keeping caches of old / deleted accounts, but as you've shown, they still hang on to that data. A shame.

I felt the need to comment on this page, although I don’t normally take part in these things (rather than reading them and mumbling to myself) Anyways, I really enjoyed this posting because it really stirs up my soup. Let me explain…

When Facebook came out into popularity, like everyone else I received never-ending email requests from friends suggesting that I check it out. I attempted to not take part in the “new thing”, but after about 3 months of persuasion I decided to join it and see what all the excitement was about.

When joining I decided that I would not share the type of information that some have a tendency to do on Facebook because I found it astonishing what you could find out about someone online, I did not want to be part of that.

Long story short, I have been on Facebook for about a year now... On a regular basis I delete comments that are placed on my wall, and do not add applications that tend to get nasty such as super wall etc...

When I went to my account today to look at my profile I clicked the show more posts link and to my dismay there was posts that I have individually deleted, I seen posts all the way back from the first day I joined Facebook!

I have been deleting them one by one and now Facebook is not showing them to me although I have not deleted them all, I am not impressed. Not that there is bad things on the wall but I have ALREADY deleted them!

I do Anti-Cyberbully presentations around my city to enlighten students about their online privacy and how to deal with things such as cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking etc... I am absolutely revolted with Facebook.

I honestly feel that the major thing to do is to educate people especially our young so that they are aware of the types of things that can happen using applications such as Facebook, I am glad to say that I have helped many children so far in this respect and I will continue to.

Thank you for the good quality read...

Haha i didn't look to see that this was actually written a year and a half ago...

There is actually a new way you can delete everything in one go: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

By the way your captcha is kind of weird...it seems (to my uneducated mind) that if this type of thing (math problems) were used a lot somebody would create spam robots that recognize math problems, and for the answer they would solve them. But i don't really know anything about this sort of thing so i'm going ot shut up.

Mamalicious,

Thanks for your comment. Your experience seems to mirror a lot of other folks'. The underlying premise about Facebook's privacy problems extends past what you could "find out about someone" online, but that you can't see what information of yourself is up on the network, without actually becoming a member. So not only is there the main issue of what someone could find out about you, but that you can't even see what information about you is out there.

You're also right that this is more about education - especially youth education - than specifically targeting any one social network. It's easy to use Facebook as a scapegoat. It's more difficult to get young people to understand why protecting their personal data is important.

You got it all wrong... We post because we know our "private data" isn't private. Why fight that which you can not control. You believe your in control, and I'll prove you wrong with a simple search.

Maybe because you don't live in the US. Trust me tho.. your secrets aren't secrets.. Should I give you a call?

http://www.acornactivemedia.com/files/smansour.jpg

Heres a picture mate.

After a short talk with Steven, I agree. Some people aren't aware how much of there personal info is being shared online and education for our younger generations 18 and under I mean is needed. But some of that needs to fall on the parents as well. I choose to be open with just about everything because hey.. If someone can call steven after a 5 sec search then why should I try to hide.

Incognito, I've answered your comments here.

Okay so I have read most of the posts on here, may have missed one or two, but I think I may have found the facebook loophole to having information deleted by facebook ASAP. Let me know if this sounds right.... I found in the privacy policy this following statement:

No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on Facebook. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@facebook.com.

So I am guessing if you contact facebook, let them know u have just found your son/daughter going under an alias (your account - ok so u are pretending to be your own mother/father) that u aren't happy and u want the info deleted instantly due to privacy...

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, or if it would work, but according to their policy i am guessing it could.
Good luck all xx

Personally, I have grown sick of the entirety of the internet. I use it for info and I get bombarded with advertising or social networking. Bah! Right now you have the same talentless hacks working for and promoting social networking sites like Yelp and Facebook that worked for the absolute content-free sites back during the dot-com boom. They are typically some fool who couldn't hold a candle in a real survival situation, or truly responsible situation, or a situation that required them to progress, or any sort of episode that demanded them actually walking over and talking to someone. They work for companies that like to brag that they have a "Google" type atmosphere. Like it's f_cking Disneyland or something. "Our work culture is so great, because we are so entitled being better than everyone else because you work for a freakin icon!! An icon!!! Be proud!! Oh yeah you get a free snapple while we shuttle you to work in a Hummer limo from the train station. Lame. "Um yeah, I provide support for customers that have issues with the uploading of pictures on Myspace" And this gets you out of bed in the morning? F-King losers. During this economic downturn, take a look and introspect yourself to see if what you do helps you, or anyone else. I mean real help, not "Is this good for the company". And if not, just shoot yourself because your taking up valuable airtime.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

What happened to this Steve? He looks, dare I say, hipster?

