>> Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more information in order to verify your identify

Same issue as I'm currently having with Airbnb. Though I have never ever provided any ID before, nor did I ever book anything, they asked me for an ID to prove my identity upon requesting account removal. How exactly does my ID _prove_ anything in my case (apart from the fact that I have an ID copy of a person who has the same name as I entered into the Airbnb profile page). Seems more like one more obstacle to prevent people from deleting their account.

It's pretty common actually. They will delete all your data, but that requires strong authentication, which government ID is. That's how it works with gdpr in 90% of cases.

Account removal should be just as easy as it was to sign up

I agree that it should be just as easy to suspend your account as it was to sign up, but irretrievable deletion should be harder.

Companies ideally want to stop fraud at both ends, but I would be more upset if, for example, my Airbnb account were fraudulently deleted than if someone fraudulently made one in my name.

Granted, deletion requires access to the account in question, so maybe that's enough of a hurdle already? In that sense it's already harder to delete than create.

> Granted, deletion requires access to the account in question, so maybe that's enough of a hurdle already? In that sense it's already harder to delete than create.

I tend to agree that that is enough of an additional hurdle, but note that it conflicts with

> I agree that it should be just as easy to suspend your account as it was to sign up, but irretrievable deletion should be harder.

It's definitely not appropriate for any unauthenticated person to be allowed to suspend an account. You need the same hurdle on suspension.

I think it would be reasonable to have a grace period between the deletion request and the actual deletion, during which the account was retrievable.

I've deleted a lot of accounts in the last few weeks, and Airbnb was the only one requiring an ID prove. I agree, it is indeed part of GDPR for them to ensure I have the right to delete my account. My only issue is that my ID does not prove anything in my case, because Airbnb doesn't know my identity which they could compare my ID with, because I did have to provide my ID after registering and I never booked anything on their site.

It seems like a good idea to get a fake ID, to sign up for (free) accounts using that nym. Or I suppose if you can order fake IDs with custom nyms as needed, then you could consider that the price to delete your psuedonymous accounts.

that dropdown is super annoying: https://imgur.com/a/iUFg3cn

Also, I clicked that "visibility hidden" and got this email:

"Hey Jeff,

You’re no longer letting companies know that you’re open to discussing new opportunities. Your profile will be hidden from employers for the next 24 months. You can change your job search status and make your profile visible again, whenever you feel ready explore new opportunities." (https://imgur.com/a/OBWexgo)

So even that only will get rid of it for 24 months. Let's see if they'll just delete my account.

Holy crap -- what an intentionally dark and transparently evil 'ux' pattern.

Since account deletion is such a hurdle, edit your profile to replace your name and info with profanity and let's see how Google and the various content filters will like that once the profile goes public.

Replace the information with that of a SDN (Specially Designated National)* if you really want to cause trouble!

*Don't actually do this unless you want a visit from a 3 letter agency.

Then explain to the agent "I've been in quarantine for a while now and I was lonely. Want a beer?"

I'm pretty sure they'll leave. Might not even file any paperwork on that.

Thanks, that's exactly what i did. Just obfuscated profile. Let them handle garbage.

Just a reminder that most of these companies never really delete your account, they simply deactivate it, while keeping all your data. You can also update your profile info and fill it with gibberish.

> Just a reminder that most of these companies never really delete your account

Not if you request account deletion under CCPA. Or at least not if they're smart.

CCPA only applies is you're a CA resident.

The whole government ID thingy is really beyond the pale. Just imagine: you never needed it to sign up in the first place. So now after proving to be not worthy of your trust, tone deaf and ethically deficient, to delete your account you need to give them even more information.

This company deserves to die.

Give it time, an EU citizen who applied will eventually make GDPR complaint. At which point, it's game over.

If they have $25m in revenue, receive more than 50k signups a year, or make more than 50% of their revenue selling data on California residents they are subject to CCPA.

CCPA actually has way more teeth than GDPR, because California's Unfair Competition Law allows residents to enforce laws that do not otherwise provide a private right of actions. (though this still needs to be proved out in the courts)

In theory. Has any company seen the pointy end of GDPR yet?

Yes, several every day: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

Thanks for the links. I registered but never set up a profile, and if you click the link in the email or [0] above, it forced you to set up a profile before you can configure your privacy settings.

Also, after opting out of personal data sharing:

> We're processing your request and should be done within 30 days.

Same for deleting your account.

Yikes, that two year thing is gross.

They have definitely been kind of spammy for a long time...I usually ignore their emails but I actually read the first paragraph of this one and it sounded like it was an opt-in feature, so I closed it, but the important line was further down: “You can edit your profile privacy settings to not appear in public search engines at any time.”

I'm glad you posted this because I otherwise might not have found that way to delete my account.

Here's what it said when I did:

> We will verify your request using the information associated with your account. Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more information in order to verify your identify.

So I can change my profile name to Seymour Butts, but deleting my account that I have credentials for may require government ID that you never asked me for? WTF

Thank you for the link! The visibility settings button is basically invisible and so I had marked myself as "not looking" rather than "not visible".

FWIW, I requested my account be deleted, and got a confirmation email maybe 20 mins later and didn't need to provide any ID.

Thank you. I was scouring the page in a frenzy and couldn't figure out it was tucked away in the Profile URL section.

Managed to get my profile from 38 to "100% complete" in the process during my attempts to wipe out my data.

Christ.

If you're on desktop Safari, the only way to select the maximum 2 years option is to resize the window vertically (smaller) until the dropdown becomes a drop-up.

Thanks. I was looking for the link to delete my account.

So I got an email saying my account was deleted. Tried to login and the login failed. Curious if my information was delete or if they just deactivate the login and my information will still show up.

I just tried to delete my account and in addition to the thing about government ID it said:

>> We're processing your request and should be done within 30 days.

30 days to delete an account? I guess they have a lot of account deletion requests to process all of the sudden!

Dude, I turned off the public profile thing. It appears to be off. BUT when I hard refresh the page and click again, it appears to be ON again! Am I going crazy?

What's worse, the dropdown doesn't even work for me (on iOS Chrome). It's stuck on 1 month.