logoalt Hacker News

jasonkestertoday at 6:49 AM6 repliesview on HN

Anybody who has ever run a website with customer data can instantly understand why they do it this way. I don't see any malice.

It's simple, really. You have a website where people can upload their cat photos. There's a delete button. People click the delete button, read the "This will really Delete your Thing. It's Permanent. You CAN'T GET IT BACK!" warning, and click the confirm button.

Then you get an angry email (and twitter post, and blog entry, and Reddit mob) saying "I can't believe you deleted my photo without asking. That was my favorite cat photo it was my only copy I'LL SUE YOU!@!!"

So you go into your console and flip the .isActive bit back to 1 on that photo, send off your stock apology, and get on with your day.

To run your business any other way is madness. You're not training or selling or otherwise misusing that cat photo. You just don't want to deal with that hassle every day. So you "delete" things by moving them someplace where they're not public anymore.

It's just what you do...


Replies

bot403today at 7:01 AM

No, sorry. Promising to permanently delete data without doing it is the madness and should be illegal if it's not already. Hide the permeantly delete for privacy just a bit further and offer a soft delete to the user then for the normal case.

show 2 replies
Tzktoday at 7:23 AM

Well, no. Correct behavior would be to state „your data will be deleted and may be recovered for X days“. Claiming full and permanent deletion and then not deleting it is malicious behavior and should be against the law (at least inside the EU).

So forwarding it to NYOB is a good choice.

show 1 reply
mrd3v0today at 7:07 AM

Oh yeah, poor corporations, getting sued(!!) for deleting data after being asked by the user to delete it.

Beautifully crafted ragebait :D

show 1 reply
sapphicsnailtoday at 8:31 AM

You could just not put a delete button in the first place

Bitu79today at 7:04 AM

I don't like your comment because it's nonsense, but I'll upvote it so you get a point. :)

Bitu79today at 6:54 AM

This cannot be an excuse. The data is clearly used for AI training. If that were actually the case, they would state the truth on the UI buttons instead of lying, and they wouldn't have banned me from VRP either. They lie constantly and they do not comply with the law. I have been writing to them for almost a year, and not a single human has ever replied to me—even their DPO is just an automated script!