Anyway, incognito + his picture are absolutely hilarious.

PS. I want pizza...

hello

My account has been disabled 7 days ago, and till now i'm not getting any
reply, from facebook team
My login is : ayman@lebsol.com

is there any one here can help me to get my account back,
coz i have business there and i don't want to lost it

Thanks
Ayman

This is freaking hilarious. I have many friends who "stay off the radar" for their own reasons. I used to think they were kooky, but after reading all of this, I think they may have more insight than I gave them credit for.

"Facebook ruined my life" That's my new motto!

From Facebook..

If you do not think you will use Facebook again and you would like to delete your account, you can do this yourself by taking the following steps: 1. Log in to your Facebook account. 2. Click the “Help” link at the bottom of any page. 3. Select the “Privacy” link from the "Using Facebook" section of the Help Center. 4. Click the “I want to permanently delete my account” link toward the bottom of the page. Please keep in mind that once your account is deleted, you will not be able to reactivate the account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

Simple, dont join facebook in the first place you frigging losers. Get a real life with REAL friends.

cool, I agree.
Even penpal is phoney but safe.

Steve,
I found all of your comments very entertaining and informative. Thanks for the info. Good to know. Additionally, you are hot man !

Hi Steve - very informative! The way you present yourself reminds me of my husband! Get my sh*t off the f*cking website or else! LOL

C in NH

I guess I don't see the big deal. If you put stuff out on the internet via ANYTHING, it's public domain, no matter how "private" you think your page is. I've never seen a bigger bunch of whiners about privacy, when said whiners put themselves into the positions they're in. If you were THAT worried about privacy you wouldn't have signed up for a facebook, myspace, whatever account in the first place. Yes facebook should make it simple instead of making you jump through hoops to delete an account, but big freakin deal if your account isn't deleted. Again, if you were THAT worried about privacy, you wouldn't have signed up in the first place. I just don't understand it, seriously.

If you don't want your activities known, do not use the internet. Simple as that. In this day and age there's not many people out there who don't know that everything can be traced. So if you're afraid of that, sell your computer and call it a day. I don't know what else to tell you.

heh heh, i just posted a link to this site to my facebook page. think they'll seek revenge?

Now I am paranoid about my Google checkout account, although I do receive a teeny tiny discount. I guess they are paying me to give them permission to spy.

People don't realize how powerful this incriminating stuff on the internet can be. I have seen people lose jobs because of what they have posted on social networking sites.

Let's say you witness a crime and you are called to testify agains the perp. The defense attorney looks up your FB or Myspace page and uses information to erode your credibility with the jury. The perp walks because you joined a FB group called, "Lying Liars and Those Who Love Lying."

or

You become a whistleblower regarding illegal government activities. Everything you've ever said or posted on FB is fair game. All forms of social dissent are completely quashed because everyone is afraid of being publically humiliated because their ex girl/boy friend posted unflattering information/pics on FB or other sites. The people no longer have control over their government. (Not that we do now, really, but...)

Look what happened to Levi Johnston, the guy who knocked up Sarah Palin's kid, when the contents of his social networking profile became public. I felt bad for him.

I saw some statistic recently that said a large percentage of teens on Myspace have information on their profiles admitting to some sort of illegal activity, such as drug use.

Instant loss of credibility when one is involved in the legal system as a witness or as a party to a lawsuit. Think about that!

Hi,
I find your article very interesting. Although i havent understood why you would want to leave facebook. And another thing that tackeled me is that what could they use your information for? They cant really do much.
For instance, Yaay the know my name,, Yaay they know I am a fan of lewis hamilton,,
But do they really give a shit? Ok maybe they saw a picture of you and a couple
of your friends. How can they use your information to their value?
I heard, when you apply to some colleges, they immeidietly log in to facebook,
and check if you have one, and look for valuble information. But still, how much
value can they make of you being a fan of this guy, and a pic of you and a couple
of friends, and finding out what kind of music you like. The idea of them wanting
to hold on to you is pretty fucked up, but i dont see how they can really hurt me with
that. I honestly find it a very nice communication tool, plus i added all the athletes
who have facebook accounts ^^. (Rubens barichelo, kimi raikonen, Lewis hamilton, Felipe Massa)
''F1 drivers''. And its actually them, becuase i've seen them talk about it
in interviews.

