Facebook can't seem to stay away from controversy. The latest: a cry from unsubscribers to erase their records.

According to The New York Times, Facebook's servers keep copies of the data in deactivated accounts indefinitely.

Facebook claims the policy has a business rationale: It enables ex-Facebookers to reactive their accounts at any time.

But that doesn't sit well with users hoping to wipe the slate clean, something that, apparently, can only be done by painstakingly deleting, line by line, all of the profile information, wall messages and group memberships they may have created within Facebook.

According to The Times, a cottage industry of unofficial help pages devoted to escaping Facebook has sprung up online -- both outside and inside the network -- in response to the difficulties faced by wanna-be ex-Facebook members.