Deleted photos still accessible on Facebook

Bangalore: You may be shocked to hear that all those 'secret' photos you no longer want to keep online are still alive on the social networking sites, even after you delete it from your profile. The company is keeping them accessible to anyone online for a limited period. And this 'limited' period can go up to 30 months! Recently a Facebook user said that they had deleted an image from the site 2.5 years ago (30 months), and that it was still available to see on the site. Another said a photo from April 2009 was still accessible after it was deleted. The social networking site admitted it had been keeping deleted photos for a "limited" amount of time. The Facebook photo matter centres on what is known as a Content Distribution Network (CDN), which stores multiple copies of content on servers around the globe so that it can be accessible more quickly in your region than it would take to access it from another country. However, when you delete your photos from the site, despite them being removed from view, if you still have the image's direct URL it may still be accessible for a period of time after its removal. Facebook spokesman Simon Axten said "However, again, the person would have to know the URL, and the photo only exists in the CDN's cache for a limited amount of time. We're working with the CDN to reduce the amount of time that the photo remains in its cache. The fix is a lready in place for videos, and we hope to implement it for profile pictures and photos in the coming weeks."