Can I delete my account?

[Logan Spader]

I have had quite a difficult problem regarding my online privacy this past month. For this reason I am trying to delete all of my online forum accounts. Is it possible for me to delete my account? How? I assume that my profile would be deleted but what about my avatar picture and my posts?

Thanks for the help!

[Gary Dunckel]

If you contact Addie through forum support, I'm sure she can make it happen for you.

[Nick Gatel]

Be careful, Addie is pretty powerful. If she makes a mistake you might be erased and cease to exist.

[Addie Bedford]

BPL's policy is actually to NOT delete anyone's profile, for the very reason of preserving the integrity of the forums. I can scrub ALL identifying information upon request, but uploading a blank or dummy photo to an avatar and editing past posts is the responsibility of the individual.

Also, Google cache has a very long memory, so searches for a specific name may still point to a profile that will no longer have that name associated with it. Unfortunately, that's completely out of my hands, and we just have to wait for Google to catch (cache?) up with what's live on the site.

Thanks!
Addie

PS: Any requests to remove identifying information from a user's profile MUST be submitted via a support issue, please.

[John S.]

From "change my profile" he can change his name, picture (just upload some pic) and delete all information. You can do that yourself.

[Logan Spader]

Ahhh! I never guessed that BPL would be able to solve all of my internet problems too! See, I tried just changing all of my information off another forum but I was still easily able to Google it. So this "cache" you speak of will eventually be updated and drop the information that I deleted from the forums?

BPL is always so helpful! Thanks guys!

[Bob Gross]

Google does not cover 100% of everything on a daily basis. Its robots travel a lot by night, and how often they hit a particular site kind of depends on how important that site is with respect to web hits.

For one particular site that I am involved in, the robots hit it about once every four days.

So, sit back and wait a while and see what happens.

It is far easier to not leave your personal information viewable in the first place, rather than trying to clean it off after the fact.

–B.G.–

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Less busy sites google might scan only once a month…and even then they might not scan everything. Old content that hasn't changed in years might not get re-scanned for several months. Most of what you see in Google results is pre-scanned info in their cache….it would't work to do that stuff live.

[Charles Henry]

FYI There are websites and services that cache websites FOREVER. Wayback machine is one example. The NSA probably has also does this, etc. You can scrub it from google but just you let you know, forum postings are basically quasi-permanent.

This is why I do not (and most people don't) give their real names on a forum. It's also possible, to a ridiculous and shocking degree, to aggregate information you leak piece by piece on internet forums until someone has an extremely detailed picture of your life and interests, etc, phone number, tenure at work, education, spouse, address, kids, car…

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