hah, The CEO is a 23 year old guy who by the looks of him, was probably picked on a lot in school....As a computer geek, this is probably his way of attaining power and control over all the "jerks" in life, (bwah hahaha). Who but someone who had no social life would create something that enables all the "lurker's/cyber stalkers" out there to see what all the cool kids are really up to! (I'm only sort of joking here) So I'm willing to bet it's more than likely not a "can't" issue, but a "won't" issue from the top down. What's the saying.."Geeks shall inherit the earth!"???

OMG...that was so good..I honestly can't stand Facebook..so now I know how to delete my account too..Thanks Steven

I don't know, I see your point about privacy, etc. But the reality is, most of us just aren't that interesting...I don't see who is going to care about my information. Obviously, I'd never put my address, ss# or credit cards on there.

How about you read the user agreement before you actually use the service there genius. Your just mad cause they out smarted you. You clicked agreed and now your pissed cause you agreed. You dont tell someone how to ruin there service dumbass, they will run it how they want. Your just a bitch. If you dont want to have your personal info up then dont put it up in the first time and deal with the one by one deleting, you agreed to it jackass.

I'm with Jaquan on this one, everything was just great with facebook until you realized that you willingly put your info out there and now all of a sudden cant get it all back. I recall a children's story that goes somewhat like this: A person said mean things about another, in the end she wanted to take it back, she goes to the wiseman in the village and he tells her to take a handful of feathers and toss them in the wind and come back 3 days later. She does so and then he tells her to gather the feathers again. She comes back disappointed because she cannot find all of the feathers. The wise man tells her of course not, you can no more bring back hurtful words than you can feathers from the wind.

Maybe you had never heard this story but it directly applies to you. You scattered your info like so many feathers and now you complain that the internet wont give them all back. Everyone that complains about facebook not letting them delete things or are worried about the privacy of the things they put on there should THINK before they post. I have a facebook account and I dont necessarily spend hours thinking about how everything I post will look to anyone I could possibly meet, but I will say that I am not ashamed of anything I have on there about me.

I don't have anything on facebook to use against me so I'm not worried. It isn't rocket science to know that you don't put personal info where everyone can see it, if you're worried about strangers getting the info then only let friends see it. I think the people who are spasming out the most about this are the ones, who in 10 years, will be wanting a govt. job and can't get it because they put shit on their facebook page...or myspace. I don't put anything on there that my family can't see or read. Great article, I loved it

Ok, I will try to reply to most of your questions and comments so far here:

Incognito #1 wrote:

So I am guessing if you contact facebook, let them know u have just found your son/daughter going under an alias (your account - ok so u are pretending to be your own mother/father) that u aren't happy and u want the info deleted instantly due to privacy...

Sure, they might close your account if they suspect that a minor was using it, but there is no way to know whether they really deleted all your content or if they're hanging on to it. But really, do we need to resort to impersonating a child in order to get a simple account closed? Don't answer that.

Incognito #2 wrote:

"Um yeah, I provide support for customers that have issues with the uploading of pictures on Myspace" And this gets you out of bed in the morning? F-King losers. During this economic downturn, take a look and introspect yourself to see if what you do helps you, or anyone else. I mean real help, not "Is this good for the company". And if not, just shoot yourself because your taking up valuable airtime.

Nice rant - I share the sentiment. We live in a pretty crappy generation where people assign themselves worth because of the company they happen to work for.

Ayman M. wrote:

My account has been disabled 7 days ago, and till now i'm not getting any
reply, from facebook team
My login is : ayman@lebsol.com

is there any one here can help me to get my account back,
coz i have business there and i don't want to lost it

Sorry Ayman, I don't work for facebook so i can't help you with that.

IB wrote:

This is freaking hilarious. I have many friends who "stay off the radar" for their own reasons. I used to think they were kooky, but after reading all of this, I think they may have more insight than I gave them credit for.

"Facebook ruined my life" That's my new motto!

I don't stay off the radar all that much - I just prefer to stay in control of the radar station as much as possible.

"Facebook ruined my dinner" would be an awesome name for a hipster indie rock band.

