According to The New York Times, the Facebook group “How to permanently delete your facebook account” has almost 4,300 members and is steadily growing.
“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
“The thing they offer advertisers is that they can connect to groups of people. I can see why they wouldn’t want to throw away anyone’s information, but there’s a conflict with privacy,” said Alan Burlison, 46, a British software engineer who succeeded in deleting his account only after he complained in the British press.
BONUS LINK: On a dark desert highway, circa ’76
[UPDATE] Brandee Barker at Facebook said, “We are working to better explain the simple deactivation process, and to ease the deletion process for those who want their personal information removed from our servers.” Additional information can be found on the Facebook help page.
