Slashdot Mirror
Facebook's New Terms of Service
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Walters writes about Facebook's new terms of service. 'Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.
Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.'" Oh no! Now they'll be able to license your super flair goblin poke 25 tag history!
So why the drama?
How will they get agreement from current users? Does the TOS pops out the next time they login during the implementation?
w00t w00t. I'm the first to reply for the first time!
I removed my account before the TOS changed. Thank god.
No ascii art.
It is a scam and a waste of time.
You get what you paid for.
Anyone who seriously thought that closing their Facebook account would immediately result in everything they'd released onto the Internet magically being recalled and returned to the realms of privacy is probably accessing their account during their one-hour-a-day computing time in the loony bin.
Who cares if Facebook can technically now use whatever you post forever. So could anyone who archived the page, or even took a screenshot. Not to mention that Facebook really aren't going to have the slightest interest in the average user, nor in using their content if and when they leave the site.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Anyone who would aspire to a career in politics should find this very chilling I would imagine. Nobody cares that I wore a KKK costume to my last Halloween party, but I'm sure that the picture I posted of it would be worth a lot more when I am running for senate.
(note: I didn't actually wear a KKK costume)
How exactly do they define "User Content"? It seems that's pretty important.
Also - how well do these draconian EULAs hold up in court? Has there been a landmark test case yet? If their definition of "User Content" is a log of absolutely everything the user has uploaded/done then surely this must infringe on the user's right to privacy.
IANAL, but could someone, even if YANAL, please tell where this would come in under the UK's Data Protection Act?
Surely they can't keep such information if you want it to be removed.
I guess I'll stop backing up my code to "My notes".
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Oh, this doesn't surprise me at all.
if you don't want your drunk, party, family reunion, college, work and so on photos being used as leverage against you in any way someone can find fitting, you still have the option of not posting them.
I hate "internetlackofprivacyphobia" (hey I just made that up.. bush has tought us so much) ..no one cares about your life, get over yourself. maybe you can be on one of those "look at all the happy and social people you can meet on the internet" outdoors that only creeps believe in.
I guess you could delete everything first, such as your photos etc. obviously they have backups of the data but it's worth a shot.
Also, is it just me or is Facebook not as exciting as it was 18 months ago? I still go on there everyday, but I don't really do anything but read status updates.
Summation 2
I'm not really sure why this should come as a surprise to anyone. I mean, do you guys have any idea how valuable that data is to a marketer? For instance, just getting your name and some contact information (through legitimate means, of course) is worth about $20-25 to a typical marketer. That's why companies are so willing to give you special sign-up offers all the time (amazon, buy.com, reward programs, credit cards, banks, etc etc etc). As soon as you start tacking any bit of information onto that basic profile (purchasing habits, interests, etc) that value starts climbing through the roof.
Now, think about what Facebook knows about everyone who's signed up. They have names and contact information. They have leisure-time activities. They have browsing profiles. They have entertainment interests. They have friend lists. And then throw that "25 things people don't know about me" thing that was going around a few weeks ago into the mix. Now they have that information, too. And people are just voluntarily giving all that info away. Of course they're going to hang onto that information (and sell it) if given the chance. What did you think they were going to do with it?
This guy's the limit!
Ok now this is seriously annoying. If they claim they can use my content while I am a member then that's probably acceptable since you can choose to deactivate your account at any time. But forever? I mean this probably won't affect most users but how about people who'd like to showcase their artwork/photography or something to their friends and family? They can just take it and use it for commercial purposes without consent and if you currently have them on their servers you have no chance of opting out? I'm wondering if they gave any warning about this change, but since I'm a relatively active Facebook user and haven't noticed anything I doubt it. The shame is that most people won't even have a clue about this.
It's FACEBOOK.
Frankly, I'm even willing to say "If you put it on Facebook, it doesn't have any value anyway."
If you're such a creative genius, spend the 6$ per month for web hosting and make your own website.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
This makes me think of other unrelated services, that modify their terms.
Ultimately, what if I put a (c) indication in my original content, on any public service. Would that be equally enforceable under the law?
I say this with some sarcasm: Why can't I amend their ToS and send it to them, modifying the Terms of Use of my personal, original content? :-) I wonder if anyone has done this.
if I were to overwrite all of my information with crap and manually delete each pic, would they still have backups of my information? I'd like to think I can at least partly delete my information!
Facebook doesn't have an actual "deletion" procedure for accounts. When someone wants to "delete" their account, it is simply disabled and their profile is no longer accessible, nor does it appear in search results. Their name will still appear in tagged photos and on wall posts, etc, but it will no longer be clickable.
