Facebook's Deception of Deactivated Accounts

In September 2011 Facebook claimed to have 800 million subscribers. My personal experience indicates that this number of users is a deception.

Was this just a big charade to get $100 billion for their IPO?

In October 2006 Yahoo wanted to buy Facebook for $1 billion. In October 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. Goldman Sacks investors are also pooling their money together to buy Facebook before the IPO. Is everyone being fooled?

In February 2012, they finally applied to the S.E.C. for an Initial Public Offering at $5 billion. See "Facebook IPO News" in the column to the right.

A Facebook IPO at $5 billion means that Microsoft’s 1.6% stake will be worth only $80 million (a lose of $160 million). Microsoft will break even on their investment if Facebook shares triple from their opening price. The shares have to triple just to break even!

So here’s the story of my experience...

When I signed up for a Facebook account and created a profile, in a very short time I started getting friend requests from people I didn’t know. This became so annoying I decided to cancel my account and delete my Facebook profile..

I have been struggling with that ever since and it became obvious to me that Facebook does not allow anyone to cancel their account and remove their data.

They continue to show user accounts as active members even though they are long gone and even though they have tried to cancel their accounts.

Read on to learn about the charade with account cancellations

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There are two things one can do, neither of which helps.

1. You can deactivate your account. Which still allows people to find your profile and request to be friends.
2. You can request to cancel and completely remove your account data. But this is very tricky and difficult to achieve.

Here is what my experience has been with both of these cases…

At first I could not find any option to delete my profile. All I found was a way to deactivate the account. So I did that. I use Google alerts to monitor my name on the Internet and months later Google sent me an alert indicating that I was still being listed on Facebook. So I tried logging back in, only to discover a bunch of friend requests that were accumulating. That proved that people were still seeing my profile.

Logging back in had reactivated my account, so I deactivated it again. But that only put me back in the useless stage I was in before, with Facebook including me with their “active” accounts.

I wonder if they are doing this just to make themselves look bigger than they are in order to get a bigger sales price should they ever go public. Google and Yahoo both tried to buy Facebook. But Facebook didn’t sell. Are they holding out for more? Are they buying time to build an even bigger false image, fooling anyone who may still want to buy them out?

I had posted notices to Facebook requested to remove all my profile data and waited and waited. I even tried logging back in to search for a link that might allow complete removal. But every time I logged in, I found more friend requests. I even found some requests from people I knew. That bothered me because these people should be emailing me direct if they want to be in touch. After all, they knew me. How silly!

I tried changing all my profile info so that it would not match up if anyone tried to find me on Facebook. I didn’t think it was fair to let people request to be my friend if I wasn’t looking at it and responding anyway. Those who really know me can just email me. They have my email address.

When I tried to change the data, a notice indicated that the changes would take effect after a few days. But after many months, the changes I made to my city, state and other info all remained the same as I first entered it.

Okay, I realize that the Facebook privacy policy does say that any information you enter remains. But this is stupid. What if someone moves? Or did they refuse to allow my changes because they knew I was doing it to try to negate my profile? I wonder.

After many more months, I spent hours on Internet searches for help from other people in blogs and news columns. I discovered that this is a widespread problem. I tried going into the Facebook help section and entered the query “I want to permanently delete my account”. Aha! I found the following in the Help Center on Facebook's website.…

Note that they admit, “we do save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.), and your account will look just the way it did when you deactivated if you decide to reactivate it.”

And their privacy policy, the way I interpret it, clearly indicates that you have no privacy. So I call it a non-privacy policy.

Anyway, I followed through with the request and waited another couple of months. My profile never disappeared. After several months I decided to try deleting my profile again. I tried to log in and my passcode was no good. I clicked on the “forgot passcode” option to reset my passcode, and got back an indication that my email address was not associated with any account. Of course not, they deleted my account! BUT THEY LEFT THE DATA THERE!

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This behavior of keeping user data happens to be clearly explained in their privacy policy. All I can say is “Buyer Beware!” Or in this case, “Facebook Member Beware!”

In my Internet searches, I have found blogs where people’s lives were destroyed because of comments or other information they themselves posted, or that others have posted about them, true or not, that may jeopardize their future and that Facebook will never ever remove. Once these people grow up and try to get their first job employment, it all comes back to haunt them.

At least for me, I have nothing posted anywhere to be concerned about. But I do feel bad that people who knew me in the past or business clients who find my profile will click for a friend request in Facebook and they will be wondering why I never respond.

New Privacy Settings

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In June 2009 Facebook added a feature to allow blocking various data by specifying what you want to make available and to whom. You can specify to just let friends see your data, or friends of friends, or everyone. Problem is, that when they implemented this, the default is “everyone” and most users don’t even know the feature is available to be changed.

Mark Zuckerberg, himself, had his profile publicly visible since October 2009. You could not request to be a friend. That was blocked. But you could still see his friends list and make requests to each of them to be your friend. Major privacy issue if you ask me!

