Facebook Accounts - Deleting

Do you have a Facebook account? Have you thought: "I do not feel secure using it."; "Why did I join this? "; or "I want to quit Facebook, so I will deactivate my account - that's the same as deleting." If you think that deactivating your account is the same a deleting it, you would be wrong.

When you deactivate your account, you are only putting your account into "hibernation". All of your account's information is retained in this deactivated mode. A deactivated account can be "awoken" at any time you want; to do this you simply log in using your account's user name/password set.

If you want to truly delete your account and have your information removed from Facebook, perform the following steps:

• log into Facebook
• go to the Help section
• select Account Settings
• select Privacy
• select "I want to permanently delete my account." (under the General heading)
• select the "this form" link in the second paragraph
• select the check box fill in the form and click Submit
  

Facebook will e-mail you and give you time to think about the account deletion. They should send a confirmation that your account is deleted in two to three days. There might be an easier way to do this, but I have not found it. When it comes to Facebook, "delete", "erase", and "remove" are not terms commonly associated with terminating an account.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am neither a proponent (for which there are many benefits) nor a detractor of Facebook and other social networking sites (e.g., hi5, MySpace, Orkut, Second Life, etc.). I am simply more cautious about the social networking bandwagon. My experience with them has been less than satisfactory and the principles are so contrary to my education in Internet security that I am unwilling to participate at this time.