I happen to think it is, and indeed the GDPR sees it the same way. For EU residents. They have to delete your data if you ask them to, no special form requirements.

I may have forgotten my password, they may require additional personal data to let me log in again (which is why my PayPal account is still not deleted) their shitty page might be not loading in my browser of choice, or they recently decided I may not visit it with an ad blocker. It’s just a hoop to jump through to try and make people sigh and just not bother. In OP’s case they want to avoid additional third party tracking on the site, and that’s 100% valid.

If GDPR only protects people with EU passports, then it’s not universal rights - it’s privilege with a privacy logo.

And what do you think would happen if EU tried to enforce their laws in an interaction between two parties that both aren’t in the EU? If we did it, why shouldn’t any other country try and do the same? Better read up on Chinese law before you next do business with a company in, idk, France. Sound good?

It’s not about passports either. Move to Vienna or Prague and you may have better luck.

Apparently they did not delete their account because they don’t want to log in to do that.

Still, they obviously can’t know if the service in question would have treated an EU resident differently.

About our only actual hope is a MASSIVE switch to nuclear power across the world

Even if it wasn’t the most expensive and second most stupid form of power generation there is, it’d be a 50+ year “solution” (at the very least) for a 10 year problem. Look at the actual current project times for single new reactors, and then factor in every industrial nation trying to build a massive amount of them at the same time competing for a very limited amount of people who know how to do that.

Not to my computer they don’t.

I legitimately do not, and have never had, any of the usual social media.

“Well that can’t be right. Highly suspicious. What do you have to hide?”

And just like that we’re at silly made up hypothetical situations to drive fear and an agenda. That’s not even worth entertaining.

It’s all hypothetical until it isn’t anymore. You’re literally the slowly boiled frog.

That’s like piling all your paperwork on your office desk in a giant tower in the order they came in and arguing that’s just as good as sorting them into files and putting them in the cabinet.

Can’t be late if it doesn’t arrive at all.

Mine used to say “can you make the picture on my screen go away?”. The “picture” was always a pop up with very clearly written instructions or questions like “would you like to save before closing?”.

So they actually, provably, lost the ability to recognize writing.

That reminds me, a customer at a place I was working front desk for once managed to shove their money into a small gap between the cash slot and the outer case of a vending machine. I’m talking paper money and it was completely gone, so they really had to work to achieve this. Of course they got mad at me for being unable to open the case or get a technician to do it on a Sunday morning.

show me what you were doing

Nothing! I did nothing! Things just happened!

My mother once threatened to evict me (was still living with them) because I asked her to back up her important files for me to carry them over to the new office computer I had set up for her.

She flat out refused to even attempt it or answer any of my investigative questions. This woman had been using windows computers for work for over 20 years at this point, but the thought of opening an explorer window apparently terrified her so much we got into an actual shouting match over it.

If your friend is an EU citizen, they might have some luck with a GDPR request to delete all their data.

They also might not. Meta technically would have to comply, but there is no real way to know if they did.

What’s the purpose of bass players?

Well, somebody has to wake up, wash, dress and feed the drummer before practice.

Become unavailable on non-private messengers. Explain your reasons if asked, but stay stubborn. (And yes, it will turn out that a subset of people you know don’t give a shit about staying in contact with you.)

Nope. You cannot.

Of course they are. You can pay or consent to tracking.

You called bullshit on it being common on the continent, I provided examples from the continent.

At least one German outlet has been shown to still track you after paying. Just a bit less. So they use a rubber with a few holes poked in.