Jeff wrote:

4. Click the “I want to permanently delete my account” link toward the bottom of the page. Please keep in mind that once your account is deleted, you will not be able to reactivate the account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.

Thanks Jeff - but will this permanently erase all the content associated with the deleted account as well?

Incognito #3 wrote:

Simple, dont join facebook in the first place you frigging losers. Get a real life with REAL friends.

Heh, I agree that for most people, Facebook isn't worth the effort they put into it, and that social networks in general are a big waste of time - for me. But for those who choose to use the service, it's worth thinking about how to improve the protection of their own privacy, even if I'm not on it. These things will continue to surface and it's all about making sure that the precedents we set now are the right ones we want for the future.

Incognito #4 wrote:

The way you present yourself reminds me of my husband! Get my sh*t off the f*cking website or else! LOL

I've got my shit spread on different website all over the internet - that's not my problem. I'm more concerned with being informed about how it gets used and shared without my consent, and that's where Facebook falls flat. Your husband sounds like a cool dude!

Melanie wrote:

I guess I don't see the big deal. If you put stuff out on the internet via ANYTHING, it's public domain, no matter how "private" you think your page is.

I think I know what you mean, but your use of the term "public domain" is ambiguous in this case. If you're saying that "anything uploaded to the internet can be accessed by anyone", then fine - but you're missing the point, Melanie. Sure, anything on this here blog is accessible by anyone, on my own terms. However, things on Facebook are not accessible to me because I'm not a member, because they've managed to build this walled garden where people can feel safe about sending up their content and making it only accessible by their friends, and not the public... except that it's far more than your friends who have access to it.

If you were THAT worried about privacy you wouldn't have signed up for a facebook, myspace, whatever account in the first place. Yes facebook should make it simple instead of making you jump through hoops to delete an account, but big freakin deal if your account isn't deleted. Again, if you were THAT worried about privacy, you wouldn't have signed up in the first place. I just don't understand it, seriously.

Not everyone knows better, and most people - myself included - just signed on because "all our friends were on it". It *is* a big deal if your account isn't deleted, and the fact that Facebook didn't make this clear at registration doesn't speak well for what they intend to do with the data. I don't understand what you don't understand, seriously.

If you don't want your activities known, do not use the internet. Simple as that. In this day and age there's not many people out there who don't know that everything can be traced. So if you're afraid of that, sell your computer and call it a day. I don't know what else to tell you.

Sure Melanie. If you don't want your activities know, don't go to work. Don't visit friends. Hell, don't even step out of your house. Arguments like that are very fatalist and passive. What is wrong with educating people about their rights and illuminating deficiencies in the system in the hopes of fixing things?

RW42 wrote:

You become a whistleblower regarding illegal government activities. Everything you've ever said or posted on FB is fair game. All forms of social dissent are completely quashed because everyone is afraid of being publically humiliated because their ex girl/boy friend posted unflattering information/pics on FB or other sites. The people no longer have control over their government. (Not that we do now, really, but...)

Sure - remember that credibility is always just a lack of available incriminating data. I have lots of potentially incriminating information about myself spread around the internet, but the difference is that I'm aware of it. Kids post things to facebook that they think only their friends will see, blissfully unaware that 10 or 20 years down the line it will be used against them if it needs to be. Again, it's the illusion of privacy controls that Facebook offers that I have a problem with.

Yazan wrote:

I find your article very interesting. Although i havent understood why you would want to leave facebook. And another thing that tackeled me is that what could they use your information for? They cant really do much.
For instance, Yaay the know my name,, Yaay they know I am a fan of lewis hamilton,,
But do they really give a shit? Ok maybe they saw a picture of you and a couple
of your friends. How can they use your information to their value?
I heard, when you apply to some colleges, they immeidietly log in to facebook,
and check if you have one, and look for valuble information. But still, how much
value can they make of you being a fan of this guy, and a pic of you and a couple
of friends, and finding out what kind of music you like.

1) What do you get out of adding these "friends" on Facebook? Does it help you feel cooler?

2) They could do a lot with your information, Yazan, especially the way it's structured on Facebook. Say one day, one of your Facebook friends whose wall you write back and forth on goes and does something stupid and is arrested. Then a few months later you get bored of Facebook and decide to stop using it. Then 5 years later you apply for a job, and they look you up on Facebook only to find that you were friends with this dude 5 years ago - guess what? That doesn't reflect well on you.

