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Comment by jdimov10 | Hacker News Reader

"You can easily delete specific items or entire topics. You can also change your settings and decide what data gets associated with your account."

I guess that's nice. I wonder if they'd still keep the original data points.

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Of course they do. "Delete" in google/facebook/etc. just sets "visible to me" equal to false.

I doubt it. That would expose them to massive fines and exclusion from the entire EU market. Dark patterns in gathering information, as what Facebook has been doing with shadow profiles etc are bad enough - actually having a "delete" option that doesn't delete data (or storing data that a customer can't a) correct if wrong, and b) get actually deleted when they ask for it (and c) get a copy of on request) are all explicitly illegal in the EU, AFAIK.

You can't expect a company that runs its whole business through its Ireland subsidiary and had its offices raided by French and Spanish revenue authorities to play nicely by EU rules. In the UK they got a pat on the back and an extra 130M in taxes to pay. Of course they claim they did not break any laws and it's probably true - Google just found ways around them. I'm sure they've also found ways around EU data retention regulations.

The cynic in me would argue that EU tax loopholes are intentional, ways around the data retention directive, not so much. I suppose Google might have a secret deal with MI6 or some secret organization that no-one even knows exist (remember when the NSA was referred to as "No Such Agency" ?) - and get an exemption that way - through the "war on terror" back door, so to speak. But my impression is that the EU states prefer the Stasi-way - to have their own illegal secret archives rather than outsource that bit to private enterprises.

The data is actually deleted (at least in the case of FB data) when you delete your account, having sat through several audit meetings and known people who wrote the deleter code. It is not instant, since some of the deletion has to be queued up in async jobs so that when cold storage platters are re-written it skips your photos, etc. And you are correct that EU regulations are the big stick which keep everyone toeing the line regarding what must be done when a user requests the deletion.

So what if I write a comment on someone's post, is that deleted?

Agree, assuming that this data is being secretly stored by major tech companies against stated privacy policies is abit tinfoil-hatty. The coverup that would be needed makes it highly unlikely. Not to say that smaller, niche, less scrutinized services don't pull this kind of crap - Ashley Madison is an excellent example.

I wish they made it even easier, a delete all would be great, or a delete between these dates.

There's a "Delete Results" option in the three-dots menu. You can just search between two dates and then use that feature.

It is possible to do that on this page: https://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity

I turned on "Web and App Activity" and those items didn't then appear in my timeline. That might indicate that they don't but I doubt it.

Chances are that they fixed the bug so that items show up as per your opt-in status at that time.

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