The only way to truly delete one's account is to remove oneself from all tags, delete all posts, remove all pictures and videos, and all other user stuff manually , then "delete" the account. The only way not to leave a trace is to bomb the footsteps.
I think the reason this exists is because Facebook does not handle foreign key deletion well, if at all. The deletion of a user profile record would have to cascade down through every table in the database, removing every instance of that user. Who knows how long that could take. It's easier to simply mark the profile inactive and handle that in software.
This license change allows Facebook to hold on to all of the stuff a user has uploaded even after the user has "deleted" his or her account. IMO, Facebook is using legal means instead of developing a technological solution to the problem.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Times are getting tough - FB need to start to find ways of actually making money, and pretty sharpish as well. The "2.0" days of wandering along to a VC like an extra from Beavis and Butt-head and saying "uh, yeah, kewl, man - we, like, need some more cash - yeah, 2.0, social, yeah" aren't going to wash any more.
Ad revenue is about to drop off a cliff (if it hasn't already), and loss making enterprises like FB - who's only revenue stream, other than VC funding rounds, was ad revenue - are going to have to start "monetizing" (what a lovely word for strip mining everything in sight) otherwise they will be in trouble.
Never forget Beacon. Their silent implementation of that privacy nightmare gives a brief view of their true intents - and that was done in the days when people were throwing money at them and they were being valued as being bigger than GM. Now the economic hardships are starting to bite I am not at all surprised they have attempted this.
even though they have made this change to their Terms of Service (and you've agreed to arbitration), you could still prevent this from applying to you (since users were not notified of this change in ToS). An example of such a case can be found at http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20070729165004428.
well.. thats was FB says anyhow.
but we have yet to see this tested in a court of law, and I rather think we will.
after all, the bank could change their TOS to allow them to remove as much money from your account as they wanted - but they would soon be challenged in court and more importantly face a mass exodus.
so at this time, I'll take this with a pinch of salt.
besides, they are welcome to my trivial rantings and boring posts - its not like I would put anything important up on there.
There still was this thing called copyright, though. Anything you post is by default copyrighted to yourself. You don't even need to do anything special. So, yes, people could still have your photos in their browser's cache, but weren't legally allowed to do much with them.
E.g., just because I saved your family photo on my hard drive, doesn't mean I can cut and paste your daughter's head into an ad for condoms, nor as an ad for Adult Friend Finder, nor on top of a porn-star's body and sell subscriptions to that site, nor pretty much anything else.
A TOS which grants any entity full rights to your stuff, including to license it further, means pretty much just that: you forfeit any legal rights or recourses you might have had. If they want to use it for any purpose whatsoever, they can. You just gave them that right.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
That's been the rule of the Internet for nearly two decades.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
I know it is hip to get all hysterical over personal information that is already "out there", but I've highlighted the part that really matters.
In short, they can't do anything with it after you close your account that they couldn't do with it before you closed your account. And since you can change your privacy settings before you close your account this is pretty much a non-issue. Change all your settings to "Only My Friends", then remove all your friends.
Really, people, the only difference here is that they don't do you the service of making all your data inaccessible to the people who could access it before. And why should they? That would be like slashdot removing all your old posts when you remove your account. Yes, I know it's "personal" data, but my guess is your 'friends' are more of a threat to your privacy than Facebook. After all, the only legal consequence for your friends sharing that information is that they can be kicked off Facebook for violating the terms of service.
...I've always asked those I know who are FB'ers; why? I can see the curiosity factor in looking for people that you know who have put their lives on Facebook for the viewing pleasure (i.e. to get laughed at) of others, but what in God's name goes through a person's mind when they rationalize this being a good idea? We are a very mixed up society where we'll scream bloody murder about our privacy rights being violated only to turn right around and willfully divulge our entire lives on FB and sites like it. I firmly believe that it's only a matter of time until someone writes a FB plug-in for the new Google Maps mobile locator function so that your FB 'friends' can know where you're at every minute of the day. The human condition is apparently hell-bent on suicide.
I do see the deeper issue regarding privacy and the fact that they can hold this data after you have stopped using the service is a real problem. But as with all things there is a way around it: Unless you are a ridiculously prolific poster/commenter its not more than a few hours work to go through and remove every post, comment and photo you have put on there. I know that when I was applying for a job, soon after FB became huge, I went through this process as I DJ DnB in clubs a lot and had a lot of extremely messy and new-job-unfriendly pictures on there and various comments that would have been really inappropriate for a prospective employer to see. It wasnt too hard to do although it was a little time consuming.
In space no-one can hear your vuvuzela.
