Do You Want the Ability To Delete Your History?

A reader writes, "I want to erase my "instant watching activity"; How do I do that as I do not need, or want, a history of movies that I have watched?"

Do you want the ability to delete your streaming or DVD rental history?

Comments

[Chris]

I feel bad for the folks who say yes.

[ZarathustrA]

...me too.

[sarah]

so you delete your history and what happens a year from now when you pull up Dr Strangelove and think "gee i haven't seen this before". i can understand wanting to keep it private from friends. but delete? i'm not sure why you would.

[Jeff]

our brains forget stuff like this all the time. if you want netflix to work more like your memory, i can understand your wanting the delete history functionality.

[Netflix User]

He just doesn't want his girlfriend/wife knowing what kind of movies he's been watching.

[conedude13]

it would be helpful, because what if you are just testing a movie on watch instantly (WI) and you didn't watch the whole thing; you just clicked on the first WI movie you saw. then it would be helpful.

another feature that sort of makes complete sense to me would be watch instantly for sub-accounts. RIGHT?!?! :P

[SteveP]

I'd love to delete it. There are times when I start watching something and then realize it's just junk, I'd rather view my history as a history of things I watched, wanted to watch, and know I've already seen. I really don't want a bunch of crud in there that I watched fifteen minutes of.

[Steve]

"He just doesn't want his girlfriend/wife knowing what kind of movies he's been watching."

LOL... that's exactly what I was thinking. Or perhaps his parents? Otherwise, what difference does it make?

[Finngall]

Actually, I was hoping for something like this as well. My almost-ex-wife had a separate profile on my account. I want to delete the profile but I can't, and neither can Netflix--I called and checked. I deleted all of her ratings, but the rental history apparently Must Remain Until The End Of Time. Really annoying.

[mark]

no thank you. i like seeing what i rented years ago.

[NSA]

I like seeing what you rented years ago too.

[Ishtar]

It would seem logical to me that the Netflix rental/IW history is just populated straight from Netflix's records; if they made it possible to remove history/IW the only possible ways to do that would be if they made it possible for you to block a specific title from populating on the website (which wouldn't be too outrageously hard, but is a pretty poor use of labor when there are other things that need work), or to keep two seperate histories, which would be absolutely ridiculous and consume far too many resources.

Maybe, and here's a thought, people should man-up and admit that they like watch movies that have sex scenes in them... in bulk... late at night on a Friday... because your wife (and let's not kid ourselves, anyone with a girlfriend--not wife--who's looking at not-even-softcore movies on Netflix... they won't be keeping that girl long, let alone long enough that she's going to bother looking at his Netflix account to see what he's up to!) most certainly will see what you've been watching.

[Sean]

The problem with instant watch is that if I put something on and decide 3 mins in that I don't want to watch it that item still shows up in my history. Netflix needs a threshold to count something in your history, 25% of the run time maybe.

[marcus]

No.

[Isaac Church]

It would be nice to be able to delete things from the list you watched for five minutes before you realized it was garbage/stupid/boring. I wouldn't want to delete everything though, that would be a mistake I think.

[Ed]

I like the guy that just says "No".

[Zmagnum]

I would have to say yes, See my problem is that I have 4 other people using my instant stream capability via a Roku box and 3 xbox 360's in my home. The problem is that the instant queue's record populates the main accounts viewing record as well.

Now, while I've told them not to rate anything they have seen via streaming to negate screwing up my recommendations on the main profile, which they have not, I'm still seeing horror movies and genre's that I don't like recommended to me because of there viewing histories and I detest horror movies.

To be honest I wish that the Instant stream's queue and rating system would have a separate rating profile compared to my renting profile as I don't want it cross contaminated with ratings that are not mine.

[Andrew]

YES. There are many movies I want to watch via streaming, but don't want my family/friends to be able to see. I want to see "Sex Drive", but don't want people to know. This would be a great feature!

[Jason The Saj]

It'd be nice...

What also might be nice is to delete just a given file, or maybe even list and non-viewable to others.

[steb]

Instant watch on sub-accounts makes more sense to me, then you should be able to keep your stuff private.

That plus the threshold someone suggested (15+min) would work great.

[total monkey]

i would rather have adult titles in my account history then Rise: Blood Hunter. i feel great shame that i even watched it and am now forced to face it on my list FOREVER, haunting me. to be able to remove this blemish from my otherwise awesome history would be so ... well, it would restore my faith in the power of forgiveness.

[first]

it should be a must

[Nat]

If you hover over the Friends popup menu in the navigation bar at the top of most Netflix pages, there's a "Movie Privacy" option, which can hide from your friends any movie you've ever rented, watched, or queued. That seems plenty adequate to me.

http://www.netflix.com/SharedMovies

[Jason]

I guess whatever floats ones boat but I think erasing your IW and/or DVD history is the silliest thing I have ever heard. Ignoring the fact it is there is as good as deleting it unless you don't want the wife to know you secretly watched that breast documentary. LOL

[Walt D in LV]

In agreement with the majority of readers: No. No, thank you.

I would DEFINITELY love to have Instant Streaming available to sub-profiles, however. For all the reasons mentioned above, most specifically, let the movies they watch show up on THEIR profile.

