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Facebook Keeps A History Of Pokes, Along With A Lot Of Other Data

39 points| tilt | 14 years ago |forbes.com | reply

21 comments

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[+] jgroome|14 years ago|reply
This is a big revelation to people?

Reminds me of when a friend of mine clicked on "Messages" and was shocked to see IM and Inbox conversations from 2007 with people she no longer knows. I had to say... What did you expect? When did Facebook ever say anything about deleting data after a certain time?

[+] koopajah|14 years ago|reply
There is a difference between people here knowing (or at least suspecting) that facebook keeps all that, and the lambda user. You would be ok if gmail kept a copy of every email you sent, received, the "drafts" you saved at one point? We can suspect they keep everything and still hope they are not in the end.
[+] MatthewB|14 years ago|reply
Nothing surprising here. The money is in the data and the more data Facebook generates about its users, the better targeting options advertisers have.
[+] kalleboo|14 years ago|reply
This doesn't surprise me at all. Storage is cheap, and it's a lot easier to never delete anything than to devise some system to go and clean up old "useless" information (which at some point you may find useful, e.g. this new Timeline history stuff).

I know often in the stuff I write, instead of deleting data, I toggle a "deleted" column. I always have the option to delete it for real later if I need the storage/clean up the index.

[+] exit|14 years ago|reply
http://facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=data_requests

european union residents can cite "Section 4 DPA + Art. 12 Directive 95/46/EG"

you can black out everything on your id except name, date of birth, and photo.

[+] lambada|14 years ago|reply
Need to correct the following:

EU Citizens (including UK citizens) can quote Art. 12 Directive 95/46/EG

But Section 4 of the Data Protection Act only applies to UK citizens as it is a UK law, hence only UK citizens can cite that law.

[+] asto|14 years ago|reply
They're using that cookie that stores the user-id post logout to figure out who's using which computer. Which means the cookie sticking around even after you log out wasn't unintended as Facebook tried to imply. The lying bastards!
[+] dbattaglia|14 years ago|reply
I always assumed they keep this kind of data in RAM only </sarcasm>
[+] pork|14 years ago|reply
With their heavy reliance on memcache, you're probably not wrong.
[+] romey|14 years ago|reply
The only bit that was surprising to me was the history of computers that you've logged in from, and the history of other users that have logged in on that computer. While I can see the value of identifying public computer, it is rather unnerving to think of the "Eye of Facebook" following me wherever I log in. Although it would be neat to be able to access this data and create a timeline heatmap of where you logged in most over the years.
[+] kennu|14 years ago|reply
I think legislation is soon needed to define a maximum time (e.g. one year) of storing a user's accumulated information unless he explicitly opts in for longer storage.

I don't really care if Facebook personalizes ads based on my current interests, but eternally storing private data (and making it difficult or impossible to delete the older data) is a completely different issue.

[+] cwe|14 years ago|reply
Can Americans get copies or their full files as well? Downloading your profile data does not have the depth of detail this does. I would love to have it all. For myself, though, not to share with everyone (like timeline).