Account deletion
How to delete your account
Sign in, open your account, then Password and deletion, and choose Delete my account. You type your password again and confirm that it can't be undone; the deletion happens at once and signs you out everywhere.
If you can't sign in, ask us through the contact page, choosing General enquiry, or by email at Not yet known: legal contact to be confirmed, from the address on the account. We check the request against the account's email address before acting on it, and aim to complete verified deletions within 30 days, usually much sooner.
What gets deleted
Deletion removes the personal data the account holds, all in one step:
- your email address, name, password hash and avatar;
- the reviews you posted, and the votes you cast on reviews;
- your alerts, the alerts they sent, and the devices you allowed to show them as notifications;
- the account's sign-in records, and the verification, password and alert emails sent to its address.
If you were an affiliate
An affiliate profile can't simply disappear, because the commission ledger must stay accountable. Its link to your account, your name, website, audience and payout details are removed and the profile is paused; the ledger keeps its entries without them.
Our records of admin actions
If one of our admins changed something about your account (for example your membership tier), our record of that action stays, so we can account for what was done and when. Your email address and name are removed from it when the account is deleted.
What is not in the account
Your watchlist and display settings live in your browser, not in the account, so deleting the account does not remove them. Clear them from your browser's storage for this site (see the cookie policy).
What may persist briefly or separately
Database backups can keep deleted records for up to 30 days before they cycle out. Newsletter subscriptions are a separate list: subscribing does not require an account, so if you also want off the newsletter, use the unsubscribe link in any issue or say so in your deletion request. Aggregated statistics (for example, total sample counts) contain no personal data and are unaffected.
Deletion requests and questions go to Not yet known: legal contact to be confirmed.