Say Goodbye: Tips for Closing Hard-to-Delete Online Accounts

I've written on the subjectfor years and have had conversations with colleagues, friends, security experts, and CR readers about why it makes sense to regularly delete accounts and data that are out there. One thing that comes up a lot is how difficult it can be to do this. It usually takes less than a minute to create an account, and the link to get started is usually at the top of a website home page. However, deleting an account can take much longer.

I recently ran a small experiment to discover some of the most common pitfalls in setting up data and account wipe requests, and to provide guidance on how to navigate the more complicated processes. (You can go straight to my tips on cleaning up accounts .)

To give a rough measure of how long it takes to delete an account, I went with Google, an obvious example of a mega-company that collects consumer data but also makes this process relatively easy.

So I set myself a timer and set up a new Google account asap. It took 1 minute and 11 seconds. Just 34 seconds and nine clicks later, I deleted this account and all the data Google had collected in its short but hectic life. It was quick.

When I moved to other departments, my experiences were very different. I've calculated the time it takes to create and then delete accounts with various well-known brands that I or people I know have struggled with in the past. I also added some websites that people have complained about online.

It wasn't a methodological investigation and the companies I researched may not be the worst offenders. One of the reasons I chose these companies is because the difficulties I encountered seem quite typical: complicated menus, a lack of clarity about whether deleting your account will also remove your data, and situations where you call, wait, and possibly ask a customer service representative who may try to dissuade you. In some cases, finding information on how to delete an account leads to a frustrating scavenger hunt through a website or app.

"Corporations have a moral obligation to allow you to delete your accounts and data, and in some states they have or will soon be," said Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology policies at Consumer Reports.

"Unfortunately, a lot of companies seem to deliberately find this process difficult to manage," says Brookman. California's privacy law requires that most medium and large businesses, for example, allow you to delete your personal information, but we've found that exercising this right can be challenging . (Residents of Colorado and Virginia will have similar rights starting in 2021).

However, the challenges facing consumers "can't be bad," said Miriam Wugmeister, attorney who co-chaired the privacy and data group at international law firm Morrison & Foerster has advised hundreds of companies. "There are significant hurdles - costs, technical know-how, legal issues," that companies face when deleting an account, he says. The problem can also be due to operational complexity, especially in large companies. "In addition to being stored in a spreadsheet, your data can be distributed across many different systems, including some that can be designed to make it next to impossible to erase information. It's a completely manual process.

For each company below, I created a new account and then measured the time to delete and all the data the company had collected about me. Each process was difficult in a different way, but each time I found tips that helped me.

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