Ben's Blog World: [UPDATED] Months after deleting your account, Facebook still publishes your name and picture

Thursday, July 22, 2010

[UPDATED] Months after deleting your account, Facebook still publishes your name and picture

UPDATE: It appears now as though this may be a Google cache issue, and not a Facebook issue. I stand corrected, and I do apologize. I love Facebook, and would gladly give Mark Zuckerberg a hug. I do apologize and wish to clear Facebook's name on this one.

Over two months ago, on May 17, 2010, I completely deleted my Facebook account because I felt that they "don't respect my privacy." What a drama queen move, right? Of course they respect it; after all, they changed their policy and made sharing options simpler.

I didn't renew my account; I still didn't trust them. Life moves on, though, and since there was nothing new for me to make a fuss about, I shut up about it and just continued distrusting.

Now, Google has put out a new image search interface. I go to test it, and on a whim, I search for myself. Come on, you must have done things like that too.

Anyway, no image of mine should pop up. But lo and behold, I see a small, yet clearly identifiable, image of yours truly (with bald head, goatee, and all) right on the second line of results. So, who's sharing this image with the world so prominently?

You guessed it! Thank you, Facebook, for respecting my wishes to protect my online identity and remove myself from your system. That's charming, really. If anyone thinks this is just a "lag," and that Facebook will probably remove my image "soon," it has been two months since I closed my account. This isn't a lag; it's complete disrespect for Facebook users and the notion of online privacy.