As I write this I literally have a script ( https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite ) running deleting all posts and comments I made so I can delete my accounts and leave them with nothing. The last couple of days they have been prompting people to provide identification documents to access their accounts. This is going to start becoming more prevalent on platforms. I always hated the site but that’s crossed the line for me. So purpose of this post is just to give people a heads up while they still have access if they want to remove their data and / or delete the peice of shit from their life once and for all.
Users are never allowed to delete anything. Whatever you submit is theirs for as long as they want to keep it.
Hell, they grab whatever you type, whether you submit it or not.
How did you learn about the typing? Somebody said the same thing to me about Lemmy when I first got here but for data transfer over the internet that would be crazy
It’s stupidly common and easy. Practically any text field can be made to capture and cache “unsent” data, because it’s not actually a standard text field that only does POST when you submit, but rather something that is continuously polled (usually AJAX) and the data saved to whatever database tables they got set up for it.
Wonders of scripting.
NoScript will stop it, but then the platforms that rely on this bullshittery for ill, usually are the kind to try to force you into having JavaScript or worse enabled.
Some examples of this I’ve seen/used in the wild:
When I worked at a credit union, the last upgrade to the “online banking” towards Lumin(link to their marketing site in case you want to see their screenshots, almost no CU/Bank who uses them bothers to customize it) the then “hot and new” vendor platform that was hot then amongst digital banking solutions for small to midsize institutions, uses it on every text field.
E.g. the search omnibar input from atop the accounts where you can search help topics, and the input from the fields around the FAQ sections (input meaning both sent queries and anything typed but not submitted) were all visible to the call center folks, with strings like “user typed ‘how do I hide my 10k deposit through mobile banking’ into [field name] but did not submit”, as these were expected to be data for the reps to use in their servicing or whatever.
Another (much bigger) example: The omni bar at Google.com specifically (and I have no idea how many in their Android apps, but given that they have more control there than over your browser I’d just assume every single one…Google Keyboard included).
If you get yourself through all the trouble and effort to somehow arrive at search site unknown (your customized FF privacy fork is really fucking good or something) and for some reason need or allow scripting on their page and type ad targetty helpful info but never search…it’s still gonna make it into whatever shadow profile they’re prepping for linkage to the real you ASAP, and eagerly wants to personalize those ads with your unsent data.
My own community writing website:
It came bundled with a Xenforo add-on I used for some stupid feature I wasn’t smart enough to do myself 5-7 years ago. I don’t run any sort of ads or tracking whatsoever on my site, so it’s pretty much useless.