Three cheers for the US courts

At last some payback for all those people who opened a Facebook account with no real idea of teh imapct it would have on their lives.

Unfortunately, it won't really hit Zuckerberg in the pocket, unlike the many people who have lost jobs or failed to find work as a result of some poorly judged utterances on the site that can never be deleted.

Shame on you Zuckerberg, may your personal details shine happily on the web forever, or until you allow people to delete their accounts permanently.

Avoid the Plague

Makes me glad I've avoided Facebook, MySpace and the rest of the "anti-social networking" sites. MySpace is owned by Murdoch and therefore you risk your immortal soul if you associate with it, Facebook is owned and run by a bunch of spoilt brats who shouldn't be allowed to drive let alone look after people's private data.

Aside from several Google apps, VoIP, etc. what exactly has the absurdly over-hyped "Web 2.0" produced that's of any benefit to anyone aside from those who hold stock options in the companies?

Soc. numbers not all that secure

Up until December 2005 some states used your Soc. number as your Drivers License number. If you had one of those every time you used a check, rented equipment, car, hotel or any of the other places that use your Drivers License ID you gave who knows how many people your Soc.

@Reggy's Tar.

I agree that Facebook don't make it "easy" to delete accounts, but they can be removed.

After realising what a silly idea Facebook was, I deleted all my data (as much as possible) and deactivated the account. I then sent their support people an email asking them to delete any remaining information (and really kill the account). They seemed quite happy to carry out this request.

Of course, they could have an evil master-plan which involves keeping the data when they say they have deleted it...but surely that's the same for any hosting service.

Oh Mr CEO...

You suck! <pause> Bitch! </pause>

@Anonymous Coward

Just a point. Your NINO is not the sam as the American SSN.

As far as I can tell the US use the SSN as a VERY important piece of data. Your NINO should not be. Some companys do use it, but they shoulden't. It should only be your REF for HMRC and the DWP and should be no more secret than your driving licence number.

@bws

I think a <pause /> element would be better there.

I gotted me a bebo account because most of my friends use it. Every time I update the witty aphorisms in my profile I see loads of fields that want my telephone number and house address. I leave them blank.

Unprintable

>I gotted me a bebo account

If that's the level of articulation of your average bebo user than I thank whatever deity is currently fashionable (Paddington maybe) that I never gotted one myself.

With John on this....

... is it really Facebooks fault that users fill in every field possible, I certainly haven't, people looking at my info will find that I live some where in England, if they see my IP address they will be able to pinpoint more precisely, than any info I have given.

It's another case of Caveat Emptor, although I have no knowledge of Latin to change the "buyer" word to something more appropriate. In short take responsibility for your self.

NINOs

... are *not* and have never been designed to be used as an personal ID system on the cheap. If they were HMRC wouldn't admit there are more NINOs in circulation than there could ever be people working.

Also there are many cases of two people being issued the same NINO, which makes it useless for guarenteeing ID anyway.