I have been asked by others why I deleted my Facebook account. I did it because of security concerns of mine and data protection concerns - I don’t like giving away rights because I post my photos, or worse just click links, on a website.

However this article summarises why I am pissed off (it is quite techy, WSJ has a more prosaic article). I voted with my feet and am no longer on Facebook. I have received an email from Facebook’s systems telling me my data will be deleted permanently within fourteen days. I hope it is true, but I won’t hold my breath, my faith in Facebook is as strong as their security track record.

As usual, my links come from the daringfireball.net link blog, the most useful of all the feeds I have in my google reader account by a country mile.

Update: Facebook have changed their stance on this, however I am still off Facebook. I’ll never say never, but I’m certainly not going back for now.

Like Mr Carmo, I have been becoming more and more frustrated with the sheer amount of noise there is online and I am struggling along with the rest of the interverse to swim the stream without feeling like I’m drowning.

I have gone a little further by deleting my twitter account, and I have always had a rule of friends on Facebook, colleagues on LinkedIn and with only two exceptions, it stays that way.

Evidently I am somewhat younger (or just more juvenile) than Mr Carmo though, as I have decided to set up my own photo gallery on my own infrastructure rather than use other services like Facebook with questionable retention policies, or Flickr where a subscription is required for decent functionality.