Learning to forget: Why web companies need to archive data

The HN title is different enough from the actual title to mean almost completely the opposite.

As a user I should be able to tell a website that I want it to forget something I'm putting on it after a while. Nothing complicated, say a default setting of one year. Not on sites like Posterous or Flickr, but on sites like Facebook, Twitter, even HN.

This isn't likely to happen though without legislation, which is a shame.

Why not on Posterous or Flickr? Not everyone wants every post or photo to persist.

Or, more practically: if this were convention or law, why would Posterous or Flickr be exempt?

BTW I like this idea.

Deleting information posted publicly isn't practical. Your posts are likely to be archived in numerous places (e.g. google cache or archive.org).

True, but still ...

> Why not on Posterous or Flickr?

Sure, some people would want that. I'd use the setting on Facebook, maybe on Twitter too, but not on my Posterous.

Bruce Schneier's essay "Privacy in the Age of Persistence" goes deeper into the underlying issue.

http://www.schneier.com/essay-261.html