Facebook is digging its own grave

[TheDag]

The interesting part is that I don't know if you tried, but after deleting ur account and disabling it, 1 year later you send them an email to re-instate it, and they will with all the content you ever uploaded. Sits on their servers.

thats easy to answer. once something is put on the net it is there forever. A story to illustrate. My wife had to buy a secret santa gift for the one person in the office she didn't know. Working in IT she figured he would have his own website. She came across one saying it was closed and redirected to the new website for the person. A quick download later and she typed in the address of the now defunct webpage not open to the public and she had all the information from that page. So the information never goes away it just is a bit harder to find. When you want it back it is easy enough to access.

likewise for years there has been facial recognition software in which you can take any photo and it will scan the web for matching photos. it doesn't matter if the photos are restricted in access like for example if you need to be given permission to view them. This program will still find them, display them and the website containing the photos and source information. it was actually designed for intelligence agencies but if you know how to access these programs you can use them. That is how wiki leaks gets their information.

 

[Blessedj01]

Not everything's on the internet forever. Certainly, if a websites claims they will "delete" your account and all the information on it, they should delete that information from their server. Not sure if FB does or does not, but they claim too.

 

[TheDag]

Not everything's on the internet forever. Certainly, if a websites claims they will "delete" your account and all the information on it, they should delete that information from their server. Not sure if FB does or does not, but they claim too.

the only way to be certain is to own your server and don't use anything not on your server. Even then if someone else can access it then even if you destroy your server there is the chance it is still there. if you don't own the server then it will be around.

 

[Humble Pie]

I don't use Facebook, I'm a private person.

 

[Blessedj01]

the only way to be certain is to own your server and don't use anything not on your server. Even then if someone else can access it then even if you destroy your server there is the chance it is still there. if you don't own the server then it will be around.

Yep that's true

tbh i'm even balking at having facebook for contacting family. I really just want to stop using the website. I actually don't want to even support the company any more.

 

[Humble Pie]

Not everything's on the internet forever. Certainly, if a websites claims they will "delete" your account and all the information on it, they should delete that information from their server. Not sure if FB does or does not, but they claim too.

Would it still show up on search engines though?

 

[joey_downunder]

I never joined facebook for that reason Humble Pie. I didn't want to possibly get contacted by people I didn't want to know any more.

 

[Blessedj01]

Would it still show up on search engines though?

Shouldn't do. Your name might show up for a while but I doubt it would last. Even if it does, they can't really index anything that wasn't made public because the bots don't have access to your account.

 

[lozzie]

That is why I frequently google myself to see if anything pops up in search engines. That way I can go and delete/edit privacy settings if I find myself popping up...

I actually like Facebook though... You just need to be careful about what you put up there... As a lot of people have mentioned, once its there it is there for good, even if you delete it. It is frustrating that they continually change their privacy setting to make things more public though. Its annoying.

 

[tgg]

the only way to be certain is to own your server and don't use anything not on your server. Even then if someone else can access it then even if you destroy your server there is the chance it is still there. if you don't own the server then it will be around.

That is certainly true. Check out the site Internet Archive: Wayback Machine - there are a number of defunct websites that one can find on there by typing the URL of it into the search engine.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Would it still show up on search engines though?

Doesn't really matter. Search engines like Google may not find them but there are ways to find stuff without using such engines. Granted this is an arduous and very time consuming exercise but anyone who really wants to find stuff can do so. If it's there it can be found.