Ask Slashdot: Getting an Uncooperative Website To Delete One's Account?

First time accepted submitter trentfoley writes "I've been trying to clean up my digital life (insert joke about having a life) and have run into a situation I fear is too common. Many social websites, nextdoor.com in particular, do not allow a user to delete the account they created. In the case of nextdoor.com, their privacy policy makes it clear that the user owns all of their data. If this is true, I should have the right to destroy that data. These lines of thought brought to mind the recent privacy defeat in Europe. Does the defeat of the EU's Right-to-be-Forgotten legislation bring a practical end to this debate?" I've read complaints today from Nextdoor.com users who say their data was sold, too.

Comments

call them

[Karmashock]

I've gotten a lot of sites that don't let you delete accounts to delete the account by simply calling them. Their numbers are often hard to find but get them on the phone and ask nicely.

Re:call them

[bill_mcgonigle]

Common advice for getting that big social networking site to respond to requests is to mail a paper letter to their HQ, possibly attn: legal affairs. Apparently the success rate is very high.

Re:call them

[plover]

Being nice is generally the key to resolving these things quickly and in your favor. Come in threatening lawsuits, and they'll ignore you until you actually engage a lawyer (at your own expense. )

Re:call them

[khasim]

And if that doesn't work then change as much as you can. Your email address should be the easiest. Then any other personal information that you can alter. If they won't delete it then make it worthless to them.

And this is another reason to fight against the current trend of requiring real names for accounts.

Re:call them

[Anonymous Coward]

And change the photos, and put nasty notes (they lie, you don't really have control of your account, etc.) in watermarks on the photos, and add new such photos. Do it slowly, a little each day for a couple months. Then just let it sit without warning them. Then don't delete it even if they want you to and re-create it each time they delete it. Create new accounts wilh nothing but bogus information using burner email accounts. Make them wish they had treated you right, even once they start treating you right.

Re:call them

[lister king of smeg]

Common advice for getting that big social networking site to respond to requests is to mail a paper letter to their HQ, possibly attn: legal affairs. Apparently the success rate is very high.

another good way is if there is a place to put age set is as under 12 many will delete it immediately due to law concerning keeping data about children.

Re:call them

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never given correct information to any website to start. It was completely obvious that they would use that information to their advantage as that is what capitalist corporations *do*.

Was there ever an advantage to me having the information with them? Is the information needed for them to perform a service for me? If the answer to those questions is no, then they get BS info, and a lower level password I keep in a protected space with all the rest.

If a company truly needs correct information from me, then I'm considerably more careful. However, that is actually quite rare. In most cases I can obfuscate and lie about my identity, even with paid services. Although they are working to plug those "meta" holes by heavily restricting just what you can purchase with prepaid credit cards, money orders, etc.

Social Networking is just plain dangerous when the information is centralized, and I never fell for it. It didn't matter what they were offering. I'm only interested in a completely decentralized, encrypted, p2p model similar to OneSocialMedia and Diaspora. Basically, if the infrastructure is inherently resistant towards surveillance and monetization by hostile parties (I consider advertising and marketing to be extremely hostile to my life) then I'm interested.

This post is a question about how to mitigate or outright reverse the damage to the person's privacy. I'm not sure that is really possible at all. More than likely, it's Pandora's box.

The answer is to have never danced with devil in the pale moonlight in the first place.

Here, just like other places, I purposefully choose identities that have conflicting data sets when you search for it. I know that I'm not 100% protected, but if they want to violate my privacy, they will have to work pretty damn hard to do it.

Re:call them

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI:

Entity Name: NEXTDOOR.COM, INC.
Entity Number: C3063398
Date Filed: 01/24/2008
Status: ACTIVE
Jurisdiction: DELAWARE
Entity Address: 101 SPEAR STREET SUITE 230
Entity City, State, Zip: SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105
Agent for Service of Process: WILSON CHAN
Agent Address: 101 SPEAR ST STE 230
Agent City, State, Zip: SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105

Re:call them

[zugmeister]

Oblig XKCD

Re:call them

[AmiMoJo]

Be prepared to spend a long time on the phone though, and even then they often won't really delete your account. I tried this with Apple recently as I had an ancient account from back when I had an early iPod a decade ago. It took half an hour on the phone, I had to listen to endless dire warnings about losing all the data on "my" iCloud account that they made for me without my knowledge or ever agreeing to the terms and conditions. Endless stuff about how all my iTunes purchases with DRM would commit suicide (I never made any) and how all my devices would stop working (battery died years ago, can't be bothered to pry the thing open to replace it, if you can even buy 3rd gen iPod batteries any more).

