Facebook Will Now Make Users Wait A Full Month To Delete Their Accounts

It’s not uncommon for companies to use stall tactics when you try to stop using their services. It makes sense; they want to keep your business, after all. And Facebook is no different. That’s why the social media platform quietly took a step this week to make it harder for users to permanently get rid of their accounts.

Previously, the company offered a grace period of 14 days to users who deleted their accounts. That means Facebook would hold on to all of your data for those two weeks in case you changed your mind and wanted to come back. Now, the company has extended that period to a full month.

“We recently increased the grace period when you choose to delete your Facebook account from 14 days to 30 days,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Verge. “We’ve seen people try to log in to accounts they’ve opted to delete after the 14-day period. The increase gives people more time to make a fully informed choice.”

This means that if you quit Facebook in frustration because of a specific incident (like the recent massive data breach that affected 50 million users), Facebook wants to give you as much time as possible to change your mind. And it also won’t scrub your data for a longer period of time. That’s a win-win for the company — and a loss for users concerned about their privacy.