How to spot it
- Sign up took one screen. The word delete appears nowhere in settings.
- Deactivate is offered instead, and the small print says your data is kept in case you return.
- The delete path exists but ends in an email address or a form rather than a button.
- Logging in during a waiting period silently cancels the deletion, and logging in is what happens when an app on your phone opens by itself.
- The confirmation says your account will be removed and does not say what is kept, or for how long.
Why it works on you
Deleting an account is a decision people make once and rarely repeat, so a company only has to make it slightly harder than the moment allows. You are almost never deleting an account at a convenient time. Add a form, a wait, and a login that quietly undoes it, and a meaningful share of people simply stop, which registers internally as retention rather than as obstruction.
What to do
- Search the help pages for erasure and for delete separately. They are often different articles and only one of them is linked from settings.
- Ask in writing, naming the right to erasure if you are in Europe or the United Kingdom. A dated written request starts a clock that a menu does not.
- Remove your data before you delete the account where you can, since deletion sometimes only detaches a profile from records that stay.
- Do not log in during a waiting period, and remove the app from your phone first so it cannot log in for you.
Where the law stands
Article 17 of the GDPR gives a right to erasure, which the controller must act on without undue delay and normally within one month, extendable by two months for complex requests. It is not absolute: legal obligations, the establishment or defence of legal claims, and several other grounds can justify keeping data, but the controller has to identify which ground applies rather than simply decline. In February 2026 the European Data Protection Board published the results of a coordinated audit of erasure across 764 organisations in 32 member states, rating overall compliance as average and with nine authorities opening formal investigations. Breaches of Article 17 sit in the upper tier of fines, up to 20 million euro or 4 percent of worldwide annual turnover.
This is a description of published regulation, not legal advice, and rules in this area have changed more than once. The sources below are the primary ones.