bigmacbear | Goodbye ICQ

I decided several weeks ago to uninstall ICQ from my computer. I was getting way too many people bothering me (at least two or three a day), who insisted it was important I add them to my contacts list when a) I had no interest in chatting with them and/or b) they provided no information in their profile to allow me to figure out whether I had any interest in chatting with them. In my opinion it's more trouble than it's worth.

Today I discovered that an ICQ profile is forever -- you can't get out of their database. Somehow this seems unethical to me, but fortunately, they never send you mail unless you ask for it, which makes it less of an issue. So I put a note in my ICQ profile stating I don't use it anymore, blanked out all the information I could from the profile (they insist on keeping your birthday though -- grr!), and removed my ICQ number from my LJ profile.

I'll keep my ICQ number and a clue to its password somewhere on my system in case I change my mind, but I suspect I won't miss it.