Are you sure this was possible > 8 years ago? If I remember correctly, I researched this for quite some time then and didn't find any way of deleting the account and everything stored in it. But it's possible I overlooked the option, of course.
I believe in the past you had to open some kind of support request, as there wasn't an "automated" way to do it (and there was maybe still some kind of waiting period after having deactivated the account). It's certainly been made easier (they've gotten a lot of flack over the years oven this...)