During the early days of social media, most of us were more than happy to share our information online, photos, jobs, even phone numbers. In hindsight, that might have been a bad idea. However, many platforms typically allow for data deletion requests, but the bigger question is, do those requests actually go through?
Is your data really deleted?
According to Yorba’s 2025 State of Clutter report, it has exposed a worrying figure. It turns out that 48% of data deletion requests actually go unresolved. This means that even though users are submitting requests to have their data deleted, 48% of those requests actually do not reach the completed stage.
Chris Zeunstrom, CEO of Yorba says, “There’s a disconnect between what consumers are told should work and what actually happens. People assume that if they submit a request correctly, their personal information will get deleted. Our data shows that’s far from guaranteed.”
Based on their study, which involved 22,000 format data deletion submissions, only 48% resulted in verified deletion by the end of the year. They also found that stalled requests account for 1,226 hours of professional labor. There are also often delays and barriers such as repeated identify verifications and requests for documentation. Also, some companies refuse to engage with legally authorized representatives for consumers.
It’s all about the money
Should it be surprising that these requests go unattended or ignored? Hardly. According to estimates, global data monetization is worth $5 billion in 2025. That number is expected to balloon to $40 billion by 2034. This means there’s a lot of money to be made from your data. This is because your data holds a lot of valuable information about you as a person. This makes it ideal for advertisers to create ads targeting your interests, used to train AI, and more.
In fact, ever since AI blew up on the mainstream, we’re seeing a lot of people take issue with their data being scraped and used for training purposes.
So, while many companies do offer users the option to delete their data, whether or not this actually happens is unclear. According to Houman Saberi, operations lead for the Permission Slip team at Consumer Reports’ Innovation Lab, “Ultimately, the reason boils down to a lack of operational consistency in how companies across industries handle requests.”-
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