Just Delete Me
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 24th, 2014
Good morning!
It seems that my life, and most likely yours, is filled with joining things…groups, websites…you name it. We have to open up accounts to practically do anything on the net.
Do you even remember all of the sites that you have registered with? Well…if you keep track like I do, and have pages of websites and passwords, and decide that you want to delete some of them, it may not be that easy. Have you ever wanted to delete an account but couldn’t find where to delete it on the site? If so, you aren’t alone. The “Where do I delete my account?” info is intentionally designed to not be easily found.
But…I have a solution. Read on…
This Shortcut Could Help Delete Account Details
Have you ever found yourself battling to delete accounts you set up online, in an effort to make yourself less vulnerable to spam emails and identity theft?
Every time you sign up or register on a website, you give away your contact details and add one more group or organization that now knows how to contact you.
Of course, if you’ve already wised up, you may have created a “throw-away” ID and got yourself one of those one-time email addresses that you can delete later if you want.
But what about all those places where you already registered and now wish you hadn’t?
You may think it’s going to be easy enough to delete your name and your account. That is, until you try — then you discover it’s nowhere near as easy to unregister as it was to register.
Most organizations don’t like you quitting on them, so they make it as difficult as they can. Sometimes it’s downright impossible.
But a new website called JustDelete.me (note the dot before the “me”) aims to make it a whole lot easier.
Free Global Service
The site is actually based in the UK, but its service is global — and it’s free.
Founder Rob Lewis wrote, when he launched the site in 2013: “After seeing a few tweets about how difficult it can be to delete your Skype account and then hearing that Netflix flat-out won’t delete your details I decided to build JustDelete.me.”
The site doesn’t actually do the deleting for you but it offers a series of links for scores of organizations that mostly either take you directly to their cancellation page or tell you what to do.
And yes, in some cases, they’ll tell you it’s impossible to cancel certain accounts — but at least you’ll know, so you won’t waste your time trying to do it.
It’s true also that JustDelete.me is a work in progress. It’s a social venture in which users are invited to contribute more cancellation links as they discover them.
That means if the site you’re looking for isn’t listed yet, you should revisit regularly until it turns up. Or discover the link yourself and then let them know.
After starting out with just 16 links, the site now has over 300, ranked in terms of cancellation difficulty — which the site categorizes as easy, medium, hard and impossible.
They include names like Amazon (hard), Barnes & Noble (impossible), Facebook(medium) and Hulu (easy).
With some sites, there’s a drop-down note providing more information. For instance, when you click on Groupon (hard), you get this info:
“According to Groupon’s privacy statement, you have to contact support directly and ask them to delete your account.”
Also, when we put some of the links to the test, they didn’t always make it as straightforward as the name JustDelete.me suggests.
For example, clicking the Google (easy) link takes you to your Google+ personal info page where you can certainly edit your profile, but you can’t delete it.
And of course, removing information from your Google+ profile is not the same as deleting your entire Google account.
(If you want to do this, read Google’s Delete or restore a Google Account article.)
But still, JustDelete.me seems to be a valuable step in the right direction.
Another neat feature the site offers is the ability to generate a fake identity.
Obviously, you can’t use a fake identity when you are using a credit card or signing up for a service that has legal status.
But it enables you to create a persona for those sites that are simply harvesting personal details for future use — maybe to bombard you with spam or to sell you on details to a marketing agency.
Obviously, you can dream up your own fake ID but this site will also do it at the click of a button, including a name, a non-existent address, a bogus biography and date of birth, a username (which you can actually use if you want) and a password (which you can also use).
And if you happen to use Google Chrome as your web browser, you can also download an extension that puts an icon by your address bar. You can click this while visiting a site and it will provide the link — if there is one — to the account deletion page.
A few extra points:
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We can’t vouch for the accuracy of this site or its interpretation of what’s possible and what’s not.
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You don’t have to sign up or give any personal details when you visit, although we did note that the site does track users’ connections with Twitter and Facebook. This is not unusual.
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If you visit the site, make sure you use that dot in the address. There are other sites with similar names. No need to key in “www” either. Just type “justdelete.me” in the address box.
Lewis reports visits from thousands of users from more than 170 countries every single day.
It’s a sign of how desperate people are to delete account information to escape some areas of the Internet and to secure themselves against identity theft.
News Alert of the Week: We’ve been seeing a surge of spammy phishing attempts recently, disguised as account-related messages or attachments from big names like Apple and Amazon. They contain malware or links that lead to trouble. Don’t click them! Go to the specific company website instead.
Readers: This info was sent to me from a trusted source. However, I confess, I haven’t tried this, so if you do, please report your findings. Thanks.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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April 24th, 2014 at 7:07 pm
I like the color coding for easy/medium/& never can delete.