After all that they finally agreed to delete the account, but added that I would never be able to sign up with the same email address again... So they were not really deleting it. My personal details are still on file somewhere. In the new year I'm going to write to them to demand they expunge everything.

Long story short, we need that EU right to be forgotten and some strong enforcement.

Re:call them

[TrollstonButterbeans]

"The answer is to have never danced with devil in the pale moonlight in the first place."

Ugh. Extra Cheese post of the year finalist.

Re:call them

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible they might be legally obligated to retain some of that data.

Re:call them

[brianwski]

I don't know why you were modded down. I believe most banking is legally required to retain every customer transaction for 7 years. What does it exactly mean to "delete your Wells Fargo Online Account" when they are legally required to maintain your records?

If at any point your relationship involves a financial transaction, that company might have a valid interest in holding onto the receipts through at least the next year's taxes, and may have a responsibility to hold the records for longer.

bit of a tricky question with forums

[Trepidity]

Discussion lists traditionally don't give you a right to delete previous postings: Usenet and mailing list archives are forever. One rationale is simply technical inability (archives aren't controlled by a central authority), but there's also a sense that deleting miscellaneous posts from archives fragments the record of past conversations.

So, Nextdoor has forums and discussions. It seems fair to me that they don't retroactively delete posts from those. Therefore they need to maintain some kind of attribution to the now-deleted account. So they can't fully delete the account, in the sense of wiping any traces, but they could just make it a non-operable "deactivated" account that still has the posts attributed, but can't be used anymore. They might agree to hide the profile in this case, as well. Turns out, that is precisely what they do support.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[calzones]

Many discussion forums I've been a part of allow deleting your own posts. Some even allow editing. That they don't give you a mechanism to blindly mass-delete posts wouldn't change your ownership rights over them.

For that matter, "ownership" rights may simply mean that you retain copyright over the posts. This doesn't mean you get to somehow magically make them all vanish on a whim -- no more than an author can go out and change or magically vanish copies of books already in other people's possession.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[lgw]

George Lucas was (at least until recently) the owner of the Star Wars Christmas Special. That doesn't give him the right to destroy all tapes made of it in the world. (Much as he wanted to - rumor has it he bought up and destroyed a great many copies before the digital age made it pointless)

Ownership isn't the right to "unpublish".

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[Chrisq]

How does being the owner of something entitle you to someone else being required to provide the means to destroy it?

That's what "ownership" means. You get to control it.

Not necessarily. If you own a listed historic building then destroying or altering it is a criminal offence. There are quite a few other examples where you can own something but not legally destroy it.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[chill]

Yes.

An interesting post is here on how to create a forum from scratch. The use of foreign keys to control this sort of referential deletion is part of the article. A pretty good primer, actually.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[psmears]

Sure it does.

"You agree that by submitting content to our service, you are granting a non-revokable, perpetual license to said content."

In which case you don't own it.

I'm not sure that follows. It's quite possible to own some land, but for someone else to have (say) a right of way over it - either that you've granted yourself, or that has arisen some other way. Such a right of way doesn't stop you using the land agriculturally, building on it, selling it, granting rights over it to other people, or forbidding third parties to use the land. You don't, however, have the power to revoke the right of way.

In such a situation, you are still the owner of the land, legally and in an everyday sense. Some people would argue that the situation with data is the same - you may remain the owner, but someone else can still have rights over it.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[marcello_dl]

Websites "publish" when they broadcast html. Ownership of copyright means you should be able to stop publishing new html, which is what this guy asks.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[Anonymous Coward]

Saving the lot of it for posterity is quite pointless.

I quite disagree. An awful lot of it is just transient communications that have no real value today other than entertainment.

What about the technical forums? I can't even begin to count how many posts from over 5 years ago led me towards solutions today. Is there a lot of noise and incorrect data? Sure. However, some sites account for that and rate the answers. Would you want to delete data that is provably valuable in some lines of research?

That's the problem. How do you determine what is a good post and what is not a good post? What has value to somebody else 10 years from now?

I'm okay with limited ownership of my posts in technical forums.

Slashdot? Well, I take measures anyways. I'm not sure that I would want to destroy it or not. I don't even know if my posts are valuable. Certainly not all. Perhaps a few.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[beelsebob]

That's irrelevant, even if the owner had only sold one copy of his book, he would still not be able to demand it back.

Re:bit of a tricky question with forums

[pepty]

How does being the owner of something entitle you to someone else being required to provide the means to destroy it?

That's what "ownership" means. You get to control it.

