Erased

You know, all this discussion is just a little too late. I was “found” by someone, with just a phone call, birth name and date of birth. Fortunately, it wasn’t an unwelcome contact, it was a family member I had never met. But she got all she needed to know to locate me, even though I had moved and changed my last name. She made a few phone calls, starting with the local courthouse where I used to live. And ended with a phone call to me at my UNLISTED NUMBER.

Your data’s already out there, and has been for some time. This was several years ago, and NO internet, NO computer was used. Just a simple phone and a little perseverance. Now *that’s* scary.

At no point did Facebook supply me with a sneaky script that would allow me to suck everyone from LinkedIn or GMAIL into FaceBook. That’s EXACTLY why I’ve not spoken out about it.

You CAN take YOUR data out, Robert. Just don’t use the service. Delete it all and leave. You can’t whine about wanting their product but also being forced to agree to the T&Cs. No-one forces you to use it.

You, of all people, would be able to find 5000 hangers on nomatter which social network you joined. So what’s the big fascination with this company you love to hate?

Well Facebook can do whatever they want. They’re a private company. Just like YouTube, and the Perez Hilton thing.

@122 Even a high school debate team wouldn’t make the feeble “two wrongs make a right”illogical argument to defend their position.

@80 “Now this is an argument that I think is totally BS.
It’s the members of Facebook who have earned the service a $15 billion valuation. Every member there pays plenty by inputing their time and data and by clicking on the stupid ads.

Anybody who thinks Facebook members can be treated like crap because they don’t make Facebook even richer with direct dollars is being totally ridiculous.”

No, anybody who thinks they are owed a higher level of service than what is clearly defined in FB’s TOS and doesn’t understand that FB clearly states you use this service voluntarily and they can choose to shut it down without notice, but thinks that doesn’t apply to them is a sucker.

Your “power to the people” argument sounds very noble, but from a business perspective it is naive. FB is offering the service for FREE. You don’t have to participate. That fact that you invest a lot of time and effort putting data in FB I’m sure is very much appreciated by them….all the way to the advertisers offices.

Facebook doesn’t care about you. It only cares about your data to the extent it keeps their advertisers happy. If they could train monkeys to enter data that is appealing to advertisers they would do that instead. It would be much cheaper and have a lower legal risk.

I had the same thing happen a year ago with Textamerica. For nearly 2 years I’d been using them as an online photo dump, MMS-ing my photos in, and had gotten Editor’s Choice a few times, etc.

When they went premium, they merely posted something on their admin area (which I obviously didn’t use) as opposed to sending out emails. I went to login one day and ALL my photos were gone – my whole account was deleted, and the response I received was “tough crap, wanna premium account?” That’s honestly why I’m on Flickr, and why I now keep a local copy of all my photos, even the stupid silly ones I send in from my phone.

I posted before and here is the note that I received from Facebook:
——————
Facebook does not permit users to take actions that other users may find abusive or bothersome, including sending mass friend requests or messages to people you do not know. Your actions on the site violated our Terms of Use and we cannot reactivate your account or retrieve information from it. This is a final decision.

Thanks for your understanding,

Bella
Customer Support Representative
Facebook
———————

I invited people and sent messages to people that I know. That’s it. Permanent. ERASED.

Tony

@130 “That’s honestly why I’m on Flickr…”

That really doesn’t make much sense, because Flickr can do the same thing to you, and they don’t have to tell you.

The really annoying thing is Facebook claim they can’t delete your account of you ask them to, but they seem more than capable of doing it when they want.

- Neil.

“You get what you pay for.”

The fact that you were erased I don’t think it is so spooky. After all we all have real lives. It would be worse if Facebook was meant to conduct business and you were to lose a network of associates. But then again this proves that Facebook knows people don’t use it for serious work otherwise it wouldn’t ban someone so lighthearted.

By reactivating your profile I believe it’s obvious that actually you were never deleted, rather than disabled. Which makes me wonder what happens in terms of (your) intellectual property (name it your pics for example) since you’re banned. From the moment they don’t erase your profile your data remain on their possession without your knowledge.

now imagine when they erase (suspend) your domain and all the email addresses just because your competitor make same false statements to a domain registrar. suspend without notice.

Even a high school debate team wouldn’t make the feeble “two wrongs make a right”illogical argument to defend their position.

That’s pretty much what civil disobedience is. A small, non-violent wrong (e.g. chaining yourself to a pole) that is used to bring attention to a much more heinous wrong (e.g. discrimination).

Your actions on the site violated our Terms of Use and we cannot reactivate your account or retrieve information from it. This is a final decision.

FACEBOOK HAS SPOKEN!!!

[hammers timpani]

Well, now we know what happens when you’re not a famous blogger…

I don’t know whether I agree with what you write or not, but I do agree that it’s wrong for companies to own our data and not let us use it, so in this fight, I support you and all those who are being screwed over by facebook’s ugly policies.

If your employer owns your work day and Face Book, My Space and Second Life own your social network, what do you own? Sleep.

Exactly my point here Robert:
http://htmlfixit.com/?p=1077

New conversation? Not so sure. See the 1995 release, The Net. http://imdb.com/title/tt0113957/

Are the stakes higher, probably.

Seems to me Facebook will not provide their service at no cash cost unless the data you ‘donate’ has some value. Why offer your data if they are not prepared to pay for it?

When telephone market researchers call me I say, “you want me to provide informative answers to your questions and then you are going to sell this valueable information. Will you at least pay me for my time? No! Thanks, I’ll get back to eating my dinner.”

@141 “That’s pretty much what civil disobedience is. A small, non-violent wrong (e.g. chaining yourself to a pole) that is used to bring attention to a much more heinous wrong (e.g. discrimination).”

Well, that analogy reeks of hyperbole, don’t you think? It’s not your data, or Scoble’s data. I put it there, not Scoble. Now, if Scoble entered all that data on his own, I would agree with him. But, is was only SHARED with him with permission from his friends. Is Facebook being hypocritical? Sure. But, it’s their game,their rules. You agree to play when you click “agree” when you create an account.