Michael Gracie

This morning’s MySpace note reminded me that I had some housekeeping to do. One of the duties was to delete a few social networking accounts - I don’t use them and likely never will, preferring the dynamics of voice intonation and facial expressions over web pages. This task, however, proved more complicated than I thought.

I’ll toss out a caveat - MySpace was a cakewalk. I logged in, and clicked on account settings. The “delete” link was easy to find, and I clicked it. The page asked me in no uncertain terms whether I wanted to do this. I pushed the equivalent of the yes button. Thirty seconds later I received an email with another link to complete cancellation. I click that, push one button, and it’s done (or at least promised within 48 hours). Seconds later I notice that the MySpace messaging account I had input into Adium (but never actually used) had gone offline. I was now pretty certain my account had been taken care of.

On to Facebook…I am now reminded why I avoid signing up for too many services on the web - some are simply run by jackasses.

First and foremost, trying to find a link to delete your account within Facebook is kind of like trying to find a prostitute inside the Vatican City - you’ve heard rumors it’s possible, but nobody is pointing the way. I wound up having to run a Google search to acquire this:

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

So I click said link, and wind up at a page that tells me I need to log in. I enter my log-in information, but instead of getting redirected to the page I previously requested - you know, in the same sort of manner virtually every other web service on planet Earth operates when you click on a link that requires prior login - I wind up at a generic contact page. Furthermore, the “Issues” drop down list of the form now staring me down doesn’t even contain a selection for “delete account.”

I have to say I’d actually thought of writing a desktop script to repeatedly request account deletion, but soon realized someone else had probably tried that. How do I know? Well after finally reaching the proper page and requesting account deletion, I was met with this message:

Thanks, your inquiry has been forwarded to the Facebook Team.

At that point I realized I was running late. So I walked the dog around a few blocks - when I returned, this was sitting in my inbox:

Hi,

The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Privacy and Security Help page (http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=433). There, you’ll find answers to many common questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

The Facebook Team

It didn’t take a deep investigation to realize this was an auto-generated message. In addition, the return address had been purposefully obfuscated to either prevent a reply or keep damn good track of who did reply:

privacy+nl8qtsg@facebook.com

I then run through the same process roughly ten times - hitting the delete account page and proceeding - hoping the “Facebook Team” truly gets the message. Then I run out for breakfast. When I returned, there were no new delete account messages waiting for me - someone has obviously tried the delete-account-many-times approach, and Facebook has taken appropriate measures. Several hours later my account was still active.

Conclusions:

1) Facebook goes to great length to prevent you from finding a way to delete your account. Links are extremely non-obvious, and the site purposefully tries to circumvent your reaching the page. You are forced to find a link to delete from outside the site, and make sure your are logged in BEFORE you can properly access said link.

2) Facebook communication makes them sound apprehensive about deleting your information. They may claim that this is for your own protection, but I consider the sequence and tone more that of one that wants to carefully review your information first, just in case there is something of value to them within.

Keep in mind - you don’t have this problem elsewhere. I’ve been plenty of places where going through the delete account process gives you fair warning, just before your account disappears. I’ve got MySpace on the tip of my tongue…cripes, even Google lets you delete accounts and the result is instantaneous. Finding yourself in the position of having to wait for some “team” to “get back to you soon” is more than mere bullshit.

You know what they say…if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

Then don’t forget your waterfowl stamp.
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Bernard Lunn started by comparing LinkedIn’s search feature to Google, and concluding the former was better. I found Mr. Lunn’s personal use cases even more intriguing than his headline, and think you should read it through. I’m sure folks can cook up even more derivatives of Mr. Lunn’s methods (and I’d love to hear about them).

