London: Finally the good news for Facebook users has arrived. The social networking website has decided to remove millions of embarrassing and inappropriate pictures forever, after keeping them for years against users' wish.

Until now, any pictures erased from an account would in fact remain in storage of Facebook and anyone who has the direct link to that picture could therefore still view it.

But from now on, the pictures erased by a user will permanently be wiped from the system within 14 days, but with a potential maximum delay of 30 days, The 'Daily Mail' reported.

Pictures will be immediately removed from view on a user's account from the moment they delete it.

This issue was first raised three years ago after a 28-year-old Cambridge student discovered that pictures he had deleted from the site were still available for all to see if they had saved a link to them.

Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng in 2009 started following the social network to see how long it actually takes to “delete” the deleted photos. According to her, Twitter and Flickr took seconds while MySpace took months. But for Facebook, it was years.

According to many users, Facebook has taken a very long time to bring the change.

"It has taken them a very long time to do it because this change probably represents a huge engineering effort," Bonneau said.

"The lesson hopefully to other companies is to build in privacy right from the start, because if you don't get it right first time, it can be a huge effort to fix," he added.

Research suggests that up to 91 per cent of employers now use social sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and LinkedIn to screen job applicants.

As many as 69 per cent say they have rejected candidates based on information on their accounts.

- With Agency Inputs