What about all of the 3rd party apps on Facebook that require your Gmail or Hotmail or whatever password? Don't get me wrong, giving anyone your e-mail password is just asking for it, but there are plenty of people who already have. What guarantee is there that their user info isn't being sold off to who ever? These days, a Gmail password is almost of good if not better than an SSN. Tax returns, notices from your creditors, all that fun stuff, virtually non deletable and waiting for exploitation.
That's been the rule of the Internet for nearly two decades.
Is that why at the bottom of slashdot it says "Comments are owned by the Poster."?
You are wrong in so many ways I can't even figure out where to begin. Luckily there is an excellent counterexample at the bottom of every slashdot page. Posting a comment like this to a site which explicitly states that you retain copyright proves only that you should never be allowed to post on slashdot again. Come back when you have two neurons to rub together.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
OK, so what about say the flickr app? Does the fact that the image appeared on fb mean that it's bound bye the fb tos even though it was from another site (and another tos?)?
Do you really think anybody at Google cares about your booze fest the other night at the local pub? Or anything else you do?
The paranoia on Slashdot these days is getting out of hand.
All you suckas just got facebook pwned!
I have also a similar statement about my person data which I posted as my first items. Facebook is free to close my account if they disagree with my terms.
I look forward cashing in some day!
That's like saying laws against murder don't prevent you from murdering someone.
You'll be in violation of Facebook's TOS (many times over from what I can tell, moreso if the AC has not also agreed to Facebook's Tos). You'll also be in violation of several laws and I imagine open to civil liability as well.
Of course, you don't need Facebook (or even the internet) to distribute pictures (real or fake) of an AC having goat sex, so I tend to side with the GP on this one. A lot of the hysteria regarding privacy on the internet is akin to the "lolcomputerz" of the nature that gets applies to classic crimes now committed with computer.
I wonder what would happen if you posted something really nasty about someone doing something and that person would take you to court and you'd be ordered to remove everything you've ever posted regarding that incident? What if you posted a picture of someone kissing with a goat, then it would turn out the picture was photoshopped and you'd be ordered to delete it from all the places where you've posted it? Maybe you're even a good person and finding out that it was fake is enough for you to take action and try to undo the damage... what will FB do in that case?
Parent's post is the practical reality even if it isn't the legal reality. There are no practical means to stop anyone from using uploaded information in any way they see fit. Sure you can sic lawyers on them but that is dicey enough in your own country much less any other.
If somebody really wants to trawl through (and pay to store) the meaningless drivel that I post daily to my Facetard status, as well as the pictures of snow, my garden and all the other boring shit I put up on my gallery page, they're welcome to it.
Before they let all the little highschool pukes join.
They have myspace for that. that's where they should've stayed and that's where they belong.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
Soes that mean deleting a picture on Facebook doesn't actually delete it, just your record of it?
That's been the rule of the Internet for nearly two decades.
Is that why at the bottom of slashdot it says "Comments are owned by the Poster."?
With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("SourceForge Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such SourceForge Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by SourceForge. In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.
They MUST have that right, otherwise you could sue them for posting your comments, and your comments stay INDEFINITELY. If you delete your Slashdot account, your comments still stay archived online, so exactly what's so evil about the new ToS?
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to:
(a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website.
Note that anything you enable a user to post (are photos included if you allow someone to post to them or tag them?) is NOT subject to your privacy restrictions, since the (i) section on limiting distribution is OR'd with the (ii) section.
Being able to opt out at a later date if things got out of hand was a nice relief valve, and one which I took seriously when I sighed up. I'm not really a privacy Nazi or I wouldn't be on facebook at all. I don't begrudge them their basic operating necessities, or even marketing while I'm using the service, but if I decide I'm going to take my marbles and go home, I want to be able to.
If they decide to use some of my content for marketing and would like to use it in perpetuity, they only need to ask. They have me email address. If it's okay, I'll say so; if I have objections, they can just find another bit in their sea of information which fits their needs.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No more posting my new web designs for all my buddies to look at - here facebook, FREE CUSTOM WEB CONTENT from your pal squizzi. deviantART always was the better choice to show it off anyways.... I kind of wonder how Facebook would be able to use my art if it's covered by a Creative Commons and Copyright License. Even though it's on there website they can't possibly negate the copyright law through one TOS can they?