You can own a copy of a book and not have the right to destroy other copies. You can own the copyright to a book and not have the right to destroy other people's copies of it. I can't find anything on Nextdoor.com that describes exactly what rights come with "owning your content", but I doubt they only gave themselves rights to it that are subject to the users' approval.

social media site trust

[turkeydance]

could be classified a delusional state.

Security Breaches

[PktLoss]

I'm often interested in deleting accounts I don't use to avoid handing over my data to attackers when their systems are breached. The more sites I've given my data to, the more likely some random attack that grabs a DB dump is to have a copy of my Name, Email, (hashed)? password, etc. Depending on the type of site it may even get some bonus data in the form of answers to security questions.

This sounds lame, but the amount of spam currently directed at the accounts I used on: the motley fool, eharmony, Adobe, is quite high. Just putting my name at the top makes it that much more likely I'll be scammed by some phishing email.

Do what you can

[nospam007]

Change all your details in the account settings, name, address, email etc.

Then, deactivate the account like they tell you in their help on their site.

http://help.nextdoor.com/customer/portal/articles/805273-deactivating-your-account

That's about it. Not even Slashdot will erase your old posts when you decide to quit here, nobody does that, it would ruin all the past conversations.

Re:Do what you can

[Purity Of Essence]

It doesn't imply anything. It's very clear.

From Nextdoor Member Agreement:

Content. You retain all ownership rights to the text, photos, video and other content you submit to Nextdoor.com (collectively, your “Content”). We can publish your Content in your neighborhood website or to nearby neighborhoods as described in our privacy policy.

From Nextdoor Privacy Policy:

In some cases, we may limit your ability to edit or remove Content from Nextdoor.com.

Violate the TOS

[crmanriq]

Well. As a last resort.
1) Change all of your user data that you can. Edit your profile so that all of the data is either blank, or not yours at all.
2) Edit your age down to below 13 years old. This may kick in automatic account privacy settings.
3) If none of this works, then look at the TOS and find things that they don't want you to do. (ie, Wikipedia freaks out if you mention suing them on any forum. A TOS might make it a violation to badmouth the parent company, or to solicit other users. You might think of creating a couple of throwaway accounts, and getting into a royal flamewar with your invisible clones. Call them really bad names. Threaten to sue them.)
4) Do not let number three go into the realm of anything illegal. Don't post porn in public fora. You simply want to make yourself unwelcome at this location.

UK : Data Protection Act

[Dr_Barnowl]

In the UK, the Data Protection Act requires that they delete your data on request.

Already solved

[buchner.johannes]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

The data subject has the right to be informed when his personal data is being processed. The controller must provide his name and address, the purpose of processing, the recipients of the data and all other information required to ensure the processing is fair. (art. 10 and 11)

Data may be processed only under the following circumstances (art. 7):

        when the data subject has given his consent
        when the processing is necessary for the performance of or the entering into a contract
        when processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation
        when processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject
        processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller or in a third party to whom the data are disclosed
        processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where such interests are overridden by the interests for fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject. The data subject has the right to access all data processed about him. The data subject even has the right to demand the rectification, deletion or blocking of data that is incomplete, inaccurate or isn't being processed in compliance with the data protection rules. (art. 12)

You can write a letter to any EU-based company requesting the deletion of your data and they are obliged to comply. Non-EU based companies are required to store person-related data in the EU, and thus are in the same situation. The data is not owned by the company.

But also see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23044809 (a court ruling) and http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/in-europe-a-right-to-be-forgotten-trumps-the-memory-of-the-internet/70643/ (comparison US/Europe)

Ownership

[jklovanc]

There are many comments about the ownership of the posts and how if the poster owned the posts he should be able to delete them. I have a different view.

From the Nextdoor Member Agreement:

Content. You retain all ownership rights to the text, photos, video and other content you submit to Nextdoor.com (collectively, your “Content”). We can publish your Content in your neighborhood website or to nearby neighborhoods as described in our privacy policy.

Notice they say rights. The poster owns the posts in that the poster is responsible for the content and the site can not sell or copy the posts to other sites. Those are the general copyright laws. The issue comes in that by posting on the site the owner has given a copy to someone else, much like giving someone a book. The poster still owns the right to the post but not ownership of that specific copy.

This is from the Privacy Policy:

Data Modification/Deletion. You can delete your account by contacting us. Alternatively, you can delete most types of individual Content items. Deleting your account will delete all Content you provided, except that we may choose to retain Content incorporated into the neighborhood's conversations (and, as applicable, nearby neighborhoods); and we may attribute that Content to your name even after you depart. If we allow you to change neighborhoods on our site, we may retain your conversation contributions in your old neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods (and keep the attribution to your name) but allow you to move your profile to your new neighborhood. If you are the subject of an unauthorized profile, please contact us.

