Why don't websites let me deactivate my accounts easily?

[jfrost]

Today I woke up determined to clean my name from websites I no longer use, and that's what I did. And what I found out is that usability might be a buzzword of the so-called web 2.0, but the stupid websites can't be bothered to provide a simple, straightforward way for the users to cancel their accounts.

While this isn't general, it just blows my mind how many websites (I'm guessing half of the ones I tried to leave today) make their top priority to never let me quit them. Or at least make me search the site for several minutes to find a small link to a delete page (that's actually what happened when I tried to cancel my accounts on JamLegend and Tumblr - I could only find links to deactivate the account on their Help pages).

Some services don't feature this, well, "functionality" at all, such as Backloggery. I sent the admins an email asking them to remove me from their website. A couple of months ago, I tried to quit a service called SocialThing (now AIM Lifestream) and they just wouldn't let me. I sent them several messages asking them to erase my account from their service, but never heard back. I'm glad the website went down forever. I hope the responsible parties burn in hell for providing shitty services.

Really, it seems that the web 2.0 is determined to have my personal information forever and that the only way that I can avoid this is by never trying new services again. Because the Internet today is all about sharing, and if you don't want to, well, fuck you and your privacy.

In fact, I was looking for a way to cancel my Google Wave account today (never found much use for it) and found out that this "feature" it's not available right now. I can only leave Google Wave if I cancel my Google account and thus leave the other services provided by it. The situation is so ridiculous that when someone said that the users just couldn't leave Wave right now, a user said on the Help forum:

Dear Ronny,

So which terms of service do I have to violate such that you delete my account as fast as possible? It will be most helpful if you provide me with a simple step by step description that should not take more than 1 or 2 minutes to complete.

Thanks in advance,
A user

What's amusing is that some websites try to get around this problem simply by stating that they're on beta. But, first, everything is on beta forever on the Internet today, it's just an excuse for programmers to provide half-baked shit and get away with it. Second, canceling the damn accounts is the most basic feature a website can have (and indeed must have). If they don't, they are just failing completely design-wise.

</rant>

[Ack]

I hate to say it, but isn't Google Wave really still in Beta? Seems there's a lot they have left to implement and some bugs to iron out. Still, the inability to deactivate an account for it is pretty strange. I guess Google's never considered that some folks might not necessarily want all those services.

[jfrost]

Yeah, they're in beta, but as I said in my last paragraph, I think that's a rather poor excuse. People on the Wave Help forums were asking about what to do if people kept sending them waves and the only thing people could come up with to alleviate this problem is to tell your list manually to not send you stuff and expect you to reply. Account cancellation should just be available to solve this problem, at the very least.

[DNT 2.5]

Another forum I was a member of previously refused to Delete/Deactivate my account. So I got myself banned.

[RCBH928]

I once joined AOL out of curiosity ,
what is this AOL thing that is only in America, what is Keyword?, it wasn't like 98
more like 2004,

So I did, it was free for a month, then paid I think or something like that.
I wanted the "cool" browser.

After finding how much it sucks, and that "keyword" is just a fancy name for a website with out the '.com' after it I decided to cancel it.

It was almost impossible! I had to call them and cancel it by phone!
For one reason or the other I believe I had to be in America, while I am next to Dubai.

Thank god I had a friend who was studying abroad , who told them it was me calling
and asked to cancel the service.

You have to call by phone to cancel a service you joined online?!wtf

[Jrecee]

Sounds like you got off easy. Check out youtube for some interesting aol cancellation calls.