You can never really delete anything from the internet

You know that in 2015, nothing you put on social media is truly private. But what about those embarrassing tweets or Facebook statuses that you posted years ago, but have since deleted? Can you ever truly scrub something from the Internet?
The answer, as you might expect, is murky.
“Whether or not something is deleted isn’t within the user’s control,” says Behnam Dayanim, Esq., a Washington, DC-based lawyer who specializes in privacy and cybersecurity.
Take a regular email. When you delete it from your inbox, it goes to a “Deleted Items” folder. Empty that folder and you permanently kill the message — on your end. But even a double-deleted item could stick around on your email provider’s servers for an indefinite amount of time, says Dayanim.
And in the event of a security breach, your info could wind up in the hands of hackers, he says. That goes for social media posts, emails and text messages, too. You can’t really get around this, since you give these companies explicit permission to hold on to your data when you agree to their vague privacy policies.
What exactly do those policies say? Here’s a sampling:

Facebook
The social network stores data for “as long as necessary to provide products and services to you and others.”

Gmail
After you delete an email, Gmail “may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers.”

Snapchat
When you view a snap, it’s automatically deleted from the company’s servers — in “most cases.” Snapchat “can’t guarantee that the messages will be deleted within a specific timeframe” and says your snap “may remain in backup for a limited period of time.”

Instagram
The photo app may retain information for “a commercially reasonable time for backup, archival, and/or audit purposes.”

Twitter
Twitter doesn’t comment on what it does when you delete a tweet, but says that “search engines and other third parties may still retain copies of your public information, like your user profile information and public tweets, even after you have deleted the information from the Twitter Services or deactivated your account.”

Like we said, pretty vague. The common thread is companies can recover your data depending on particular circumstances, like requests from law enforcement or a subpoena, says Dayanim.
If you’re a little freaked out by this, Cyberdust (free for iOS, Android and Windows platforms) will ease some of your paranoia. The Mark Cuban-backed app claims to permanently wipe every message you send within 100 seconds of recipients reading it — even from company servers.
We hope you haven’t posted anything that could land you in jail. It’s more realistic to make a social media flub that jeopardizes your job. 

 

 

 

You can never really delete anything from the internet

You know that in 2015, nothing you put on social media is truly private. But what about those embarrassing tweets or Facebook statuses that you posted years ago, but have since deleted? Can you ever truly scrub something from the Internet? The answer, as you might expect, is murky. Whether or not something is deleted isnt within the users control, says Behnam Dayanim, Esq., a Washington, DC-based lawyer who specializes in privacy and cybersecurity. Take a regular email. When you delete it from your inbox, it goes to a Deleted Items folder. Empty that folder and you permanently kill the message on your end. But even a double-deleted item could stick around on your email providers servers for an indefinite amount of time, says Dayanim. And in the event of a security breach, your info could wind up in the hands of hackers, he says. That goes for social media posts, emails and text messages, too. You cant really get around this, since you give these companies explicit permission to hold on to your data when you agree to their vague privacy policies. What exactly do those policies say? Heres a sampling: Facebook The social network stores data for as long as necessary to provide products and services to you and others. Gmail After you delete an email, Gmail may not immediately delete residual copies from our active servers. Snapchat When you view a snap, its automatically deleted from the companys servers in most cases. Snapchat cant guarantee that the messages will be deleted within a specific timeframe and says your snap may remain in backup for a limited period of time. Instagram The photo app may retain information for a commercially reasonable time for backup, archival, and/or audit purposes. Twitter Twitter doesnt comment on what it does when you delete a tweet, but says that search engines and other third parties may still retain copies of your public information, like your user profile information and public tweets, even after you have deleted the information from the Twitter Services or deactivated your account. Like we said, pretty vague. The common thread is companies can recover your data depending on particular circumstances, like requests from law enforcement or a subpoena, says Dayanim. If youre a little freaked out by this, Cyberdust (free for iOS, Android and Windows platforms) will ease some of your paranoia. The Mark Cuban-backed app claims to permanently wipe every message you send within 100 seconds of recipients reading it even from company servers. We hope you havent posted anything that could land you in jail. Its more realistic to make a social media flub that jeopardizes your job.