DISQUS

Øystein · 10 months ago

Legal things have to be left to legal people because these things are supposed to be hard to figure out. Personally I think that Facebook is preparing to sell their outfit, and these altered conditions will sugar the pill for the nigerian scammers who are looking to buy.

Anyone know of an online service with terms and conditions similar to Facebook?

Paul Dunay · 10 months ago

Actually I was under the impression that this was always the case - that facebook owned all content on its site including yours

Makes a good case for being sure you like the content you have up there and you set your privacy settings to ensure noone posts content about you without your consent

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Anne Kathrine Petteroe · 10 months ago

I have created a group on Facebook against the new TOS.
Please feel free to join us..
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77069107432

Dan London · 10 months ago

I really can't see anyone (aside from the marketing geeks) doing anything different on FB due to the change in terms. The most active users couldn't care less about the TOC's.

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Paul Dunay · 10 months ago

@ Anne & everyone

Facebook has had this as a core policy for a while - the new TOS is irrelevant

I blogged about this in November 2007

see here - http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2007/1...

* Sure, throwing sheep and poking people is fun, but why not add value to the conversation by posting quality content? (Small side note – if you read the fine print, Facebook owns all content you create on the Facebook site)

Paul Dunay's last blog post..World Wide Rave – Works!

Jake · 10 months ago

I think people are nuts to be posting their birthdays and other personal information on FB in the first place, if I wanted to steal someone's identity I would start with Facebook..Anyway, I think now we can all know where the value in FB, as a company, is now...Every `group' that is joined, e.g., is a direct marketing list FB has - to do with whatever it likes - forever. I could understand FB had rights to the content and could subject us all to some pretty aggressive gorilla advertizing WHILE we're using their service; but after someone has terminated the service? Why do they get something for nothing?

Neal Wiser · 10 months ago

Thanks for citing me in your post, I appreciate it!

Please remember that Facebook is providing a free service. Therefore, in exchange for hosting your data, I can understand they should have Some minimal rights to using it as long as it’s still posted, but Ownership? They have absolutely no moral right to Ownership. But is moral right enough to protect consumers? Unfortunately, it’s not. So if you agreed to the TOS, you're out of luck.

The reality is that practically no one reads TOS (except for those fabulous peeps who DO read it and warn us all). Everyone knows this, but Facebook and lots of other companies, are permitted not only to operate this way, but are also allowed to change the TOS without notification. Why? Again; because you agreed to it. It’s buried in the TOS.

I understand that with millions of users, Facebook needs to protect itself, but their TOS is clearly not user friendly. Indeed, it’s designed to obfuscate the terms so that no one but a lawyer can understand what's really being agreed to and allow FB to make changes without user recourse.

Facebook should post a “translation” to their TOS written in easy to understand language. Additionally they should notify their users to changes and give them a set timeframe (2 weeks?) to accept or decline the changes. If they decline, they should at least be offered other types of (perhaps) limited accounts.

Of course, nothing will change until Facebook is challenged in court by very shrewd lawyers who can convince the court that Facebook is not operating the public’s interest (or something like that).

btw; if you liked this comment, please follow me on Twitter at: twitter.com/nealwiser

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Alex · 10 months ago

I've talked with some people this morning who were not aware of the terms of service before this was mentioned again. They're getting of as user made content does not necessarily belong to all user sites. They want to know does my child's drawing, my writing (via re-pasted blog posts), my music, etc. now belong to Facebook? Too much of a risk for them to continue.

Shirley - Velvet Blues · 10 months ago

Well, I don't know what this really means for the average Facebook user. But I am glad that I don't put much on my page and I also never post anything that I wouldn't want anyone to see.

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Barry Schnitt · 10 months ago

Mark Zuckerberg has posted to the Facebook blog to try to clarify the issue: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=54434097130

phil brown/musician · 10 months ago

well....
if that's true i am done with facebook
facebooks TOS do not/will not arbritarily super-cede rights to ANY of my copyrights - intellectual property nor aritistic renderings because they say so
they do not -
they do not -
they do not -

phil brown/musician · 10 months ago

well....
if that's true i am done with facebook
they do not arbritarily super-cede rights to ANY my copyrights -intellectual property nor aritistic renderings because they say so
they do not -
they do not -
they do not -

Tom H. C. Anderson · 10 months ago

Agree with the reaction to the new TOS, but felt the response by Zuckenberg was good. I posted about it on my blog yesterday, along with some tips for Facebook and other companies who may be involved in managing CGM. We've done a lot of work in this area, and these companies need to learn to trust their user community a bit more, if they do they can even be leveraged to keep moderation costs down etc.


Tom H. C. Anderson
Managing Partner
Anderson Analytics, LLC

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coffee buzz · 10 months ago

It makes no sense that Facebook would risk messing up a good thing by edging in on people's intellectual property. They had people's trust and then they go and risk losing it; not smart.

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