Delete my account

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  gymdoblog67 · Member · Feb 19, 2017 at 12:48 pm

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  I want to delete my account including previous information, not just the information as it appears as is on the site DB today. How can I get this done?

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  gemmacevans · Member · Feb 20, 2017 at 12:42 pm

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  Hello,

  This guide explains how to delete your account:

  https://en.support.wordpress.com/deleting-accounts/

  Come back to me if you have any questions.

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  gymdoblog67 · Member · Feb 22, 2017 at 8:54 am

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  Thanks, but renaming details doesn’t remove the details from the digital record. It should be a legal right to have the details completely removed, which is what I’m looking for, rather than just removing details from the current version in the datasets.

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  gemmacevans · Member · Feb 22, 2017 at 2:41 pm

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  Hello,

  Since we don’t want other people to have your username in the future, we don’€™t delete usernames (they are kept so they cannot be recycled).

  Here’€™s a few suggestions for you if you’€™d like to scrub the account of personal information.

  1) Empty and delete your sites:

  First of all, be sure to empty your sites of all content. You can find out more about how to do this here:

  https://en.support.wordpress.com/empty-site/

  Next, delete the site following the guide on this page:

  Delete a Website

  Please be aware that this is irreversible!

  2) If you are trying to unsubscribe from emails sent to you from WordPress.com, go here and click on ‘€œBlock Emails’€:

  https://wordpress.com/me/notifications/subscriptions

  3) You can also go here to remove all data except the account name and an email address. Create a throwaway email address and change the account email to that throwaway address. This will only leave the username behind:

  https://wordpress.com/me/account/
  https://wordpress.com/me/profile

  4) To ensure the account is locked up tightly, visit this site, generate a password of 15-20 characters, and change the account password to it:

  http://www.thebitmill.com/tools/password.html

  5) While you cannot completely delete your Gravatar profile, you can remove all of your profile information easily through the ‘Edit My Profile’€ page here:

  http://en.gravatar.com/profiles/edit/?noclose#about-you

  You can also hide your Gravatar profile from external access. Visit your profile page (click your name in the top navigation of the website), then click the ‘€œHide My Profile’€ link in the bottom, right-hand corner.

  Come back to me if you have any questions!

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  gymdoblog67 · Member · Feb 22, 2017 at 4:25 pm

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  Thanks, that’s very helpful.

  I think the inability to remove is a product mistake though. In deleting my own username, I’d expect it to be made available again.

  This way, I can change a DB record so that a query of current data would reveal nothing, but legacy data, I assume, is still present.

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  gemmacevans · Member · Feb 23, 2017 at 9:47 am

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  Hello,

  You’re welcome!

  Once you have scrubbed the account, it will no longer contain any personal information identifiable to you. Our systems keep a record of your username in order to make sure that it cannot be re-used in the future — this stops someone else pretending to be you.

  I hope this puts your mind at rest.