Internet giants
Amazon,
Friends
Reunited and
eBay have come
under fire this week over privacy concerns.
Privacy
International claims to have received a number of complaints from internet
users over the past 12 months alleging that some companies have either
disabled
or obstructed the deletion of customer accounts.
Privacy International warned that this practice would breach the rights set
out in the
Data
Protection Act.
"Our research established that the vast majority of users of these sites were
unable to delete their accounts," said the privacy group.
"Some, such as eBay, require a process that involves intuition, good luck or
dogged persistence. Others, such as Amazon and Friends Reunited, appear to have
no facility whatever to delete accounts."
Many online services, such as
YouTube
and
MySpace,
include a 'delete account' function as a default element of the account
management page.
Privacy International believes this is important in ensuring best practice
and legal compliance.
The organisation further alleged that the lack of account deletion and
disclosure arrangements breaches key elements of the Data Protection Act.
"In our view it is in these companies' financial interests to hide the
account deletion function, and thus they have acted in an entirely self-serving
manner that denies millions of customers an important right," the organisation
claimed.
Privacy International has lodged a complaint with the UK's
Information
Commissioner, requesting a formal investigation.
The test complaint has been directed at
ebay.co.uk,
which claims a user base of over 10 million UK consumers.
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