Delete My Posts and Account

11 points by headShrinker 2 years ago | 5 comments

Most of you don't know, news.ycombinator.com has a policy of not allowing you to delete comments ever, after just a few minutes. Mods believe this ruins archival reading. This is unfortunately in direct conflict with [CCPA](https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa#:~:text=The%20California%20Consumer%20Privacy%20Act,how%20to%20implement%20the%20law.) in the state of California, a law enforcing tech companies to customer protections including the right to delete your comments and your account.

Delete my comments and account in accordance with the legal requirements as noted in the CCPA, referenced above! You should know, hacker news does not allow you to delete your comments and/or your account. That is, in fact, illegal.

This post will be removed by mods when found.

shagie 2 years ago |

https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa#sectiona

> What is considered personal information and sensitive personal information under the CCPA?

> Personal information is information that identifies, relates to, or could reasonably be linked with you or your household. For example, it could include your name, social security number, email address, records of products purchased, internet browsing history, geolocation data, fingerprints, and inferences from other personal information that could create a profile about your preferences and characteristics.

> What is not considered personal information under the CCPA?

> Personal information does not include publicly available information that is from federal, state, or local government records, such as professional licenses and public real estate/property records. The definition of publicly available information also includes information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer or from widely distributed media, or certain information disclosed by a consumer and made available if the consumer has not restricted the information to a specific audience.

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I would draw attention to the final parts of that second quote.

> The definition of publicly available information also includes information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer or from widely distributed media, or certain information disclosed by a consumer and made available if the consumer has not restricted the information to a specific audience.

By posting to HN, I suspect that people would have a reasonable basis to believe that the information was made to the public on widely distributed media without restriction to a specific audience. In that case, its publicity available information and thus not subject to "remove all my comments."

I could be wrong (I'm not a lawyer) and if you believe I am wrong and believe that HN was in violation of this, it would be an opportunity to find a lawyer who agrees with you to make the demand and escalate it as appropriate.

headShrinker 2 years ago | |

What is right, and moral is I and we should have the ability to delete something I wrote 13 years ago. Not allowing users to delete past comments because the website fears they will lose value, is taking advantage of unpaid labor. I own my words, that's my value to give or take. What is right is offering a delete link to posts and accounts. Even Facebook does this. Facebook.

shagie 2 years ago | | |

Under what theory are your comments personally identifying information and that they don't also fall into publicly provided information?

    (2) “Personal information” does not include publicly available information or lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern. For purposes of this paragraph, “publicly available” means: information that is lawfully made available from federal, state, or local government records, or information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer or from widely distributed media; or information made available by a person to whom the consumer has disclosed the information if the consumer has not restricted the information to a specific audience. “Publicly available” does not mean biometric information collected by a business about a consumer without the consumer’s knowledge.

Your ownership of your words is not in question.

From https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/

    By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute, store, modify and otherwise use your User Content for any Y Combinator-related purpose in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed.

Your ownership does of your words does not mean that you can revoke the license that you provided to Y Combinator to display the comments. Trying to do that would take significantly more legal effort than sending a request to randomize your account identifiers.

sgbeal 2 years ago | | |

By that logic, anyone who's said something on TV or radio which they regret, or was recorded committing a crime, should also have a "right" to have it somehow wiped from the historical record.

"You can't stop the signal, Mal."

andsoitis 2 years ago |

Assuming you're posting this in good faith, it is worth reading the CCPA FAQ to understand what the CCPA applies to and what you can do if you think a website or business is in violation: https://cppa.ca.gov/faq.html