Consumerist says this will work.

Did you clear your cache and cookies after you put your account on lockdown? I'd try that to see if it fixes your unwanted-login-problems.

I don't know how Instant Personalization works, but I'm assuming that FB uses a cookie or something. Eventually the cookie will expire, but you can just delete it.

You can check out anytime you like
But you can never leave

[This thread has officially been Henleyed]

From Facebook:

Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites. [emphasis mine]

If you had already visited those sites previously, your information had already transferred and the other sites set their own cookies. I doubt deleting your Facebook account will make a difference.

Another thought: You probably should avoid Facebook's associate sites during the two weeks after deleting your account, or Facebook may consider that a log-in.

On a lark I almost signed up for Facebook yesterday, but changed my mind before I submitted it. Is there a good guide to the safest ways to use facebook, privacy and security-wise? Stuff I should know before signing up? I know I should probably just google it, but I'm so googled-out these days.

I did briefly sign up to facebook a year or so ago, and then deleted it after a few days. Sometimes I'm flighty that way. I have no idea of whatever user name or password or email account I used to sign up, so I'm not sure if I can even check for it's continued existence or re-activation.

I guess I'm one of those blasé folks who's been online since the 1980s and no longer worries too much about this sort of thing.

It's not like these partner sites can (necessarily) read your stuff or dig around in your account, they just know you have a Facebook account, which isn't that big an assumption these days. *shrug*

Yeah, that's what I suspected Ardiril.

It's really REALLY lame of Facebook to set that to automatically allow without a big site-wide notification. I had to hear it through the grapevine - thankfully I (a) checked Facebook first this morning before any other sites, and (b) access most sites through their RSS feeds.

I don't want other sites looking at my friend's list. I don't want Facebook digging around through my Gmail contacts. I don't want Google Buzz transmitting my online activities to my gmail contacts.

I do not want Yelp deciding that, since my mother and I are friends on Facebook, they can serve up all my Yelp reviews to her (including that review to a porn store or head shop). (Hypothetical-ist)

I do not want Google Buzz deciding that someone's abusive ex-husband is an appropriate contact.

This is just me, of course. Everyone has their own line in the sand when it comes to the marketization of their privacy.

Ardiril, I didn't know it was THAT bad. Ugh. I'm no privacy freak; you could probably write a decent memoir based on my mefi comments. I just like to be able to control what is posted where.

desjardins - it actually shouldn't be that bad. Have you deleted your cookies and cleared your cache yet? You'll have to re-login to a bunch of legitimate sites, but you should be logged out of any connected sites.

well, it got worse when I started deleting stuff from my account... here is what I found. (strong language)

Here it is: the big red button marked 'delete'.