Technology

Is Facebook Creating ‘Shadow Profiles’?

In mid-August, Europe vs. Facebook raised the complaint that Facebook Ireland was maintaining ‘shadow profiles’ of people who were not registered to the site.

According to SlashGear, Facebook Ireland denies collecting information it shouldn’t and states that the only information that is kept is an email address and name.

The Guardian reports Max Schrems, an Austrian law student, asked Facebook for all the data it held on him and was shocked when it resulted in a 1,200 page PDF and contained information he had deleted:

Among the 1,200 pages of data Schrems was sent were rejected friend requests, incidences where he “defriended” someone, as well as a log of all Facebook chats he had ever had. There was also a list of photos he had detagged of himself, the names of everyone he had ever “poked”, which events he had attended, which he hadn’t replied to, and much more besides.

[...]

“I discovered Facebook had kept highly personal messages I had written and then deleted, which, were they to become public, could be highly damaging to my reputation,” said Schrems in an interview between law lectures on Thursday.

Facebook Ireland, a subsidiary that runs Facebook for users outside of the United States and Canada, is now under investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission. If prosecuted and found guilty, Facebook Ireland could face close to $140,000 (100,00 Euro) in fines.

Slashdot goes on to report Facebook representatives as saying email and names are collected to better suggest friends and sidesteps messages being maintained based on the fact that users cannot delete messages that reside in the recipients inbox.

Last year, Slashing Magazine gave readers instructions on how to permanently delete their accounts from popular sites, and also rated sites on how hard it was to do so. Facebook ranked in as a 5, the highest level of difficulty to permanently delete.

According to Slashing Magazine, you can ‘deactivate’ your account, which removes your account from Facebook but keeps your profile in some invisible database so you could ‘reactivate’ it at some pint should you choose. The other, permanent alternative requires a written request to Facebook itself. Take care not to try logging in to Facebook after you’ve made this permanent deletion request; it will nullify your request and your account will remain active.

Comments (10)

  • beebacksoon
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 5:40pm

    Goldman-Sachs invested $450 mil in FB. They are not only a financial institution, but a marketing firm. They are privy to our personal info. Not only that but when Robert Gibbs left his position as Obama’s press sec., he went to work for FB.

    Report Post »  
  • Michael912
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 10:29am

    If you’ve EVER been on line, even this sight, your info is out there. Be mindful of what you post. The dude in the article complained about F-book keeping a “highly personal message that he deleted, and that if it got out would damage his reputation”, I’ve got an idea…..don’t send those messages….not just on F-book, but anywhere on the web, it’s all available.

    Report Post » Michael912  
  • JRook
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 10:20am

    No more than the 20 plus third party cookies that are loaded from this site. Anyone that has used the web even minimally has a profile somewhere and over time the information will be integrated and sold.

    Report Post »  
  • Vanes
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 6:27am

    First of all if you have anything to say that “could be damaging to your reputation” Don’t say it on facebook, whether in a private message, chat or a wall post. Second if you want to keep a reputation of any kind just keep those damaging thoughts to yourself! Have there not been enough lessons learned on facebook? If we’re not careful we will loose our empathy and become dehumanized by the (anti)social network and as sad as it is it is already happening to our youth.

    Report Post » Vanes  
  • staggerlee32
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 3:39am

    I’m just glad I found the way to permanantly deactivate my account.

    Report Post » staggerlee32  
  • Common.Cents
    Posted on October 26, 2011 at 1:33am

    Face book is terrible in so many ways. Giving away my personal information for free? I don’t think so. I deleted mine, but as others have stated, my data is most likely still in the servers somewhere.

    Report Post » Common.Cents  
  • hippyhater
    Posted on October 25, 2011 at 11:59pm

    this is exactly why i deleted my profile from facebook. although i am sure all that info is still in the FB servers at least i wont continue to contribute to it.

    Report Post » hippyhater  
    • pamela kay
      Posted on October 26, 2011 at 1:01am

      This fast paced world is getting to scarey. No one is safe, nothing is sacred, and so many people just don’t care.

      Report Post » pamela kay  
  • COFemale
    Posted on October 25, 2011 at 11:50pm

    “some pint should you choose” – should be “some point should you choose.”

    This has been a friendly typo alert brought to you by COFemale.

    Report Post » COFemale  
    • Rocky_biskit
      Posted on October 26, 2011 at 2:58pm

      …. I am pretty sure they meant “pint”, after all they are referring to Ireland.

      Report Post »  

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