[D9u]

There's always the option to delete your FB account. I went nearly 10 months without logging into FB last year, and doing so made it quite easy to delete my FB account at the beginning of this year.

Regular removal of cookies, and LSO cookies, as well as clearing the browser cache, is also recommended.

Then there's the ubiquitous "Connect" buttons which are spammed all across the web. Prudence dictates that we avoid connecting our logins across the net in an indiscriminate manner.

Finally, there are "burner" email addresses which I use only to register with certain websites. Nearly all of the spam that makes it past my filters is from so-called "legitimate" websites.

Caveat emptor.

[ordinary]

Deleting your account does not stop Facebook from tracking you, unfortunately.

[dmoy]

Does Facebook actually delete stuff yet? For a long time they wouldn't delete accounts, photos, etc.

[robbiep]

5 years ago (I had been a fb'er since 06) I deleted every message is ever received - took me an age but finally did it.

Kept an empty inbox for the next 3 years.

2 years ago (or thereabouts) Facebook introduces a new messaging setup (about or a bit before their new interface, I've forgotten what they call it) - all the messages were back, all the way back to my first messages sent jn 2005.

Scary.

[fnayr]

They do allow you to 'delete' your account and data, and they say it becomes unrecoverable at that point, but no one can really be sure that they are actually deleting your data.

[D9u]

That's a good point, regarding whether, or not, FB actually deletes user data after we "opt out." Another consideration is how, when Facebook started out, users were supposed to actually know, IRL, the people on their "Friends List." I adhered to that rule all the way until my account deletion last January, but now a great number of users have people on their "Friends Lists" who they have never even spoken to in real life. This point is illustrated by corporate entities being on people's "Friend Lists."

As for FB allegedly tracking me subsequent to my account deletion, could someone explain to me how it could be so? I never posted my actual DOB, nor my cell phone, the email address I used to register hasn't been logged into for many months, and I'm using a new ISP - which uses dynamic allocation addressing.

[kaybe]

A possibility could be if your email shows up in your friends' contact list which FB gets from their email accounts.

FB continuesly harrassing me to give them my email password - of all things to ask for! - is something I will never get. 'We'll check your contact list for friends! We won't save your password!' My email password! You wanna install a camera in my room while you're at it?

But some people apparently actually use the service, and thus FB can find out you exist and who you're friends with. They might also mention you etc.

[rfugger]

There is no delete in the cloud.

[lifeguard]

No, your data is never deleted, only your account is "de-activated".

[fnayr]

Incorrect (currently). They allow you to delete after you deactivate, but they make you wait 14 days while deactivated in the hope you realize you need facebook.

[sdoering]

Well are you sure, that this is not only, what they tell you. Are you sure there is no table in their database called "deleted_unrecoverable_profiles"?

No one can be sure if it is that way, or if the data is really deleted. And knowing their take on user-privacy, I tend to believe, that data is never deleted by Facebook.

[mcintyre1994]

Even if they do delete it and never back it up, it seems very unlikely they'd go through what must be a huge library of backups and wipe you from all of them. Such an expectation would be ridiculous, and I'm sure pretty much no company will do that, but the point is your data won't be deleted from all sources regardless.

[lifeguard]

No. This is marketing spin. Your data is NEVER DELETED. I'll bet you paychecks that FB has archives of all their users data.

One example: a person committed a crime and stored evidence on FB. FB retains user data forever. They might not make it public, but the data is not deleted.

[pseudonym]

Sadly that's not always an option, given the proliferation of Facebook amongst the "older" crowd. My entire extended family basically communicates entirely (barring face-to-face meetings) via Facebook nowadays.