On December 9th, 2009 Facebook introduced some new privacy settings. Their non-privacy policy still remains as I still see my “deleted” profile is still online and can be found with a Google search.

The new settings allow one to specify what parts of your profile are visible and to whom. You can now hide your friend list. But third party apps exist that can circumvent that and trace your friends. Facebook’s privacy policy still says “We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on Facebook.”

Facebook continues to introduce changes from time to time. In July 2010 Facebook redesigned their event pages to look more like the profile pages in an effort to make all of the site have a common look and feel. But one thing that never changes is that they continue to have the desire to hold on to old accounts that are long gone.

Later in 2010 they simplified the privacy page by including the ability to set privacy on everything you share. Okay, that may help. But deleting everything has always remained a mystery.

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According to a story in the Washington Post on Nov 29th 2011, Facebook just settled eight counts of privacy violations with the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook has avoided monetary fines by agreeing to change certain aspects of its privacy policy.

I don't see much improvement with this since they are still taking advantage of people who don't read their privacy policy page before signing up.

The changes they made to settle with the FTC simply specify that they will ask users for permission before changing the way they share user data. This doesn't help those who have lost their privacy rights because they signed up prior to this settlement. It will only require notification of changes to the present policy. How silly is that?

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Previously they just had a link that deactivates your account as I spoke about above. They never gave any way to delete anything since their privacy policy says they own anything you upload and all data you enter.

Facebook finally created a way to delete accounts. But they made it extremely complicated so the request tends to fail. But found out how to succeeded at it.

I found a link hidden away deep in the pages of Facebook that lets one permanently delete an account. But it involves all sorts of rules to follow after you submit your request. If you mess up, your request is canceled.

You also have to follow strict rules throughout a 14 day period. This I am sure was done to increase your chances of messing up during that time.

Okay, I know you are wondering what I am talking about. So let me tell you the details of what I went through. I followed the steps...and it said, "Your account will be removed in 14 days." This is tricky. They obviously don’t want to make it easy.

If they truly wanted to allow people to delete their accounts, they would have simply let the request be performed immediately and be done with it. But by requiring a 14-day waiting period it gives you the opportunity to undo your request, which keeps your account intact and active. There are several ways you can easily mess up in those 14 days...

• If you leave your Facebook app on your iPhone and your phone is turned on during that 14-day period, your request to delete your account will be canceled.
• If you accidentally click a "like" button on any website that uses Facebook to register the "like" then your request to delete your account will be canceled.
• If you log into any other social networking site that uses Facebook Connect, your request to delete your account will be canceled.

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Okay. So here is the way to finally get yourself out of Facebook. Have fun finding this info on their site. It’s not prominently displayed. But you don’t need to look. I explain it all here.

I was actually able to get a new password to log on to my deactivated account. That was mandatory in order to get back in to delete it with their new method. I tried it in March 2011 and now I can’t find my profile. Finally really gone!

So if you can still log in, go to the following URL and carefully follow the instructions on that page.

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

If you did it all as they request, your account will be in a deactivated state for 14 days and will be permanently deleted after that 14 day period. But ONLY if you abide by all the following...

• Remove any reference to your Facebook account from any other website that uses Facebook Connect logins.
• Remove any Facebook apps from your iPhone.
• Refrain from clicking any "Like" buttons on any sites if they use Facebook.

Now wait 14 days. Three weeks just to be sure because if you check on it before its done, you will have canceled your delete request. The same is true if any other service you use attempts to access your Facebook account within that 14 day period. The deletion process will be canceled and your account will remain activate.

You see? It's still not easy. So what do you think? Is it a deception that Facebook is creating?

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I can see what people are asking when Google sends them to this article by reviewing my Google Analytics reports.

I thought it would be interesting to include some of these questions. It's a clear representation of the anguish people are feeling...

• Why am I still getting friend requests even though I deactivated my Facebook account?
  
  • ANSWER: Deactivating your account does not remove your profile, which is now owned by Facebook according to their privacy policy which most people don't read when they sign up..
    
    
• What info remains for friends to see when facebook account is deactivated?
  
  • ANSWER: Your deactivated profile remains available for search. I myself still got friend requests even though I deactivated my account. So that means they are finding me when they search.
    
    
• Once I have deactivated my account why is it still showing in google public search?
  
  • ANSWER: As long as Facebook leaves your profile online Google bots will find it. Deactivating is useless. What they need is a true and honest "delete" mechanism.
    
    
• How Can I stop friend requests after deactivating my Facebook profile?
  
  • ANSWER: Again, can't be done under their present policy. If anyone actually found a way I invite you to explain how in the "Reader Comments" below.
    
    
• Why deactivated Facebook profile still shows?
  
  • ANSWER: See answer above.
    
    
• Why am I still getting friend requests?
  
  • ANSWER: See answer above.

Copyright © 2009 Glenn Stok

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The author, Glenn Stok, also writes articles on business and relationships, consumer electronics, social issues, and inspirational philosophical discussions.

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