Further, I find LinkedIn’s ability to find people for you even more fascinating. The first time I was exposed to the “you may know so-and-so” bit, the name was Adam Ostrow. I enjoy Adam’s take on the digital world, and link to Mashable every now and then - we exchanged a few emails about MindSay way back when as well. So I wrote the “you may know so-and-so” indicator off as some stealthy web-crawling on LinkedIn’s part. Since then, I’ve received a few more for a few more people, and most were probably from the same source. But just recently I received a “you may know so-and-so” for someone I conversed with briefly, some time ago. I never blogged the subject matter, never linked to the person (they don’t have a blog, but do have a simple brochure-style website) - we exchanged a few emails via POP clients, and talked on the phone a few times. That’s the extent of it. We are now connected on LinkedIn, but share no connections per se.

I really want to know…how do they do that?

1) Bill Gates’s nemesis?

2) The Hotel California?

or

3) Just a time sink you can map (and of course, waste more time doing so)?

Everything has its limits. Thousands of daily “friends” requests aren’t going to do you much good - those “requestees” will either try taking yet more of your time, or they’re making the request because you are desirable for whatever reason and their hope is the resulting association will make them so too. Not having the ability to fully extricate yourself from the situation doesn’t help matters.

I am quite surprised users are just waking up to these issues now.

Mark Cuban thinks the internet is just dead and boring, and blames the economy. But maybe it’s the users…dying of boredom, and attempted to alleviate what ails them through the virtual world.

To get people thinking about the related issues, Marshall Kirkpatrick has put together a list of questions well worth asking, and discussing. It is indeed timely.

Online social networking is already on fire, but there is a price to be paid as well - mashups galore are making it ever easier to get the data you want, as well as enable people to acquire data on you. I find it amusing that users scream when their Facebook accounts are disabled because they tried to mine some of the data within, but in the Scoble case and many others just face the facts - all those people you think are your friends aren’t really your friends. The majority of the people on that “friends list” won’t ever ask you out for a drink, help you move, or read your business plan, and they certainly don’t want you taking their email address to another site so that service can spam them with invitations to join the next best thing. I’m no particular fan of Facebook, but I can’t help but give them a thumbs up here. The myriad of user privacy settings they offer are there for a reason, to prevent pseudo-friends from taking users’ data while they are attempting to grab their own.

It’s a quandary for many internet users. The fact that some join and befriend in the first place makes them particularly vulnerable. It won’t be long before the type of intrusion exemplified by Robert Scoble/Facebook is going on undetected - its centralization makes it low hanging fruit. Meanwhile we’ve moved beyond the average person’s grasp of privacy - it no longer exists - the best one can hope is that the information available about them isn’t ultimately damaging.

No fire truck is going to arrive to help you if it is.

UPDATE: If the risk of all that social networking data floating around isn’t bad enough already, you can always worry about your ISP doing the mining .

UPDATE 2: Regarding the Scoble/Facebook drama, Paul Buchheit wonders: Why aren’t Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail blocking Facebook? Another good question, and with TOS excerpts to boot!

Cheer and good tidings first; light reading last

• Charlie Crist calls for an investigation of “Florida’s subprime-tainted fund.” It’s really a SIV tainted fund and a sub-prime tainted SIV, but I’ll spare you the details. More on the Florida Fund fiasco here, here, and here.
• Research In Motion: no slowdown. Is it a consumer thing? Personally, I’m very happy with my Blackberry, although I consider it a business tool.
• Myspace. Facebook. Go Wordpress!? This may sound a little outlandish now, but the open source blogging application has the install base and the development community to really put a hurting on the “traditional” fare.
• A Home Price Heat Map, compliments of Stephen Heise. Data runs from 1975 to Q3-2007. Very interesting - hit the pause button along the way.
• A reminder: next time you look into that camera someone might be recording the color of your eyes, among other things.

Again, happy holidays!

Not a regular day, and not expected to be a regular post either…

UPDATE: On a side note, AskTheVC, the online Q&A sessions with Boulder-based Foundry Group’s gang, has some additional competition. It’s Marc Andreessen, who exploded onto the tech blogging scene just a few months ago. As more VCs open up, it is going to be interesting to see what disagreements arise (as well as whether some decide to “opinionate” in lockstep just before they do deals together).

UPDATE 2: I’ll repeat: the Wall Street Journal already has pretty strong opinions. But I guess it’s gospel now that Bill Clinton said it.