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I'm conflicted on this, it's kind of the worse of both worlds, they mark your data as deleted in the database and you don't have access to it anymore but they c

by jeena 6y ago

I'm conflicted on this, it's kind of the worse of both worlds, they mark your data as deleted in the database and you don't have access to it anymore but they can keep using it indefinably as long as they don't fuck up and some legislation forces them to delete it. So now only they have access to your data but you don't anymore. Anecdote: I was really happy about the data Google maps saved about me a couple of weeks ago when I got a letter from the migration agency which asked me to send in a list of my journeys abroad since 2017. The list was supposed to have: date traveling out, date coming back, country and purpose. Last year I was abroad 19 times and 126 of the 355 days, without Google maps collecting the data in the background for me I would have no chance in hell to get it right, and I guess the migration agency has access to this kind of data too so they can double check if I was telling the truth or not. But in 2018 when Google introduced the possibility to mark my data as deleted, I clicked the button and lost the ability to see the data for 2017 and early 2018 which I really regretted now, because I needed to try to come up with dates and countries according to photos on my phone which had GPS coordinates and my DSLR which had just the dates.

zhengyi13 6y ago
Internally, a lot of companies have a standard corporate damage-limiting process that actively deletes old email. You can't have subpoena'd data you really no longer possess. That's a (potentially significant) legal win. OTOH, if you claim you've gotten rid of data to one party, and then another party is able to dig that same data up in a legal proceeding, I expect the first party might be upset, and seek compensation. Quite apart from that, if you have metrics that show long tail data are infrequently accessed, but do take up an appreciable (and ever growing) amount of resources, it's a OpEx/engineering win to actually get rid of that on a proactive basis.
JJzD 6y ago
Imagine how hard it would be to keep the lid on this operation, and how damaging it would be if it ever came out and what the legal repercussons would be, for example from EU side? So, you'd need to vet an ultra secure team, who is not allowed to talk about this data both to use and store it. Or you have to publish a representation to wider teams telling them 'these are secret feautures'. So, you'd need a secret code base nobody is allowed to talk about. Corporations can do shady things, but it's hard to imagine this old data being useful anyway, to be worth all this hassle and possible repercussions.

by jeena 6y ago

zhengyi13 6y ago

Internally, a lot of companies have a standard corporate damage-limiting process that actively deletes old email. You can't have subpoena'd data you really no longer possess. That's a (potentially significant) legal win. OTOH, if you claim you've gotten rid of data to one party, and then another party is able to dig that same data up in a legal proceeding, I expect the first party might be upset, and seek compensation. Quite apart from that, if you have metrics that show long tail data are infrequently accessed, but do take up an appreciable (and ever growing) amount of resources, it's a OpEx/engineering win to actually get rid of that on a proactive basis.

JJzD 6y ago

Imagine how hard it would be to keep the lid on this operation, and how damaging it would be if it ever came out and what the legal repercussons would be, for example from EU side? So, you'd need to vet an ultra secure team, who is not allowed to talk about this data both to use and store it. Or you have to publish a representation to wider teams telling them 'these are secret feautures'. So, you'd need a secret code base nobody is allowed to talk about. Corporations can do shady things, but it's hard to imagine this old data being useful anyway, to be worth all this hassle and possible repercussions.