To Delete or Not To Delete?

To delete or not to delete? That is the question.

Admittedly, that’s an awkward paraphrase of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet when he famously asked: “To be or not to be? That is the question.”

But, given the continuing revelations of the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans – including violating the NSA’a own lax privacy rules 3,000 times in just one year – many Americans are reviewing the websites and online services they use and deleting those they no longer use or they believe may be a threat to their privacy and security.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to delete your account from these web-based services that vacuum up your Private Personal Information.

In fact, as I bet you’ve experienced, some sites intentionally make it nearly impossible to delete your account. Truth be told, I’ve got an ongoing battle with a major news organization I subscribe to that keeps sending me emails even though I’ve unsubscribed from their list repeatedly.

Frustrating.

Maddening.

Well, there’s good news this week when it comes to deleting your account from many common Internet services.

A brand new website – www.JustDelete.me – was launched this week to help you delete your profile and account from a growing list of web services like Amazon, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, Tumblr, Twitter and dozens more.

In fact, the list of services that the site helps you delete your account from more than doubled from last night to this morning. Last Monday when the service launched, only 16 websites were listed. Today, the number is 97 and still growing. So, if a web service you use isn’t listed today, check back in a few days because the list is growing fast.

Did I mention www.JustDelete.me is free?

Here’s how it works.

Robb Lewis, a 25-year-old web developer, realized folks are frustrated that they often have to work through a maze of links and instructions to delete their accounts from popular web services. So, he decided to shorten the process by, in most cases, taking you directly to the internal web link where you can delete your account. And, he’s color-coded the various web services by ease of deletion. Finally, he gives you additional information if you need it for those sites that don’t automate the deletion process.

In other words, Lewis created a One Stop Shop for deleting accounts.

Personally, I think Lewis has created a simple, free and brilliant website that I’ve bookmarked and already used to delete several accounts that I no longer want and – in one case – had forgotten I even had until I looked through the grid he has compiled.

Most important, in every test I’ve run on www.JustDelete.me it worked.

But, because I don’t have accounts with all the web services he has on the grid, I’d love to get your feedback if you use the site to delete an account.

So, if you delete an account through www.JustDelete.me drop me an email and let me know how the service worked. My email address is:[email protected]

I’d love to hear how this simple, free service works for you because it’s important to me that any service I tell you about brings value to your life as it increases your privacy and security.

Even if you don’t use the site right now, add it to your bookmarks. I have no doubt that one day in the future it will assist you in deleting a web service account that you no longer have use for or you feel contains Private Personal Information you want to keep out of the hands of others.

Be safe and secure,

Rob Douglas