Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0
[UPDATED] Months after deleting your account, Facebook still publishes your name and picture
UPDATE: It appears now as though this may be a Google cache issue, and not a Facebook issue. I stand corrected, and I do apologize. I love Facebook, and would gladly give Mark Zuckerberg a hug. I do apologize and wish to clear Facebook's name on this one.
Over two months ago, on May 17, 2010, I completely deleted my Facebook account because I felt that they "don't respect my privacy." What a drama queen move, right? Of course they respect it; after all, they changed their policy and made sharing options simpler.
I didn't renew my account; I still didn't trust them. Life moves on, though, and since there was nothing new for me to make a fuss about, I shut up about it and just continued distrusting.
Now, Google has put out a new image search interface. I go to test it, and on a whim, I search for myself. Come on, you must have done things like that too.
Anyway, no image of mine should pop up. But lo and behold, I see a small, yet clearly identifiable, image of yours truly (with bald head, goatee, and all) right on the second line of results. So, who's sharing this image with the world so prominently?
You guessed it! Thank you, Facebook, for respecting my wishes to protect my online identity and remove myself from your system. That's charming, really. If anyone thinks this is just a "lag," and that Facebook will probably remove my image "soon," it has been two months since I closed my account. This isn't a lag; it's complete disrespect for Facebook users and the notion of online privacy.
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Each ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike champ said 11:21AM on 7-21-2010
We expect better reporting. If you follow the link the image is NOT there. This is more likely an issue with Google having crawled the page and not having updated it's database since.
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mattweiler said 11:24AM on 7-21-2010
Exactly, mike champ is right.
It's just that your image was still being stored on Google's servers.
It'll probably exist there for a very long time... at least the Google thumbnail.
dzerveviktory said 11:21AM on 7-21-2010
I believe they list on the deletion page that your info may remain on their servers for up to 90 days....
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GIJeff said 11:25AM on 7-21-2010
So you care so much about privacy that you post the picture that you're supposedly offended by on here for people who WEREN'T searching for you to find? and also bring more attention to it with the article
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mmbb said 3:18AM on 7-22-2010
Yeah, and haven't there been Official Government PSAs running for the last several years (three that I remember) suggesting a moment of digital indescretion, a lifetime of Internet regret?
jsmorley said 12:04PM on 7-21-2010
I really think you are going to be eating this hasty, jump to judgment story when it turns out the image was cached by Google and not Facebook.
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bigswirv said 11:57AM on 7-21-2010
Yep, you are indeed a drama queen. I guess this is why they call it blooooooging and not reporting :\
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Jayraj said 12:00PM on 7-21-2010
That's weird. I deleted my account 2 months ago, in late May for similar reasons. A Google image search today found no images of me. It might not be an FB thing. It might be a Google index thing.
On another I don't feel like I'm really missing anything by quitting FB, and I've obviously gained a lot of time (which I spend commenting on posts like yours :P), and privacy.
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Jayraj said 12:01PM on 7-21-2010
Oh and yes, when I had an FB account, a Google image search would bring up my profile picture.
Aemony said 12:13PM on 7-21-2010
Oh, you drama queen! Always blowing things out of proportion.
Sorry, couldn't resist. ;P
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Epon said 12:31PM on 7-21-2010
Is it just me... or have DLS posts been very quick to jump to conclusions lately? Like freaking out about Firefox not having a "highlight all" feature when you search (hint: it does; built in). Or this rant about Facebook not respecting privacy when in fact, it's Google's cacheing's fault?
I think it's time for me to delete this RSS feed. Not worth my time anymore.
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Matthew P. said 1:05PM on 7-21-2010
It's not just you, and not just this website. It seems to be a quickly growing trend among several of my (ex-)favorite blogs lately. :(
Chris Allen said 12:35PM on 7-21-2010
Blowing googles caching system into a story about the EVIL of facebook? Way to add more BS to the facebook haters fire.
I don't know why I still read these articles with journalism like this.
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James said 12:59PM on 7-21-2010
Uhm... did you click on the image link before you went all nilly willy and accused Facebook of not respecting your privacy? Go do that, then get back to us on drama tip when you figure out how Google caching works.
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Riccardo said 4:43PM on 7-21-2010
MY photo IS still on FB after several months. I noted it on a bookmark on January, 16th 2010, to keep it monitored:
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v346/214/122/1562343053/n1562343053_3084_996.jpg
Then I signed up again for my job, but this picture is from my old account. When will it be deleted?
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mmbb said 6:40AM on 7-22-2010
also, omfg, NYT scooped your ass:
Published: July 19, 2010
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html
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pristy.site said 10:44AM on 7-22-2010
Some are really morons, before you delete your account delete all your records too what ever they are, only then will be less links left. Some records stay in the system even if you delete just account and they are no mans land if not removed by user it self and they are only user password based and only user can remove that.
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