Walt D in LV

[moviemeh]

I agree with everyone who said they don't want to clutter their movie history with movies they previewed for 5 minutes.

Some of us like to keep track of what movies we watched, and it's incorrect to say you have seen the movie when you only watched it for 5 minutes. They just shouldn't add it unless you have watched at least half the movie.

[Joe]

Think about it this way. Maybe he doesn't want Netflix to track what movies he watches.

I routinely delete cookies, change accounts and use different credit cards. I don't really want anyone, netflix, walmart, etc tying my purchase history to try and predict my future actions. There's enough big brother in our lives. I dropped my last netflix account for exactly this reason.

My preferences is my private information and although many people willingly give up this privacy I will fight tooth and nail to maintain it.

It's a choice. But the poster's question has rightfully pointed out that Netflix took that choice away.

[Mike Gilmore]

"Ignoring the fact it is there is as good as deleting it unless you don't want the wife to know you secretly watched that breast documentary."

Please tell me the name of that breast documentary so that I don't accidentally watch it and get in trouble with my wife. Thank you.

[Kyle]

No, I don't want to delete my history. But understand what SteveP (June 11) is saying about partially watched shows... which brings me to think about an expansion to history where the impartial viewed or the unwanted movies could be in a light faded gray... and the ability to see the complete history versus the ones you really enjoyed... All in all though I love to have the history there for exactly the way it was... because at times I review it in a "Back to the Future" Doc Brown or "Sliders" way to split off of interests from the past. To me my interests in movies and TV shows is based on what I have seen before... because if though the media "is not real, it's just a story" (The Neverending Story) "our mind makes it real" (The Matrix) and so I develop my interests off of the reactions, good and bad, from this past history.

When I was rating some movies that I have seen in my life very casually... then the next day I given a notice of recommendations for other movies based on the 600+ movies I had rated... then I thought whoa!!! I rated that many movies (casually done in a week of browsing and rating)

So No I do not want the option to delete my history for my own interests and for the information gathering of Netflix. ...but then again maybe not if the police are going to take me away with no possibility of tv because I watched Zoey 101 and Dexter in the same sitting... and they say we have the incriminating evidence right here on the Netflix history... lol

[Jesse]

I agree that there should be a better system for the Instant Queue. Like others, often times I start something and never finish it but it shows up as watched. Maybe an easy fix would be to incorporate it into the ratings system. "Not Interested," "No Opinion," and the new "Haven't Seen" or something similar.

[Me]

The only reason one wants to delete their WI history is because they don't want their wives/children/husbands/aunts/roomates or grandparents to see the soft core movies they are watching on instant watch. Go rent adult films from companies that actually rent out real adult films. Watch them when the family isn't home, and then you have no worries about deleting the evidence. Netflix does not rent adult films for a reason. ; )

[Steve]

I would love to be able to delete history. I've watched movies instantly and never finish them, then look in my history and think I've seen it but it wasn't that memorable and skip it.

[NW]

The motivation someone may have to want their history deleted (or not recorded in the first place) is not relevant.

It should be possible and I can see no reason for it not to be available.

Netflix needs to get it implemented and put an end to this discussion.

[MIMI]

I don't see what diference it would make that netflix adds the possibility for you people to delete their watch or rental history. I would like that. I share my account and don't want people on my bisiness. If it's porn or not I don't own anybody any explanation... Why does that boder people that don't want to deletre their history? I don't get it. You don't want to delete, fine keep it. You want to dlete it fine delete it. I believe that Netflix is invading and even abusing people's privacy at this point by adding stuff that expose people that just may have a low profile. I'm thinking about closing my account.

[Annoyed...]

I wish you could delete the history because I don't want to see a list of stupid sex movies my husband watched late on a friday night before he knew they would be there forever. Thanks

[A Parent]

Sometimes the wife and I want to watch certain rated R films without having to answer the gauntlet of questions from our cute and adorable, albeit inquisitive and impressionable 13-year-old son who asks questions until he gets the ENTIRE story to his satisfaction. How about an option when you click to stream "do you want to add this movie to your history?

On the other hand, we want to see what he's been watching, so maybe an option to have the system prompt you for a password at that point would be good if you select the option. Also having the option to later delete from history, again with a password, would be nice to have - even if the passwd was our netflix passwd. That way we could log him in sometimes without sharing the passwd and he can't delete, but mom and dad can.

A Parent

[Smithbucket]

O.o oops.. probably should have read this BEFORE clicking those movies... Wifey's gonna kill me :P :D

[Some Programmer]

We need to be able to just hide items. If you don't want to change the list don't. If you don't want to be looking at a movie you only put on to see how it was, then you hide it. If that never happens to you or you don't care what's in the list, ignore this feature.

Neflix, add a column to the database called "hidden". Modify the UI. EOF.

[Logan]

I would like at least the OPTION of deleting one or more movies from my netflix history.

My wife's little sisters watched a bunch of Hannah Montanna crap on our account when they visited. I would love to be able to remove that.

Even these people who say "no" will probably run in to a situation where they would like to have the ability. Even if you only use it once, ever, it would still be useful.

[Anferny]

YES. I would love to delete my history as a whole and just start fresh.