Do we give users control over their own accounts and data?

A user who is not confident that she has control over her personal information may be wary of trying new services or products. Refusing to allow users to control their accounts, even when they choose to leave your service, results in poor press and reputational harm. Giving users control over their own data is a better way to address the situation.

• Allow users to view and control their own data. Users are often in the best position to fix mistakes in their personal records, and they should have a right to view those records in order to do so. Allowing users to maintain their own records (with appropriate logging and oversight) can increase both user trust and data accuracy.
• Create a quick and easy process for users to delete records or terminate accounts. Obviously, you hope that users will remain with your service; but if a user wants to leave, she should be able to delete her entire record, including any archived or residual information. The negative publicity from denying users the right to terminate their account will far outweigh any marginal benefit from retaining their information.

Facebook: Facebook users were very unhappy in 2008 when they realized that it was nearly impossible to remove their information from the social network. One user reported that it took "two months and several email exchanges with Facebook's user service representatives to erase most of his information from the site." The lack of easy and effective deletion procedures led to anger from Facebook's users, and many bloggers encouraged users to delete accounts and posted detailed instructions of how to do so.