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
Americans too often forget that NOTHING in life is free. Facebook offers their account for free and can do this only through advertising and the reselling of the rights to market, you, the account holder. And, you don't see a drop of money in return. Too often we see something is free and jump impulsively all over the deal. Corporations such as Facebook count on this marketing psychology to get you to sign up. Now, they have a thriving community in which to sell ad space and make far more money selling advertisements then they would on a recurrent account fee. Facebook has also, through their marketing research, discovered that your content is also worth oodles of money. Stay away from these social networking sites and you guarantee your privacy. Plus you don't give companies the ability to make money off you. Why do you think You Tube is such a cash cow for Google? They sell their website's ad space and your content? I dare someone to start their own social networking site without all the facist terms of service and do something because it is ethical, not because you can make gobs of money.
A PERSON could go mad trying to pinpoint the moment he lost a friend. So seldom does that friend make his feelings clear by sending out an e-mail alert.
It's not just a fact of life, but also a policy on Facebook. While many trivial actions do prompt Facebook to post an alert to all your friends -- adding a photo, changing your relationship status, using Fandango to buy tickets to "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" -- striking someone off your list simply is not one of them.
It is this policy that Burger King ran afoul of this month with its "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign, which offered a free hamburger to anyone who severed the sacred bonds with 10 of the friends they had accumulated on Facebook. Facebook suspended the program because Burger King was sending notifications to the castoffs letting them know they'd been dropped for a sandwich (or, more accurately, a tenth of a sandwich).
The campaign, which boasted of ending 234,000 friendships, is history now -- Burger King chose to end it rather than tweak it to fit Facebook's policy -- but the same can hardly be said of the emerging anxiety it tapped. As social networking becomes ubiquitous, people with an otherwise steady grip on social etiquette find themselves flummoxed by questions about "unfriending" people: how to do it, when to do it and how to get away with it quietly.
"If someone with more than 1,000 friends unfriends me, I get offended," said Greg Atwan, an author of "The Facebook Book," a satirical guide. "But if someone only has 100 friends, you understand they're trying to limit it to their intimates."
Mr. Atwan, a recent graduate of Harvard (where Facebook got its start), recommends culling your friend list once a year to remove total strangers and other hangers-on. Keeping your numbers down gives you more leeway to be selective about whom you approve in the first place, he said.
(While some people prefer the term "defriending," a quick survey of user-created groups on Facebook shows "unfriending" to be the more popular choice. A Facebook spokeswoman, Brandee Barker, said there was no officially preferred term.)
Of course, not all unfriendings are equal. There seem to be several varieties, ranging from the completely impersonal to the utterly vindictive. First is the simple thinning of the herd, removing that grad student you met at a party two years ago and haven't spoken to since or that kid from middle school you barely remember.
These were the people whom Steven Schiff, a news assistant at Vault.com, a career services Web site, sacrificed to get his Whopper.
"I found there were quite a few people on my list that I'd never even spoken to, much less been close friends with," he said by telephone.
Mr. Schiff, 25, said he experienced only the slightest guilt at eliminating those people. While he didn't feel the need to write to them individually to explain things, he did use his personal blog to address them en masse.
"Let's be honest here, questionable Facebook friend," he wrote. "We've been keeping you around all this time because we'd just feel bad if you ever found out that you got the ax. It's just, well, up until now nobody offered us a Whopper in exchange for your feelings."
This was just the sort of sentiment that Burger King and its advertising agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, were aiming to evoke when they set up the campaign. Burger King decided that it would do the talking for this article rather than its agency and delegated the task to Brian Gies, a vice president of marketing who said he was not a member of Facebook and therefore had not participated in the "Whopper Sacrifice."
Mr. Gies explained the marketing team's thinking about Facebook. "It s
...go take some pictures of some nice copyrighted work like a Disney movie, post them on Facebook, and then ring up Michael Eisner and tell them Facebook is claiming copyright on Disney material. If they want the copyright on all this stuff, they can foot the bill for the legal research to determine any prior ownership.
Secondly, you can't change a contract without active consent from both parties. Indicating in the first contract that you agree to any changes in terms in the future doesn't work. Therefore they need to provide me with the proper mechanism to indicate my terms to counter their proposed terms. If they are going to own this content, it seems reasonable to me that I should be able to backup my entire network onto their site, and demand retrieval at any time that I need it, and large monetary sums if they ever lose it.
Of course, this is all moot since I don't now and never will have a facebook or myspace account.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Thanks for demonstrating an even more naive thinking than you were commenting upon.
Most of us live in societies where you "can" do a great many things, including some which cause grevious harm to others, because we won't accept prior restraint of actions and would rather there be consequences for actions judged wrong after the fact. What Facebook has done is changed a number of their future actions from "can do but may have to face penalties" to "can do with no penalties".
