Many college students have a love-hate relationship with Facebook: it wastes time, but is almost impossible to do without. What most don’t know, however, is that this relationship lasts a lifetime. No account, even after deletion, is fully defunct. Pictures, videos, email addresses, phone numbers, wall posts and nearly everything else are archived by Facebook.

This is not the only time Facebook has pushed the boundaries of user privacy. The Beacon Advertising Feature, a program that publicized user activity on outside Web sites, recently stirred an online revolt.

Within days of its debut, nearly 50,000 Facebook users signed a petition on MoveOn.org protesting its use.

Even more troubling than Beacon, a lifelong commitment to Facebook has gotten only minimal notice. A Facebook group called “How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Account” has only 11,482 members, comprised mostly of college students who plan to someday outgrow Facebook.

“I had some pretty embarrassing pictures up,” said one senior who wished to remain anonymous. He was not very worried about it until a friend pointed out that Facebook might jeopardize his chances for a good internship.

“I deleted my account for a while but when I went back, it was all still there,” he said. It took him nearly a month to contact and convince all his friends to remove tags, or pictures, of him.

Under the contract that users agreed to – without ever reading in most cases – this is not a breach of privacy. Upon creating an account, users give an “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license” to all user content. This content, Facebook claims in the same sentence, is for their use, either to distribute, publicly display or reformat.

What’s more, Facebook can give these same rights over to another institution. Amy Sezak, a spokeswoman for Facebook, told the New York Times that it is a convenient way for Facebook expatriates to return to their online niches exactly as they had left them.

Users who wish to completely delete all online information about themselves can do so, but only line-by-line. Once all pictures, messages and personal information have been deleted manually, users can then “request their account to be deleted and their e-mail will be completely erased from the database,” said Sezak. Wall posts, however, remain in archives even if the user ID is no longer available.

Although users can delete their accounts, Facebook still has an alarming amount of control and rights over user content. New companies are now offering their services to clean up online reputations. Companies like Reputation Defender of Menlo Park, California strike deals with MySpace and Facebook to pull down any information about their clients.

The growing concern and media attention has prompted Facebook to take action. Two weeks ago, the Web site announced that users who want to delete accounts can do so by contacting the company directly by e-mail. The Web site also changed its help pages, adding the question “How do I delete my account?” It also added a form to fill out at the bottom of the page.

The solution Facebook offered was far from perfect. Within a week, users noticed that deletion was still just as cumbersome and unreliable. The form that Facebook introduced had technical problems and made it difficult for some users to entirely delete their account.

Some users were unable to delete their account completely. In some cases, users received an e-mail confirming account deletion even though parts of their profiles were still online.

Despite privacy concerns, Facebook’s appeal remains strong, attracting celebrities and politicians alike. But even celebrities are finding trouble deleting accounts. Early in February, The Sun reported that Bill Gates decided to leave Facebook. He, like many others, ran into some difficulty removing his account completely.

Sruthi Valluri can be reached at [email protected].