WTH Facebook...

Something happened a few days ago that forced me to immediately deactivate and 'delete' my facebook account. I use the 'delete' word loosely because facebook makes it very difficult to rid the world of its property...uh I mean my profile. The first disconcerting thing I learned when researching how to delete their account is 'all your facebook are belong to facebook'! Anything you store on facebook belongs to facebook whereas facebook can do with whatever they like from now until the end of facebook. As someone working in the tech field, I sub-conciously acknowledge this when creating the account, but when it comes down to trying to delete a profile, I kinda feel regretful that I didn't take this knowledge more seriously.

The second thing I noticed was that while it is easy to temporarily deactivate an account, you will have to search the internet on how to delete an account. Google found a user-created facebook fan page that details the URL you will have to manually enter to get to facebook's delete form. Even when you complete this form, facebook's sirens entice you back by letting you know that your account will remain for 14 days and if you ever log back in, the pending deletion will be canceled and your account will be happily re-activated.

Oh, I left out what happened didn't I? Well, I use different usernames for video game websites and forums than any other accounts. It is my identity across games. A few nights ago, I had browsed my video game websites and forums before I went to facebook. In the upper-right hand corner I notice a friend suggestion that asks me if I want to add that "private video game website username" as a friend! The only way I can figure facebook knows this username is that it either read my browsing history, read my IE cookies or captured my username input. I don't put it past them because their founder and CEO is young and ambitious. I'm sure that he thinks, as many of the internet generation think, that everything on the internet is legal and fair game. That was WAAAY too intrusive to me.


6 days deleted and counting.