And if you think it's impossible for these social-networking site companies to do the kinds of actions FB has now allowed themselves to do or to hurt someone as a result perhaps you've forgotten about the young lady in Australia who was a religously-proud virgin but whose social-networking site photo was used (without her permission and without site TOS that pre-granted permission from her) in an ad campaign that strongly implied she was very much the opposite.
In addition to which, FB has previously made a point of offering significantly more control (if you chose to use it) over who could see your page to be able to take a screenshot, archive a copy, etc. than competing social-networking sites like MySpace. Previously FB's TOS covered common-sense IT operations stuff like allowing IT-standard handling of off-line backup copies of your data but now it is clear their accountants have decided they want to be able to off-shore or otherwise outsource their IT work to people they either can't control or don't want to spend the money to control to the level they used to do with their in-house IT staff.
Seriously ... I'm sick and tired of hearing Facebook this, Facebook that, oh why don't you log on to Facebook, it's great and I'm meeting up with all these people ... sheesh. I've been to high school once already. I didn't like it, and I don't want to do it a second time, ok?
Thankfully, the hype cycle is just about done and everyone will move on to something else soon. Don't believe me? It's just part of a cycle that's been going on for a long time. People moved from AOL, to Yahoo, to MySpace, to Facebook ... it'll continue to happen, right on schedule.
And if that's not enough to convince you, consider the millions of teenagers who get online every year. The *last* thing they want to do is join the same online community that their parents are on! That's SO NOT COOL!!
From a practical point of view, Facebook's "walled garden" approach has failed before. Just ask AOL. A site that requires that you totally immerse yourself in it just to get a feel for what it's about is not sustainable. A while ago I wanted to poke around just to see what all the fuss is about, only to find out that you had to create an account in order to do so. WTF? So I created a throw-away account with a fake name. Then I went to browse the profiles of people I knew were on Facebook, only to find out that you have to "friend" them in order to read their profiles, which would of course subject you to an incoming torrent of high school bullshit from everyone on their friends lists.
No thanks. After seeing the way some people go into withdrawal if they don't check Facebook every 15 minutes, I'm happier than ever to NOT be a part of this particular clusterfuck. I want online tools that SAVE time, not CONSUME more and more of it.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
A Website provides a public service. It is free, as in no fee is charged to you to have a general Facebook account. Just now you are screaming? "Hey they can't use my pictures to sell stuff or hype Facebook! They never asked for my permission!"
But you did allow them by having an account in the first place. Geez, people, what do you not get? If you want sole possesion of your material (content) then buy your own webserver and host your own damn content.And then spend the rest of your life siccing lawyers on all the people who copy your material and using it for profit (that's not yuour own profit).
Until then, you should always be aware of the cost of Internet "freebies."
Ah, so almost as much as the Iraq war cost us. Well, at least we'll be building bridges and doing real science, not blowing up bridges and suppressing any hint of climate change research.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
If you're really concerned about this, simply embed some text at the bottom of any image you upload that reads "Copyright %YEAR%, %Your Name%. May not be distributed for commercial purposes. Acceptance of upload to any Facebook servers implies acceptance of this clause, and waives all other applicable restrictions." This is no less legal than changing TOS on-the-fly without requiring a click of acceptance, and should therefore hold up in any court. But, honestly, unless you're an artist who makes money off of these works when you distribute them through other methods, there's no need to worry that much.
How does Burger King know you've unfriended someone?
Well, there's already at least one case where apparently a photo just being released under the Creative Commons, made it legal enough for Virgin to use it in a big advertising campaign. I don't think they needed anything else there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Some pornography company sublicenses photos of one million girls in bikinis and their contact info from Facebook. They then send something like the following letter to the girls:
"Recently, for inclusion in our published material, we purchased the rights to the enclosed photo you licensed to Facebook. We were concerned that you may not want to be included, so we are giving you the chance to opt-out. We need only a payment of $50 to cover the amount we paid Facebook and administrative costs. If you do not want to pay and wished to be included in our published material, you will be featured in our "Skanky Bikini Amateurs" collection on our website. Thank you."
In the Terms of Service it will say which legal authority they want to use for any disputes.
Anchorage High Court sounds like an appropriate place.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I love people that think they have nothing to hide.
Sooner or later they find out they actually have...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...as far as I remember. Just don't upload stuff you want to keep. Use deviantart and other sites for that =)
That's a clause that only matters if Facebook is in decline. On the way up, the fate of the information about departed users doesn't matter. On the way down, it matters a lot.
Social networking sites have a life cycle, which is reflected in their long term traffic statistics. They open, they may become popular, the cool people move in, there's a herd effect that makes them grow more if they start to become popular, the losers move in, the cool people leave, growth starts to flatten, and then the long decline starts, usually leveling out at maybe a quarter of peak. This works just like cool nightclubs and restaurants. Anybody who goes out frequently in a major city knows this pattern.
