Matt’s Cuppa

sometimes social-networking profiles get deleted. And a recent controversy in the U.K. has left some Web users wondering exactly what happens to them.

If you delete your social network profile in a forest and no one is around, does it really get deleted? This is one of those issues that most of us don’t think much about. If there’s a file on my PC and I hit ‘delete’, it gets deleted. (Yeah, I know it’s recoverable, but ignore that for the case of my comparison…) Anyway, that file is gone once I tell the computer I no longer want it. But what does happen if I tell Facebook or MySpace I no longer want my profile? As the story mentions, it’s not just gone like that file on my hard drive.

Our data has become the oil of the information age. Companies that mine that oil today are the ones with the cash. Think Google, for example. How many companies are really willing to throw away such a valuable asset simply because you say you don’t want it anymore? My guess is, not very many.