Facebook has drawn the attention of the UK Information Commissioner over its policy around deletion of user accounts.
If you change your mind about joining Facebook and try and delete your account, the account is "deactivated", but the content is retained by Facebook - in case you change your mind again and want to reinstate the account.
If you really want to permanently delete your account, you would need to delete each individual piece of information, which for regular Facebook users, would take some time (to put it mildly).
The Information Commissioner is also planning a wider review of Facebook's privacy policy, and this will include looking at the issue of embedded applications. At present, when certain third party applications available through Facebook are accessed, the user must first agree to the authors of the application having access to their personal data, and the reason for this is not always clear.
I spotted a good piece on this here (from an Irish perspective) ...
http://www.mcgarrsolicitors.ie/2008/01/20/facebooks-european-privacy-problem/
Posted by: Peter | January 25, 2008 at 12:27 PM