AOL, Geocities, EZboard, Salon, Nerve, Bebo, and Tribe all peaked years ago. Myspace peaked in early 2008, according to Alexa traffic stats. Facebook hasn't visibly peaked yet, but it looks like their management sees the inevitable coming and is getting ready.
This is a hint that it's too late for Facebook to IPO. That had to happen on the way up, or it won't happen at all. There was much talk of a Facebook IPO in 2007 or 2008, but now the word is "2010, if ever". Probably never. They should have gone public earlier.
It is quite elementary that for Facebook to be able to make sure than any uploaded user data is not used on their site if the user deletes them selves is nightmarish from an operations point of view.
Anybody having to deal with database constraints and want to clean the database from some entries need to go the extra mile to do it right.
Now we have Facebook where everything is linking back and forth and if things are not properly data structured it will be amazingly difficult to clean things up.
So instead of going the extra mile and work with real humans and lowering unemployment it is FAR easier to change the TOS to "eradicate" this entire problem by making it a "non issue."
This is a grand cop-out for Facebook and it is indicative that the code really is just hacked together and it escalated far beyond what it was supposed to do.
Sadly Facebook is not the only one doing it like this... why spend hard work on things when you can "legislate" it away?
Let me spell it out for you:
Legal rights and copyrights exist for many things. But once you post something online, anyone can make a copy of it, redistribute it, store it, or whatever without your knowledge or permission.
All you can do is sue them or issue a cease and desist. And if you have the legal funds to pursue that great, but most people do not.
And even if you do prosecute someone successfully, someone else out there still has a copy of what you posted -- they're just not making it very public that they have it. You can never 100% be sure that no one will ever redistribute it again.
Use your own two neurons to think before you post!
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
including that picture of you at the beach with your shirt off when you were 17...
I don't think _anyone_ at /. has to worry about that.
Oh, I don't know about that. There are some /very/ disturbing fetishes out there . . .
You completely missed the point.
Beach != mom's basement.
A lot of people seem to think that you can not delete your account, only disable it. That's not true any more. http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
Christ, they're valued lower than GM? Someone needs to get Mark Zuckerberg suicide counseling.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
It doesn't get any gayer than FaceBook, so who care. If you're such a social reject that you have to resort to FB, you probably deserve to lose right on content. Nobody is forcing anybody to join it, so any complains are basically void.
But it is probably valid. The courts have found that cell phone contracts, which allow the company to later determine terms of billing, are valid.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Anything that you post on Facebook is like a letter you send to Facebook--unless Facebook promises to accord it more protection. The ONLY value Facebook has is the value that it can sell from mining the data that you send it. People who don't like it can leave.
I left. The heck with them!
I deleted my facebook account 6 months ago by emailing them. Sure enough my account was deleted. However, to this day I can still view my pictures using the direct links intended for non members to view your pics. I've emailed them a few times and have received 3 different replies. First was that it would take time and eventually my pictures would go away. Second explanation was that my pictures would never go away. Third reply refuted the second reply and basically told me to be patient as they would eventually go away. I'm still waiting and I suspect what they have told me is pure horseshit.
I seem to recall Google having quite a similar announcement on their updated TOS. This seemed to apparently spark a lot off attention when they released it with Google Chrome, yet the same basic principles apply: just because they can, doesn't mean they will. Google Chrome's TOS states roughly that they own anything that goes from your browser to the internet. But does that actually mean they're going to take advantage of this? No, it's just a failsafe to keep them out of legal trouble when they do statistical analysis without telling you they're doing it, even if its anonymous. I don't see why you would care anyway. As long as people don't sniff my passwords and read my private e-mail, I don't care who sees what of my browsing habits. They need a new day job if that's how they spend their free time.
The problem doesn't lie in them owning everything. It's them changing ToS and you being forced to agree to it without being able to see it.
Wait, so if FB automatically gets the ownership of all uploaded pictures, doesn't this makes THEM responsible (and sueable) if some user uploads illegal images?
Lets say I upload an image with description of how to unlock an iphone, and then immediately informs apple that FB owns and displays this kind of content... Hmm...
There's an xkcd for everything, isn't there?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
About a month ago I changed my profile picture on Facebook. A week later I removed it and chose another picture. Out of curiosity I copied the URL to my picture to see how long it would sit on Facebook's server. It's now been several weeks later and the picture remains on their server. Just something to remember when you post a picture to their site. I suspect the same is true if you delete a comment. They probably just flag the comment in the database.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
Facebook users should join this group to help spread the word: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=68090176688
where is the Opensource alternative to facebook???