I’m soaking up sun on an island this week (& making contingency plan to stay longer), the internet sux here and I’m kind of happy about that, glad I’m getting in here now though.
Luv, Zen Lill
April 25th, 2014 at 4:09 pm
It is a bit of bragging to tell us that even with a faulty mechanism you can get in when others can’t.
April 25th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
Great information. I really enjoy this site.
April 25th, 2014 at 4:15 pm
A Nation of Immigrants
April 25, 2014
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During the District work week, I was honored to attend several events that demonstrate the values and diversity of our City. One such event was the foot-washing ceremony with immigrant families at the St. John Evangelist Episcopal Church on Holy Thursday. At this sacred ritual of foot-washing, we came together in solidarity for comprehensive immigration reform.
In the name of the families who suffer from the pain of separation because of deportations, we demand a vote. To restore respect for our values and our history, we demand a vote. For the bipartisan and overdue immigration reform our nation needs, we demand a vote.
The time is now for Speaker Boehner to finally give us a vote on legislation that will stop unnecessary deportations, unite our families, protect our workers, and provide an earned pathway to citizenship.
Congresswoman Pelosi assists Bishop Marc Andrus as he washes the feet of immigrant families at the St. John Evangelist Episcopal Church in the Mission, where she discussed the urgency of passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.
A Model for Our City
At the Hunters View Grand Opening, I joined with residents and community members in heralding the rebirth of a formerly dilapidated public housing facility into a model for our city and the nation. These new modern buildings reflect a revolution in how we rehabilitate aging and isolated public housing, and create new affordable housing.
These beautiful buildings represent new homes and good-paying construction jobs for local residents — providing more than 1,600 jobs, almost half of which were filled by local workers, many from this very neighborhood. They also represent our city’s renewed and growing commitment to rehabilitating and strengthening public housing like this across San Francisco. Through the Public Housing Authority Re-Envisioning, and HUD’s new Rental Assistance Demonstration program, we will ensure that all our public housing can benefit from the model of the modern, safe units in Hunters View. We must rededicate our efforts so that the residents of Sunnydale, Potrero, and other HOPE SF sites can also see this type of transformation.
We must build and expand on this project’s success, and continue to improve the quality and quantity of all forms of affordable housing throughout our city. Let us renew our commitment to affordable housing to ensure that every San Franciscan has a place for their family to call home.
Sowing a Stronger Tomorrow
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending two events that demonstrate our City’s ever-growing commitment to the health and quality of our environment.
At Florence Fang Asian Community Garden Groundbreaking in the Bayview, we celebrated our city’s first Asian-styled community garden and began work on a new space that will strengthen the diversity of our community. Thanks to Caltrain, the Asian Week Foundation, and the Green Initiative for Asian Families, the garden will be used to grow fresh produce, to exercise and practice Tai Chi, and to showcase both native and traditional Asian plants.
At the CEMI (Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative) Western Regional Summit, I met with innovators, entrepreneurs, and community leaders to discuss clean energy manufacturing opportunities throughout the Bay Area. As always, I was proud to see that many of the bright minds that stand at the forefront of this initiative call our beautiful city home.
In an age of rising seas and temperatures, we must focus on creating greater energy efficiency; decreasing carbon pollution; and developing renewable sources of power. Here in San Francisco, we have always proven ourselves as leaders of innovation and will continue to carry this mantle as we build a brighter future for our environment and for the generations to come.
Congresswoman Pelosi breaks ground with Namesake Florence Fang, President of the Board of Supervisors David Chiu, and Supervisor Malia Cohen at the Florence Fang Asian Community Garden – San Francisco’s first ever Asian Community Garden – in the Bayview.
Preserving an Open Internet
The Federal Communications Commission released a new draft proposed rule on protecting the open Internet. Press accounts of the draft proposal from the FCC raise serious concerns that the Internet might soon lose the core of what it is – an open space for innovation, entrepreneurship, connection and communication. Clearly, the American people believe in preserving an open Internet where anyone can bring an idea to the table without seeking permission or paying a toll to each internet provider.
Success should be founded on merit and good ideas; not on who has the deepest pockets. We must not allow broadband providers to relegate competing ideas, products, and services to slow, congested speeds.
I urge Internet entrepreneurs, experts, and users to contact the FCC to make their voices heard and urge the Commissioners to establish rules of the road that protect the freedom, entrepreneurship and openness that must always define the Internet and American innovation.
Please feel free to forward this information to your family and friends. To learn more about these efforts, to express your views, or to sign up for email updates, please visit my website. I am also on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NancyPelosi.
best regard
April 26th, 2014 at 5:33 am
Thank you Michelle. This was a god-send. I have finally been able to delete my skype account.