Profile removal and account deletion

[Leslieann]

I have been notified that account deletion is most likely not possible - /shrug

Time to move on for me, lets not criticize people for staying or leaving.

It is possible, it just makes old posts wonky.  Look at all the old ripster posts for example.  Best you can easily get away with is editing all your posts to '.' and randomizing your credentials and dropping the ✌️

Account deletion is very much possible.

The second time I deleted an account for someone on my forums I got asked 2 weeks later to help police find the person because they had ripped off someone the marketplace for a few hundred dollars. People tried this two more times over the next year, at least one was caught or was forced to return the goods or money. I suspect at least one of the two was the same person as the one I deleted.

90% of the legitimate asks ended with them returning a few months later asking to have the account reactivated anyway and yes, it does make for a wonky thread and timeline. This isn't Facebook where you post family photos and personal info, so you should not need it to be forgotten.

[KeyboardUser4]

good call, dont want my identity stolen 

edit: ha, named changed.

[davkol]

This isn't Facebook where you post family photos and personal info, so you should not need it to be forgotten.

There's the off-topic subforum, where people absolutely post rather personal information, but even the on-topic posts have metadata (time, location) and information about purchases / habits.

All this can be linked to data from other sources.

Then there are private messages with truly personal information, if one trades stuff or participates in group buys; those can be "purged" but I honestly don't know about backups.

[gak1234]

You guys are ridiculous.

I think it's hilarious if anything at this point, GDPR wikipedia armchair experts extraordinaire and people trying to legally combat a company whose latest valuation was $50m by filing a complaint or deliriously hiring a lawyer; funnier even is the fact that GDPR is a European thing and thankfully we don't usually have this "sue everybody" mentality, maybe it's trendy and catching on.

Furthermore... with regards to non-EU organizations, GDPR isn't NEARLY as powerful or sweeping as the general public thinks it is... it definitely doesn't have 'universal' jurisdiction over every little nook and cranny on the web with at least one EU-based member.  The enforcement of GDPR is going to be EXTREMELY selective, and in reality there is virtually zero chance that a small place like Geekhack, which neither specifically targets EU citizens with goods/services, nor attempts to 'profile' individual users by monitoring their activities and/or analyzing their behavior, would ever fall within the scope of an official enforcement action.  This site probably wouldn't even meet the criteria for being subject to GDPR in the first place, even now, despite it being owned by a corporate entity.

[Visionaire]

This thread is so over the top.

GDPR is intended to protect individuals from companies processing and misusing user's personal data. This includes traditional PII as well as cookies and IP addresses. Upon request, you can have these items shared with you and / or purged from a company's database.

As has been mentioned above, GH is run on top of a pretty standard forum software package. This package collects WHAT YOU GIVE IT. The only items they're collecting which you have not entered yourself would be the IP address used to access your account and any 3rd party tracking that might be on the site. As you can see with this Ghostery scan (Chrome plugin), the only 3rd party tracking that this website has deployed is Google Analytics, which does not collect personally identifiable information (PII). Its job is to understand site performance. Where people are coming from, how long they stay on the site, etc. This information is anonymous and aggregated (meaning you can't reverse engineer to tie to an individual) for all GA accounts.

• Can this website delete your account and post history? Yes. It's an option in the admin panel
• Should you suddenly feel differently about having an account here now that MD owns it? That's for each to decide, but I can't think of a reason why you're at more 'risk' now that MD owns the site. And if that's the case, I'd also advise you to close your Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and every other internet account you have (as they ACTUALLY use your information to sell advertising)
• Will the EU government fine MD over your GDPR requests? Please. Not even close. This website doesn't collect your personal information (beyond IP address) and does nothing with it. But if you feel that you're at risk, I suppose you could reach out to a GH admin to delete your account.

Source: 10+ years in digital media analytics, targeting and optimization

[Data]

This thread is so over the top.

Glad I'm not the only one.  I eyerolled so hard I gave myself a migraine.

[HotRoderX]

This thread is so over the top.

GDPR is intended to protect individuals from companies processing and misusing user's personal data. This includes traditional PII as well as cookies and IP addresses. Upon request, you can have these items shared with you and / or purged from a company's database.

As has been mentioned above, GH is run on top of a pretty standard forum software package. This package collects WHAT YOU GIVE IT. The only items they're collecting which you have not entered yourself would be the IP address used to access your account and any 3rd party tracking that might be on the site. As you can see with this Ghostery scan (Chrome plugin), the only 3rd party tracking that this website has deployed is Google Analytics, which does not collect personally identifiable information (PII). Its job is to understand site performance. Where people are coming from, how long they stay on the site, etc. This information is anonymous and aggregated (meaning you can't reverse engineer to tie to an individual) for all GA accounts.

Show Image

• Can this website delete your account and post history? Yes. It's an option in the admin panel
• Should you suddenly feel differently about having an account here now that MD owns it? That's for each to decide, but I can't think of a reason why you're at more 'risk' now that MD owns the site. And if that's the case, I'd also advise you to close your Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and every other internet account you have (as they ACTUALLY use your information to sell advertising)
• Will the EU government fine MD over your GDPR requests? Please. Not even close. This website doesn't collect your personal information (beyond IP address) and does nothing with it. But if you feel that you're at risk, I suppose you could reach out to a GH admin to delete your account.

Source: 10+ years in digital media analytics, targeting and optimization

but the question is this ... GDPR retro active? I mean people are assuming it is but.. chances are its gray area that will take many many years of court battles to figure out. Technically a website would only need to purge the data since the GDPR become into being and was signed into law. I don't know not a lawyer but ^_^ law's aren't the end all be all people make them out to be. Most the time laws are muddy gray and nasty things.

[davkol]

wat.

Protection of data that the service provider has, not some data they had at some point, but don't have anymore.

[Visionaire]

GDPR applies as of 5/25/2018. All actions since then are under the regulation.

[c137]

I hereby request account deletion in accordance with GDPR.
It would be easier for everyone if there was an option in the user account settings panel.