Does this clause include Posted Items (that Facebook is now calling "Links")? i.e if I post an article on my wall, or perhaps a piece of music hosted elsewhere, is facebook claiming the right to redistribute and/or sell it at will? And if so, doesn't that contradict existing copyright laws?
Doesn't myspace claim ownership to uploaded content in a similar way? Would they try to claim that once you have uploaded content to one you can no longer uploaded said content to the other? What would happen if a suit were taken to conclusion that resulted from both attempting to use the same user-uploaded image at the same time. Who would sue whom? Who would win; whichever side the content was uploaded to first? Would they both simultaneously sue the user for uploaded content to which he had already given up rights? Could such an unlikely occurance help bring to light the immense bullshit of the situation?
"Chris Walters writes about Facebook's new terms of service. 'Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore. Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.'"
So, if I violate the TOS by withdrawing my rights for them to use my content from an account I want to close, does my account get closed for failing to abide by the TOS?
It's kind of like saying "You have to let us use your content". Well, if I want to leave Facebook, it's like them saying "If you don't give us permission to use your content after you close your account, then we'll close your account".
I kind of don't get their logic. I can still withdraw my consent for them to use my content since:
1) I opened the account under an agreement that existed prior to the change, and
2) If they close my account for violating their TOS by withdrawing my consent allowing them to use my content after I close the account, then I could really care less if they closed it for a TOS violation when I wanted to close it in the first place.
It's easy to prevent them from doing this anyways:
All you need to do is put a tiny "Copyright (date)" notice at the bottom of your photos. They'll never catch it, and when they do try to use it, it's still copyrighted. I copyright my photos, and have an Access/Copyright/Restricted Use warning on my page.
Technically, this violates their TOS, but they don't/won't/can't possibly filter cmpletely through the millions of other pages and photos that they host.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
"Your continued use of the Facebook Service after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms."
People have NOT accepted any new terms, since they don't know there are new terms -so if their tos is factually incorrect - surely it can't hold up in court?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
so someone tries to dominate/dictate
that leads to only one result.....
haxors unite
I saw something not too long ago where someone was banned from Facebook for not providing her "real" name. I wonder who spread the idea that Facebook ought to get users' real names in the first place, as though it is a particularly trustworthy site. It appears to me that the majority of users do use their real names. I think that is the utmost of foolish. Facebook is nothing but a marketing website like MySpace, but somehow got to be the place to be. Of course I have an account there, under a real-sounding alias.
so exactly what's so evil about the new ToS?
Privacy?
I can (presumably) have multiple /. accounts and post from them as I choose. I can post anonymously on /. if I wanted to.
Generally speaking, people aren't posting people's photos on /., unless they're in the news or pulling a Streisand. The friend/foe feature is sorta like this, I guess, but it's hard to get any useful information from that, since different people use it differently.
And even though my comments stay indefinitely, I believe I can change my user settings to display/change/remove my signature and e-mail address, and this will change for all my previous posts.
Facebook, OTOH, well I don't know because I don't use the damn thing for just the type of concern raised in TFA(S).
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Instead of using a tag, people might want to consider using a watermark or ribbon across their photos. Something along the lines of "I, (name) shot this photo, retain all perpetual rights, and deny and activey refuse to share with or give to facebook or any of its partners, subsidiaries, etc, ANY rights that are beyond preserving the content for purposes of site/profile/friend-link continuity. ALL other rights remain mine, and I will SUE YOU TO NO END if you redistribute my work for gain or not for gain to any party when there is intent to usurp my ownership right and income earning potential..."
Now, that would be so long as to obsure the photo, but it would send facebook and the deviantart sites the message that their hand-grabbing of peoples art is NOT to extend beyond presentation on behalf of the SUBMITTER.
If fb and da could legally grab our work, that means that they are via the TOS creating a preemptive strike to deprive artists of in the future using their own work. Theoretically, i could post drawings of my ships. Someone chummy with fb or da could say, "Hey, that David guy is doing a SHITTY job of presenting and gaining money from his work. Why not we take and repackage it and put OUR name on it?"
Hell, in that situation, it would only be a matter of time before fb and da say, "We don't like you putting such marks on your photos and besides many users of the site are complaining about the photo being hard to see..." But, to that, fuck 'em. It's that way to prove a point, that 1:) they do NOT have the right to expect ownership or derivatives rights without or without compensation (reasonable or unreasonable compensation) and 2:) the pics are not necessarily for the enjoyment of any and all who stumble upon them.
I would imagine that the fbs and da sites would resort to killing the accounts, or digitizing away the copyright notices.