That's a pretty lame example, but don't underestimate the value of the sum of little bits of information about you that might seem insignificant at first.

ana wrote:

But the reality is, most of us just aren't that interesting...I don't see who is going to care about my information. Obviously, I'd never put my address, ss# or credit cards on there.

See above re: value of information. Facebook collects things like location, your interpersonal relationships (what's more valuable than that, really?), political views, groups you belong to... with even a fraction of this stuff you can build quite a complete profile on anyone. And I'm sure you're very interesting!

Jaquan wrote:

How about you read the user agreement before you actually use the service there genius. Your just mad cause they out smarted you. You clicked agreed and now your pissed cause you agreed. You dont tell someone how to ruin there service dumbass, they will run it how they want. Your just a bitch. If you dont want to have your personal info up then dont put it up in the first time and deal with the one by one deleting, you agreed to it jackass.

Whoa there skipper - I had a hard time reading your comment because of the typos / bad english / lack of structure. It sounds like you're the one who's mad - I was just pointing out how silly it was that Facebook makes you do all this to close an account. Aaaaaaand... I'm done replying to someone who doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're".

Now that's maddening!

Guess I havent made the same mistake once. The only social network I belong to are the friends I meet with for lunch.

Perhaps more people should be activating FaceBook accounts that give totally false information about themselves and changing their email contact address to president@whitehouse.com.

I love my facebook.

They can keep all my personal data. Someday it may be worth alot (and I mean ALOT) of money.

Or some e-geek executive from FB will steal my identity and use it to make fake passports.

Either way, I can still poke, and be poked , and really, this is truly the spice of life is it not?

I want Lucy's job.

Melanie, you are wise. The best comment I've seen here (I haven't read all of them, though). Most of these people seem to spend a majority of their time indoors, on the computer, safe from most of the bad things they imagine may happen due to their nonsense posted on all of these juvenile 'spaces' and 'faces' places. My attitude is this; go outside, do something that doesn't require high thought (or spelling). For example, go to the local Salvation Army and serve food once in a while. Go to a nursing home and challenge all comers to a cribbage tournament. DO SOMETHING fer christ's sake! Others have said it and I concur; "what a bunch of whiners!!!). Geez, allright I'll answer the math question straight.

Hm... the best way to circumvent Facebook is to do what I did, use a fictitious name and an email addy also registered to that name.
(through an anonymous server)
Pretty hard for them to figure out who I really am! lol
Only my "real" friends know me.

I use so many fake names and have so many "fake" email adressess, Ive forgotten who I really am.......so I guess privacy isnt an issue. Oh, and its kind of ironic that a post warning about lack of privacy of one site, requires me to give an email address and name...life is just full of delicious moments...

Facebook is a fuckin bitch. It's like they have me on a damn 14 days waitin list to get my fuckin account deleted? are they really so desperate to maintain their ranking in the top social networking webring? what fucking jackasses.

It goes a lot deeper than just facebook...

http://www.encrypt-the-planet.com/optout.htm

...And they did link here. I closed my Facebook after reading all this. Thanks for the info! Now all I need to do is concentrate on all the others from that link. What a mess.

Haha - yeah I managed to cock up the deactivation process a few times myself! It is a case of slashing dragons on the way out innit!

I just closed my facebook account 2 weeks ago and I was a HUGE user, totally addicted, 2500+ tagged photos of myself and 254 albums. Sad I know, but then that's that name of the game over there.

The thing that tipped the scales for me though was the rise of a new type of spamming, where people write notes and tag-spam you with them. They answer some crappy chain mail which instructs them to tag 25 of their friends and talk bullshit.

I view tagging is a highly personal thing on facebook, and usually I presume that as I was tagged by someone who is a friend, there must be something vitally important to me in it, or perhaps I am IN the note they send me.

But no, invariably I'm not in there at all, but it's some self-obsessed monologue or some other chain crap, that, if it were in my email I would disregard.

By tagging me in it, it catches my attention and wastes my time. Why would people I have chosen to call my friends send me spam? I have no idea.

As a result of this constant spamming by people I thought in real life were not morons, I decided that it was better to remember my friends as people that I actually like and respect, and not as idiots who send me crap that wastes my time, and so the decision to close my facebook account was made.

I must admit it's been the best decision I've ever made, and although I sometimes think it would be respectful to open my account again and make it easier for my real friends to contact me again, I figure that if they really did want to contact me it's no real effort to pick up the phone or open their email program.

