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Ask HN: How can I get Blind to delete my account?

4 points by rcpt ↗ HN
I guess I made one too many low brow jokes and got permabanned. However, all of my non-moderated comments are still up on their forums and I can easily find them via web search. Because those posts are associated to my Real Name and corporate email address I'd like to take them down.

Here's what I've tried:

+ contact support asking for account deletion, response was: "We are not able to delete permanently banned user accounts."

+ GDPR data erasure request, response was: "Blind is a U.S. company not actively marketing in the European Union. Therefore, we are not covered under the GDPR."

Any other ideas?

6 comments

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throwitaway222
are you in ca? https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa
rcpt
Yes, interesting thank you
throwitaway222
also, gdpr does apply to us companies not marketing in EU - https://gdpr.eu/compliance-checklist-us-companies/ even if they are not "marketing". But you have to be a person in the EU.
rcpt
I am an EU citizen but reside in the US. I'd like to GDPR escalate my request but since I don't live in the EU I don't think I can.
elmerfud
If you're an EU citizen and still have a residence in the EU you can make the claim. But it still may take some doing because they are still required to comply with the GDPR if they allow any EU person to access their site. The only way they cannot comply with it is when they are informed there is an EU citizen they permanently delete all data from them.

You can tell they don't care because instantly any request that mentions the GDPR should have been escalated to their legal department.

rcpt
Right in my experience anything GDPR is just an immediate data removal as the risk is so high and there are so few requests. I was floored when they denied me.