Did Your Ex-ISP Purge Your Personal Data?

reallocate asks: "When you quit an ISP, do you expect that your personal info and your email accounts will be purged? So did I, but I was wrong. Do you know what your ISP does with your data if you quit them?" At first glance, this would seem to be a reasonable expectation, but these days, businesses are holding your data longer than you'd expect. If someone doesn't know for sure if an old business is holding their personal data, is there any way they can find out?

"Once upon a time, I was a Roadrunner customer. I dropped them and moved to another ISP. A few days ago, I fell prey to a "returning customer" inducement from Roadrunner that will, in truth, save me a few hundred dollars over the course of a year.

However, when the sales agent knew my address before I gave it to her, and the customer service guy I called later knew my Social Security number, although I had not yet provided it, it was clear Roadrunner had not purged my data when I had closed the old account, including user ID and password. Their agents were seeing that data displayed on their screens. And, checking what I thought were long-dead Roadrunner email accounts, I saw they'd been left open and active, with hundreds of messages piling up.

I've spoken with my local Roadrunner office and written their national office, asking about their policy on purging personal data when a customer drops an account, and, if it isn't purged, how they use that data. To be fair, both queries were made over the weekend and I'm waiting for responses."

Of course they don't.

[DynaSoar]

I've worked for several since before they were called ISPs (networked BBS's at best). They don't delete customer info. Even before they figured out that personal data was worth money, they knew that a customer was a customer, whether active or inactive. The latter usually meant "not presently using our service" as weasel words for "ex-customer", though I know of one instance where it meant "dead". How else could they claim those enormous numbers of users? It was everyone who'd ever signed on for even a brief time. If every user claimed by every provider were active at that time, there'd be more active accounts than people on the planet.

Re:In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because corporations, not citizens, run the United States.