They might take a dim view on people going through and watermarking all previous content, not just newly uploaded content.
Also, it's possible they might take a dim view on placeholders. Imagine you decide to kill your account with fb or da or the likes of them. You systematically remove your pics and substitute horrendous or innocuous pics and then after allowing for them to have a full month of archiving of pics you could care less about, you THEN terminate your account. That leaves them with what you could legally say was the LAST and FINAL set of your work they could archive. If they dig DEEPER into the archives, remove your watermarks, and then you find out your re-touched photos were retouched by again, but by them to anonymize your work, they should suffer the wrath of the law.
In some jurisdictions, aspiring and even professional photographers cannot make money by trying to ride on the composition of works by, say, Ansel Adams. Some tried to compose their pics just like his, then sell them but not attribute Ansel Adams, arguing that he composed from easily reproducible vantage points, and that what he shot was of natural landmarks in the public, whether or not the public shot similar or identical framings, whether or not for money. Some of those people lost. Some could get away with if it not under the jurisdiction, or if the AA estated didn't pursue them.
How many of you readers realize that the Mori Tower in Tokyo is aggressively protected by "Old Man Mori", who considers his construction to be globally copyright protected? If you have a website making prominent use of his building, he'll come after you. I've not tried to test him, but i certainly DID take pics with my Sharp phone. To me, it's in the public, its' not a floor plan for a given project, it's not a tool. It's a BUILDING. Sailboats/yachts and numerous ship designs not paid for by public money get some protection, but buildings and even whole cities (recall that Slashdot ran a story around 07 or 08 about NY requiring professional photographers and film crews to obtain shooting permits, even if no police or public services were required, meaning anyone even using a Steadycam and gathering background imagery unobtrusively, not even tipping off anyone that this footage would end up in a film would be subject to sancion by NY if they chose to pursue the shooters of the footage...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
How will this stand up in other countries with other laws? For example, by Swedish law if I cancel membership of a club or organization, I can tell them to remove all records of me. Sure, Facebook doesn't have an office in Sweden (that I know of), so it might be a little hard to sue them if they don't comply. But that hasn't stopped US companies/people for suing foreign companies/people, so it might work the other way around too?
By the way, there is also a law in Sweden that entitles me to ask any type of organization, local or governmental authority, etc. to give me all information they have about me.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
I know privacy and the Internet don't work, but come on Facebook! Get a fucking life! You better fix your EULA, or people are going to turn OFF Facebook.
did i miss the announcement where /. would start posting non-english stories? the grammar looks similar, but that certainly isn't english vocabulary.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
My reason exactly why I do not trust facebook.
Sure, we will give you all this free space to do what you will with, but then we get to keep it forever to review and analise....sounds like a google tactic to me.
I don't know.
I've done standup comedy as a hobby and drawn on my high school experiences for jokes. If I were actually to run into the kids of some of my former classmates, I don't think I'd be able to resist going off on a major riff that starts: "Wait'll you hear what a total slut your daddy was in high school!"
Somehow, I don't think that would go over well.
Mark Zuckerberg recognizes their TOS scared the pants off of people and posts this public reply: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=54434097130
By logging into Facebook to read the reply you signify that Mark can have your wife and sell your children.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
Facebook is specifically for private/personal data.
Holy cow man...turn down the reality distortion field my friend, you'll get a tumor or something.
Facebook has NEVER EVER been intended as a repository for private information. The whole POINT of facebook from the start was to make information PUBLIC!
Do you know where the name Facebook comes from? Universities have a "student directory" like a phone book, just for campus. Often the Student's Union will put a portrait, with the consent of the faculty member or student in question, in the SU Directory. In American universities, and especially "ivy-league" colleges, the SU directory is called a "face book" because it "puts faces to names". Facebook started because a college student took it upon himself to create an on-line version of his school's face book.
Facebook.com started as a directory for one school, then for schools all over the world, then eventually became the social networking site it is today. but the WHOLE POINT of facebook is to MAKE INFORMATION PUBLIC. If you want something kept private why the hell are you not only putting it on the 'net, but storing it on someone else's computer system?
Look, I'm not saying Facebook has the right to do what it wishes with your data once you close an account, or that it has a right to claim ownership of that data and profit from it without your consent, but honestly people...it is YOUR DATA and if you don't want to share it DON'T PUT IT ON A DATA-SHARING WEBSITE!
I think that there should be the right to "undo" publication of your data and be in control of your privacy, but you have to be seriously deluded if you thing a SOCIAL NETWORKING website of any kind is "specifically for private data"! Social networking is the OPPOSITE of private!