Deleting account / clarity you can't
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Hi there. I was trying to delete my account and found it slightly unclear under the title why not… I think also the title at (https://en.support.wordpress.com/deleting-accounts/) could be renamed ‘deleting account (not possible) but deactivating is’ and saying why in more detail below it. Of course it is possible to delete but it’s a choice to disable it your end for certain reasons perhaps not primarily about deleting user details fully.
Asking in the forum I got a response which was quite good but felt there was more space for your side of things. You should have a look at the response here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-cant-delete-user
… and let me know what you think… thanks‘Accounts cannot be deleted for your own privacy protection. Preventing someone from registering and using the same username in the future, impersonating you. ‘
… sounds a bit like it’s more for your reasons than my idea of privacy as it’s different to that! You keep my details on your servers, for example, in favour of ‘possible impersonations’ which for me personally isn’t a problem. I guess the question before that would be ‘what details do you keep other than username / site name’ like what logs and extended data etc… the forum should be read for clearer writing of this question…
and thanks for everything
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Good day to you. :)
You are correct. Accounts cannot be deleted so we cannot be impersonated by anyone registering and using the same username in the future. Also, note that Automattic Inc. owns wordpress.COM and also many other products and services listed here https://automattic.com/ that do require a wordpress.COM account. Therefore, account deactivation is provided and account deletion is not provided.
Registering an account here required
(1) your consent to the Terms of Service http://wordpress.com/tos/ and all policies made under it found in the support docs like this one http://en.support.wordpress.com/deleting-accounts/,
and
(2) an email address.Any personal information you posted anywhere was posted voluntarily. Both the email address and personal information can be removed or replaced at any time.
Here’s how to deactivate your account:
Although username accounts are not deleted, so you cannot be impersonated and have your reputation affected by anyone registering the same username in the future, there are steps you can take that amount to removing all personal information and result in leaving only a throwaway email address behind. http://en.support.wordpress.com/deleting-accounts/1. You can go to My Account->Edit Profile and 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 only leaves the username behind.
2. To unsubscribe from email sent to you from WordPress.com, go here and click on “Block all subscription emails from WordPress.com”:
https://wordpress.com/settings/notifications/3. 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.html4. To hide your Gravatar profile, login and on the bottom right hand corner of your Gravatar profile page you will find a “hide” button visible only to you that you can click. http://en.gravatar.com/support/profile-privacy
IMPORTANT NOTE: Deleting blogs and/or blog content or making the site private does not remove indexed content from the SERPs (search engine page results) and we cannot help with that. Google and Bing only clear their caches of deleted indexed content that produces a 404 (page not found) every 3 – 6 months. To completely remove an entire page from Google search results after it produces a 404 (page not found):
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6332384?hl=en&ref_topic=1724262&vid=0-635749429504660340-12158368555624983465&rd=1 -
I guess the question before that would be ‘what details do you keep other than username / site name’ like what logs and extended data etc…
You may want to read this support doc:
Private User Data https://en.support.wordpress.com/private-user-data/Other information disclosed in the privacy policy https://automattic.com/privacy/
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