Alternatively they could (and you could) send me a REAL post to post on my REAL wall, at www.myrealwall.com where I decided to post REAL letters. Anyone's welcome to post on my REAL wall, but I can almost guarantee that the cost of a stamp and the effort of having to put pen to paper will deter most people.

Hey nice article and thanks for speaking out against the corporate fascists. I was wondering if you came across this problem: Several years ago I created a facebook profile with my college email address which was a requirement back in the day. For reasons unknown I was unable to log back in ever, so I used it maybe once or twice. Now at least four years later I created a new account with a different email which is a no no to facebook. After checking up on some long lost 'friends' I discovered that my old facebook profile is still there collecting dust and since I can't log in with my old college email, I can't even deactivate it! It just sits there suspended in time. I've sent around four or five emails so far with no luck. I think it will be there forever unless maybe I can break into their headquarters, hack their mainframe, and/or just burn the place down (j/k) but it seems reasonable compared to sending emails to 'Marc' of user operations of facebook. Anyone out there know of a remedy. I guess I could file a lawsuit.

Oh man I think I just scored a deactivated account! Yes it only took six emails! Victory is mine? Oh well back to square 1. I owe somebody credit but I'm not sure who? I'll just thank all you folks. Thanks and happy spring reset your clocks ahead one hour day.

since andy warhol said: "Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes", facebook provide a chance for everyone to, on so many levels, expose themselves to the world. it's frigtening.
I am on facebook, don't want to sound hipocrit, but I hate exibitionism that facebook, more than every other site, makes posible.
It was fun at the beginning, it's sad now (and, did I mentioned frigtening).
anyway, you made me laugh, and i think you are right .

and sorry for my englis, it's not so good.

I really admire your persistency. Concerning Facebook I have given up - I´m letting them keep my account for ever. But I don´t worry too much about it. Because since I never trusted communitys like that I always give them incorrect information, false name, false email etc. And the funny thing is that friends of mine that use Facebook they send all their messages, photos and stuff straight to my personal email address, because they know it will not reach me if they use Facebook.
And all my true friends have my personal email address. The rest are not my friends.
The last thing I need is people I haven’t talked to in 20 years being able to find me.
Which brings up the question why does Facebook exist in the first place ...

Duey..Just wondering why the fuck would you stay on facebook just beacuse you want to talk to people that you saw like 10 years ago??...Dude you should seriously get a life and meet some new friends instead of clinging on to the past!...It makes no sense at all!!!!

Ah this is the United States of who gives a shit man. I joined facebook nation just like everyone else. Maybe I care about the people I used to know ten years ago? Ever think of that? Caring means sharing. Somebody need a hug?

The only social network I belong to are the friends I meet with for lunch.

That's the only kind you need.

Oh, and its kind of ironic that a post warning about lack of privacy of one site, requires me to give an email address and name.

You're not required to give anything. Stay anonymous and give a fake email address - unlike on Facebook, your lack of disclosure doesn't prevent from commenting on my blog.

Ah this is the United States of who gives a shit man. I joined facebook nation just like everyone else.

That already says so much about it, doesn't it?

That was very informative...
How exactly can I contact a Facebook representative? Thanks

Hi there,

Enjoyed reading about your battle to leave Facebook. I have just done so, seems they have now updated the way it works and you can PERMANENTLY delete your account at the click of a button. I got a message saying that the process would take 14 days, if I log in in the meantime it will cancel the deletion process. However, I don't trust the people at Facebook, and I have come across a couple of users saying they had permanently deleted their accounts but posts still remained on their friends' walls etc. Do you know anything about this? Now I'm thinking I might have to log back in and manually delete everything before I "permanently delete" my account again. I tell you, I would never have signed up for Facebook in the first place if I had known what a bunch of vampiric ghouls they are.

Keep up the good work!

Hey man, great page.
I linked it on my site - for who wants to escape from face-FACK-book.

Best regards.

One of the funniest things I've read in ages, great write up.
"We suck so hard it tears away at the very fabric of time and space." lol
Also couldn't stop laughing at the pwned collage.
Feel very relieved to have left the black hole!

ok i have found the PERFECT SOLUTION!

I know its a link to facebook but check it out, its awesome! It deactivates ur account for 2 weeks and then completely deletes it!

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

Direct link: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account