It looks pretty explicit that they will retain conversations.

Here's a thought

[ArcadeMan]

If you don't want your life on the net, stop registering with your real information.

Easiest fix

[PopeRatzo]

The only way to win this game is not to play.

Don't feel you have to participate in every social media site. You really won't miss anything if you don't. People will tell you, "You have to have a social media presence to get a job" but that's just BS.

In fact, a very good skill to develop is the ability to ignore cultural phenomenon occasionally. It's almost like a superpower and it can really impact your happiness quotient. For example, I've made it to the last act of a semi-celebrity drama without knowing what a "Duck Dynasty" is, and the feeling is awesome. It takes a bit of preparation and planning, but it is possible to filter out nonsense. And make no mistake, social media is nonsense, and it's dangerous. You think you're getting something when in fact you're having something taken from you.

Re:Easiest fix

[TheloniousToady]

The only way to win this game is not to play.

Good point. If I may expound on that a little, once you post anything to any site, you essentially lose control of it. With social media like Slashdot which allow you to be a Pseudonymous Coward, there's little downside to that. But for sites like Facebook which require you to provide your real name and other real information, you lose something. Whether you gain more than you lose is up to you. For example, making contact with long-lost friends by using your real name on Facebook might be worth the loss of privacy to you.

In my own case, I've created a Facebook account but told it practically nothing about myself. For most folks on Facebook or similar sites, though, it's too late. The sites know what you've told them, and there's not much you can do about it except make full use of whatever privacy settings they deign to give you. And whether such sites honor your requests to remove information, in the absence of any laws compelling them to do so, seemingly is up to them.

Abine has a service for this

[Burz]

Its called 'DeleteMe' and you can check with them to see if they can help you with particular sites.

This is the same group that makes the anti-tracking browser addon 'DoNotTrackMe'.

Re:Abine has a service for this

[Burz]

Its called 'DeleteMe' and you can check with them to see if they can help you with particular sites.

This is the same group that makes the anti-tracking browser addon 'DoNotTrackMe'.

Seems there are modtrolls who don't want people to know about DeleteMe...

"Hey, it was the internet! Everybody was doing it!

[eyenot]

"

Just always be ready with damage-control on the stuff you have sprinkled around online. Always be up front with yourself and your employers / whomever else whose opinion of your past internet activities could possibly ever matter enough to make you care that much about it / your employers.

They would mostly be concerned about the image that you reflect onto their company. I've thought of this some times. To me, the best idea is to form a website that is your "professional image" site, and do damage-control from there. Maybe package it very simply with a link off of the front page to "My Web Footprint, Q & A".

Start with a nice lead-in that captures the empathy of the audience.

Go into detail about things that you find cringe-worthy, and shrug them off as not being a very big deal and not being reflective of who you are, today. Explain the misconceptions in your mind that led to those past statements or behaviors, and let the audience know how glad you are that you aren't like that any more. If there's evidence of that, link to the evidence.

There, now you're not a potential liability, you're a success story that the corporation can be happy to link to and parade around as proof that they are in touch with real people, not just any people, upward-mobile people.

You have the opportunity to get out of it in ways that older folks who did things they're ashamed of in the 60's and 70's didn't have:

(1.) The opportunity to face it head-on by knowing fully well that it's easily discoverable information and by becoming your own blackmailer ahead of anyone else.

(2.) The opportunity to spin it however you want and make it into whatever sort of rags-to-riches, turned-over-a-leaf, now-I-know-what-the-salt-of-the-Earth-is-really-like sort of story you really think people want to see.

(3.) The opportunity to surround it with gay frog images and links to buy your published-on-demand memoirs of those weird times.

Slashdot won't delete your account either

[craigminah]

Slashdot won't delete your account either

Email the investment bankers.

[retech]

I had some asshole that I had emailed once dump their entire gmail contact list into nextdoor and now I get a twice weekly email update also asking me to join. I emailed the woman asking her to remove me, but she did not. So...

I filtered their email with the following rules:
1. forward email to originator
2. forward to person who did this to me
3. forward to the investment team who owns the site: shastaventures.com
4. mark as junk
5. delete


I figure if they won't remove me, they might as well get the email too. You may want to use their email addresses and change the one you have on file with them.

Ask Slashdot?

[Fnord666]

Timothy, Timothy, Timothy. When will you ever learn? "Ask Slashdot" posts belong in the "Ask Slashdot" section so that those of us who choose to filter out those stories can do so. It doesn't work though if you keep posting "Ask Slashdot" stories in other sections.