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Facebook Will Harass You Mercilessly If You Try To Break Up (slate.com)
schwit1 shares a summary from PJ Media: Breaking up with Facebook is apparently as difficult as breaking up with a bad boyfriend or girlfriend who won't accept your decision. That's the experience Henry Grabar of Slate had when he stopped signing on. He stopped logging in on June 6 and stayed off Facebook for ten days. He had been a member for over ten years and this was the longest period he had remained off the social network. But Facebook didn't leave him alone. He received 17 email messages in a span of nine days urging him to return.
Grabar is not alone in trying to wean himself off Facebook for various reasons. Some do it because they realize it can be a waste of time, while others do it because of the company's inability to protect (or lack of interest in protecting) its members' personal data. The company has mistakenly released data of millions of its members and friends of members to third parties, and many of them have used the data for illicit purposes. While Facebook says they are not losing members, some recent statistics paint a different story. According to a Pew study, only 51 percent of U.S. teenagers use the service now, down from 71 percent in 2015. This was the first time the numbers have fallen. The frequent messages reinforced Grabar's decision to stay off the platform. Some of the messages included photo updates from his friends; liked posts from groups he belonged to; and comments about a news article that was posted to a group he belonged to.
Grabar is not alone in trying to wean himself off Facebook for various reasons. Some do it because they realize it can be a waste of time, while others do it because of the company's inability to protect (or lack of interest in protecting) its members' personal data. The company has mistakenly released data of millions of its members and friends of members to third parties, and many of them have used the data for illicit purposes. While Facebook says they are not losing members, some recent statistics paint a different story. According to a Pew study, only 51 percent of U.S. teenagers use the service now, down from 71 percent in 2015. This was the first time the numbers have fallen. The frequent messages reinforced Grabar's decision to stay off the platform. Some of the messages included photo updates from his friends; liked posts from groups he belonged to; and comments about a news article that was posted to a group he belonged to.
I did. The emails stopped shortly after.
Try cancelling DirecTV. I did, but - dang! - what an experience!
First, there is ZERO way to cancel online. You MUST call in to them.
Next, prepare yourself for a lengthy "we can drop your price!" pitches (which, TBH, if that's your game, consider it a freebie from me to you) all the way through - and I am not making this up! - "you're making me very sad by cancelling."
It ALMOST would have been easier just to cancel my credit card....
Then Slate does not conform to the GDPR, and are exposing themselves to being sued by european users. Acceptance for different kinds of use of data *must* be separate, and service *may not be denied* when only the minimum required for delivery of service is accepted (e.g. the online shop 3suisses using your address for delivering goods to you and invoicing you, but denied from selling your data to 3rd parties, where they used to make most of their money).
Oh well, Slate has a lot of company that way, few have bothered to implement GDPR properly so far. Of course, they'll cry a river when the fines start coming...
On the + side: the data they are not allowed to collect can't be leaked. Or it'll seriously bite them if they collect them anyway, and they get loose.
They keep shadow accounts on people who never join Facebook. Do you really think they're ever going to throw away data that they've collected on people they actually already have the name of?
The most they're likely to do is make an account inactive so that you can't log into it anymore. They'll continue to collect data on you and if by some chance you ever log in again it will all be waiting for you. So it's a service. Right?