[saghm]

> A statement under penalty of perjury that all information in your request is truthful and that this is your User Account or that you have the authorization to make the request on behalf of the owner of the User Account

That strikes me as really extreme. If I had an Udacity account and someone tried to delete it, I would be annoyed, but I wouldn't seek to press criminal charges against them.

[fencepost]

Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account, along with all record of courses completed, etc. Is it possible to have an Udacity account if you're not actually paying them? If so, "account removed" and "unpaid account" are very different things and the transition between them is one-way.

[saghm]

> Their concern is probably someone deleting somebody else's account

Yes, that's what I meant. If some stranger deleted my account, I don't think I would be angry enough to attempt to press criminal perjury charges against them.

[fencepost]

It may depend on the real-world relevance of the courses you've taken.

What happens if you're taking part in the Georgia Tech/Udacity online Master's in Computer Science, and suddenly all of your course history on Udacity is gone? Are you then stuck with remotely trying to access records through whatever GA Tech has retained for MOOC students in a degree program? Does it prevent you from signing up for additional courses because there's no record of you completing the prerequisites? Does their platform have a provision for overriding those prerequisites, and what would that have to be based on - word from a professor who taught a MOOC, has never seen you or your work and probably depends on Udacity's listings?

A similar situation could arise if the platform is being used for mandatory continuing education credits in fields that have that. An industry that has CE requirements would often be well-served to partner with an established and stable online learning platform rather than building their own. If you're required to take X hours of CE annually to retain a license but the only proof you have is a PDF certificate from someplace that says "We've never heard of this person," do you qualify or do you end up in licensing/certification hell?

[saulrh]

It depends on what an account deletion means, yeah. Is there a GDPR for universities that makes them delete all history of your attendance at that institute? Do customer privacy laws force Udacity to do a more thorough deletion than you might expect if you're treating it like a website rather than a university or vice-versa?

[stickfigure]

Is that even plausible? Not being government, I can't just declare "Anyone who lies to me is committing perjury, nyah nyah!"

[yholio]

IANL but I think it's perjury to lie in a declaration "under penalty of perjury" only if that declaration is specifically required under the law or if you are submitting it to a legal body, such as a court, or to achieve an expressly defined legal outcome. For example, the DMCA specifically requires such a declaration when making a complaint, so private parties can require it and you could face criminal prosecution for lying.

On the other hand, I have no idea what legal justification could Udacity claim. It's probably bogus.

[emiliobumachar]

Yeah, they might as well require you to write "under penalty of murder" while they're at it.

[jonas21]

If I had a nanodegree and was listing it on my resume or mentioning it in job interviews, I'd be pretty upset if someone came in and deleted all proof that I had completed it.

[saghm]

Yeah, I'd definitely be pretty upset if someone wiped the record of my college degree, but (I hope) Udacity courses don't cost nearly as much as I had to pay.

[iamjaredwalters]

Do employers often depend on "nanodegrees" (first I've heard the term) such as Udacity?

[duxup]

Depend probabbly not, but "hey there is this thing this guy did" might be a real thing. Probably not weighted as much as other things but still relevant to some.

[mynameisvlad]

But if it's a simple "hey there's this thing this guy did", are they going to go to the trouble to actually verify with Udacity that the person took the course? Probably not.

[duxup]

If it is just a link to click, sure why not?