Facebook Adds Delete Account Option

roseability writes "Facebook have quietly added the ability to delete you account. 'Deactivate Account', under Account Setting, has become 'Deactivate or Delete Account', and when checked it purports to permanently delete your account and all information you have shared. Facebook is actually willing to erase your data permanently? They must be counting on very few people doing so." Mixed reports on this: perhaps this is a limited test?

Comments

I deleted my account months ago

[FictionPimp]

They have always had an option to delete your account or deactivate. They just made finding the delete function easier now.

Re:I deleted my account months ago

[betterunixthanunix]

They have not always had an option to delete your account. It was not that long ago that deleting your account required you to call them up and argue about the issue; in fact, the media fallout over that process is the reason they created the "delete account" option in the first place.

Re:I deleted my account months ago

[betterunixthanunix]

What is new is that deleting your account is now in the same place as "deactivating" it, which should help alleviate some of the confusion people had earlier.

Re:I deleted my account months ago

[etnoy]

The parent is somewhat correct; the delete option has existed for a long time, though it has been extremely well-hidden. I would describe it as a hack. When I deleted my account in early 2008, I had to create a new fake account and "overwrite" the e-mail of the old one. Everything I had done vanished, including all my messages in groups and on other people's "walls". There's a better explanation of the procedure here.

Re:If this would allow us to get rid of...

[bacon volcano]

There was a good article in the New York Times about this a week or so ago. It's actually a bit of an issue for the site. Turns out they do have a way of handling it, but it's far from perfect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/technology/18death.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=facebook%20dead&st=cse

Re:I'm not into Facebook - yet! What am I missing?

[BVis]

Sorry, can't let this one go. "Naivete"

Re:No Delete Option...

[ZeroExistenZ]

I've tried this a while ago...

They promise to delete your account within 14 days without active use. (if you login, you reactivate your account.)

See delete account

They only made it easier to do

[PalmKiller]

You have always been able to go here to delete your facebook account which was easy to find in google http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account They have only made it simpler for those who take things at face value (pun intended).

Had this long ago

[wisnoskij]

They have had this option to delete accounts for years now.
I even used it like 4 years ago.

Maybe they just moved the button that starts the process?

Re:is "delete" really an option?

[Goaway]

I did the exact same thing, and got the same result. However, I recalled hearing that the option has existed for some time already, and has just been very well hidden.

I looked it up, and the trick is to go to this address:

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

Re:If this would allow us to get rid of...

[daid303]

I'm still looking for the:
[x] Send an email reminder about deleting my account after I died.
Option in FB.

Re:I'm not into Facebook - yet! What am I missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

So hide him.

If he ever decides to send you a message, write on your wall, or comment on one of your posts, you’d see it. In the meantime, you don’t have to read all of his dumb status updates. Just click the convenient Hide button and tell it to hide him from your news feed.

Sheesh some people make things so difficult.

Re:Will it delete your data?

[neoform]

In several countries (eg. Canada) they cannot retain the info once you've requested it deleted. They also cannot simply sell it to whomever they want.