Immortal Accounts

Definition

Making it difficult or completely impossible for a user to delete their account on online platforms.

Psychological mechanism

Endowment Effect. Users value their account and data more over time, making it harder to abandon them, especially if the process is deliberately obstructed.

Consumer impact

• Consumer perception: Based on qualitative report conclusions. Extreme frustration when attempting to leave a platform.
• Measured impact: Unquantified in OSINT, but presents severe privacy risks.
• Vulnerable demographics: All user demographics.

Detection Signals

• On-page evidence: Complete absence of a Delete account option in the user panel, or the process requires contacting customer service manually via email/phone.

Evidence (Code examples)

No specific front-end code examples (the pattern relies on the absence of functionality or routing to customer support pages).

Regulatory Angle

Data sovereignty enforcement. Strong cooperation with Data Protection Authorities (e.g., UODO in Poland) regarding the GDPR Right to be Forgotten (Article 17).