Facebook Chat Logs

March 10, 2009 11:31 PM

Is it possible to obtain logs of old facebook chat conversations?

I could very much benefit from old facebook chat transcripts to support my position in a quasi-legal situation. Does facebook store these? Anyone out there that has been successful in obtaining them have ideas on how to go about it?

posted by Raynyn to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

According to this link it depends on how recent your conversation was.

Supposedly facebook chat history isn't saved permanently but there must be a middle ground between when they log a conversation and when they delete it.

Facebook's policy page says that you should have control over your personal information.

And this paragraph is encouraging:
"In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information."

I'm stumped, in the short term,with respect to finding an admin to contact.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 12:02 AM on March 11, 2009

1-650-543-4800 is their phone number if that helps. Probably won't.
And their generic help box is here.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 12:06 AM on March 11, 2009

I don't know about whether they do or not (I doubt it), but for future use, you can use pidgin or digsby as facebook chat clients, and both of these programs support logging.

Doing it in pidgin requires you to install a plugin.
posted by azarbayejani at 12:08 AM on March 11, 2009 [2 favorites]

Short of a subpoena, you're probably SOL. Whatever your 'quasi-legal' position may be, you're better off showing harder evidence in any legal proceedings. If you do any serious negotiations or make any agreements via IM, many programs support logging including pidgin. IANAL
posted by chrisinseoul at 8:41 AM on March 11, 2009