How many accounts do you have spread across the Internet?
I couldn’t even begin to guess how many accounts I have. Social media accounts, accounts to comment on blogs, ecommerce-related accounts, gaming accounts…the list goes on. Every once in a while, I get the urge to clear up some of my web detritus, and I’ll delete accounts I know are no longer needed. However, sometimes this isn’t the easiest thing to do. I’ve often been surprised by how insanely hard it can be to simply cancel a particular account. Turns out, I’m not imagining it. Many websites use dark pattern interface design to prevent people from deleting accounts. They don’t want you to cancel, so they purposely make cancellation difficult.
In the past, I may have just given up in frustration. Nowadays, I go straight to JustDelete.Me. It not only tells me if account deletion is possible (it’s not always), how hard it is, and even gives me a direct link to cancel my account when possible.
What does this mean to me, Laura?
- People add sites to this directory all of the time. You can also submit your own, via an online form.
- There’s a nifty extension for Chrome. When you are on a website that is listed on justdelete.me, the extension will take you to the relevant delete page.
- Finding information for a particular site isn’t hard; there’s both an A-Z listing (as pictured, above) and a regular search function.
When I’ve presented workshops about online tools, this has often been one that has gotten some of the most reaction: apparently, I’m not the only frustrated person out there. Will you use this?
