this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Privacy

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submitted 4 days ago by runching@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Lol, saying you are "beginning a process designed to delete your data" is a very different thing to actually deleting your data.

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[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 68 points 3 days ago (2 children)

As a person working in a field close to data engineering this sounds like they're actually honest about the process.

Tldr: it's not possible to "just delete" everything at once, even though we'd love to be able to.

There's so many layers of where information is stored, and such insane amounts of data in their data platform. so running a clean up job to delete a single persons data in oltp databases, data lakes, dwh's, backups, etc, would both be expensive and inefficient. Instead what they then do is to do it in stages: flip a flag somewhere (is_deleted = true) which lets it be removed from view initially, and then running periodic clean-up jobs.

[–] kadup@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A photo I deleted 10 years ago resurfaced on my Google Drive account recently.

I'm sure it was deleted, and it had never appeared before until now.

But sure, they're being honest!

[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] kadup@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Doesn't apply, nor matter.

Malice or not, their systems didn't delete my photo, that's the point.

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sounds like a great reason not to use their services

[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is any company, government, or other organisation with +80 employees. The two other alternatives are

  1. Have all data in Excel with no data governance, robust procedures, or trust in data, as the organisation grows in size
  2. Use only external tools (which in turn are owned by organisations that work like I described in my parent comment)

I'd love to hear of there's other ways of doing this stuff that actually works, but so far I just haven't experienced it in my career yet.

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm not disputing the technical aspect. But due to these realities I prefer to drastically limit the services I interact with.

[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Aha I misunderstood, thanks for clarifying.

Actually for this specific context, there's an easy solution: I reckon for llms self-hosting would be the way to go, if your hardware supports it. I've heard a lot of the smaller models have gotten a lot more powerful over the last year.

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 days ago

Small fine tuned models seem to be where the market as a whole is headed. Even the big players like OpenAI/Google/Meta are doing this as a means to optimize infrastructure. The Qwen3 models have been really interesting to work with.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Or, optionally, host it yourself

[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 1 points 3 days ago

Good point!

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean this in the most polite way possible, but it seems like youve never read a privacy policy before

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago

What makes you say that?

[–] humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

You guys are still using google??

But seriously, Holy shit I just ~~signed~~ GOT INTO/OPENED UP/JUMPED on to DDG on PC after forever and had to opt out of a bunch of AI shit. We are so fucked.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago (2 children)

You guys are still signing into search engines?

[–] ook@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 3 days ago

You guys are still guys?

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 days ago

Luckily both Librewolf and Iron fox have integrated "no ai" DDG as default search

[–] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 days ago

SearXNG is nice

[–] tarknassus@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Fortunately DDG are opt out, and short of cookie sessions expiring it seems to stick.

Unlike a certain set of other “search” engines that are slowly changing into AI chat bot outputs with zero opt-out abilities besides using some hacky tricks to avoid it.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That is bullshit. DDG will give you an ai answer, infrequently, and ask if you want more, less, or none. And that is just a result. To continue the AI option of asking follow up questions you have to opt in.

We are fucked for lots of reasons, this isn't one of them.

Edit: really people disagree, when you can Prove this to be true? WTF is Lemmy now just reddit? Not even going to comment why you disagree?

[–] humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The pervasiveness of AI (insinuating its lack of concern for higher privacy users) has seeped completely through to products we are choosing for their privacy focus is indicative of being fucked. We are also fucked for many reasons.

I would like to iterate a comment above that says they actively reduce using all types of services for this reason. The greatness of the internet is being squashed by the desire to protect both our personal information and resist corporate enshitification.

I'm not saying I'm gonna stop using DDG or that it is somehow the problem or is even bad. I'm just saying this OP from Google is seeping everywhere.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago

Your original post makes it sound like duckduckgo is making you do this. It really isn't. You have to truly opt in to use it. They do ask you, how often do you want to see it, and you can set a preference.

I think they are in a tough spot because users are going to say if they don't have it, they are behind and a bad search engine for it. Yet if they offer it, people are going to complain about that.

I think they are trying hard for a middle ground.

[–] sakuragasaki46@feddit.it 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Cassandra is a database designed to make data as available as possible at the cost of possible inconsistency

When a data is deleted from Cassandra it's replaced by a marker named 'tombstone'

However backups, deep backups, and copies made on purpose for governments may exist

Law and advertisers mandate some data not being deletable

[–] bignate31@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

You know why they "tombstone"? (By the way, they don't replace with a tombstone marker but instead add the marker.)

Because if you "accidentally" deleted something and then decided you wanted it back, you'd get really mad if they couldn't do that. If they immediately deleted it, you couldn't ever get it back

The copies and deep copies are for a similar reason: Some engineer accidentally deletes a bunch of data, it's really nice to have a backup so you don't lose everything.

[–] WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org 16 points 4 days ago

Remove it from view, lol.

Everything on the Internet is permanent. If not by the company then by the NSA. Regardless of where you reside.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 9 points 4 days ago

We looked at the ROI of actually deleting vs “basically mostly virtually indistinguishable from deleting”, and well… I mean, we take your privacy very seriously.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 9 points 4 days ago

They telling you nothing that's legally binding.

It is a trust me bro. You shouldn't trust a known stalker sundar the creep.