From: "steve pirk [egrep]" <steve@pirk.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:24:04 -0700
Subject: Re: Facebook insecure by design>
>
> > You can even download it all and erase yourself if
> > you want out.
>
> Don't count on it. You may 'disappear' from public view, but that does
> not necessarily mean the data is truely 'gone'. Specific example -- if
you
> request a USENET posting to be removed, all they do is make it 'invisible'
> to the world. It is _not_ removed from the databases, or from inernal
> access/use.
>
>That is a very good point, and one of the things that is being tested now
that Buzz is going into archive mode. Users are given the option of backing
up their posts on Buzz, and then deleting their Buzz content. Many like
myself will just leave it there. It is a year+ of history, and what I posted
publicly can stay public.It is supposed to remove all your Buzz content from the service and I
believe it includes the content shared only with certain individuals. It
does not completely erase it, because I believe email copies of the posts
and comments that people had sent to their Gmail accounts will remain with
those users.Deleting a product like your Picasa web albums is permanent as far as I
know, but I will definitely ask some people on the Picasa team. Deleting
your search history and other Dashboard items is supposed to be permanent,
but as you pointed out, we are taking Google's word for it.
I _don't_ know, but I *strongly* suspect that things like search history
_are_ kept -- although 'detached' from any identification of the original
person. That kind of information is simply 'too valuable' -- for pattern
recognition, say -- to entirely discard. I also suspect it remains as
part of lots of aggregate demographics, etc. I wouldn't be surrised if
they kept statistal data on 'who deletes what'. <grin>