Facebook's New Terms of Service 426
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!
No different to any google service (Score:0, Interesting)
So why the drama?
Current users? (Score:5, Interesting)
User Content - definition? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Data Protection Act (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
If that's true, then I'd like to know why they added that into the TOS. Why claim the rights for something they supposedly don't even want?
Re:Current users? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but if you discontinue use and disagree with the current terms, can you get them to delete you like they would under the old ones?
Which leads me back to the question... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Politicians beware (Score:3, Interesting)
That's where the power of social networking comes into play. If a bunch of other people have pictures of him in the KKK costume and tag it with his name, it verifies that he was the one running around in the costume. Now, apparently there are ways you can try to remove your name from other people's pictures, but I don't know the specifics of it or how much of a pain it is. (I've managed to avoid using Facebook so far--I started to sign up once about a year ago but was instantly turned away when they said "Give us your email name/password so we can go through your address book". Yes, I realize it was optional, but I just didn't like the fact that they were asking in the first place.)
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Exactly. The people that really should be worried about what they put on there are those that stand to lose from the property they use to gain, ie corporations or entertainment personalities. I see this as a good thing. I find it annoying that grass-roots people form communities that later get raided by corporations looking to exploit and plunder them. I find it goofy when corps redirect you to "Go look us up on Facebook/MySpace/etc."
Re:Current users? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a little sketchy on this one, can they actually do this? I mean, the users signed up under the expectation that copyright law would be honored. I don't think that they actually have a legal leg to stand on here. You can change the TOS so that new material uploaded will be owned by Facebook, but changing the TOS and expecting that to change the copyright on a lot of media retroactively? I only pray that this is what kills facebook so I can stop hearing people rant about how great it is and how I should join.
Re:Current users? (Score:5, Interesting)
You will have to log in first in order to delete your account. So either log in now, which constitutes use of Facebook after the TOS have been published, and FB will keep the content you're about to delete, or never log in again and leave your content online for FB to do whatever it wants with it.
Facebook: helping you give away your privacy since 2003!
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the face of it, this policy makes sense if FB realized that they could not assure timely clean-up when somebody quit. Too much risk of being sued.
Avoidance of lawsuits is almost certainly the reason for their policy of taking ownership of anything posted to FB. It is an easy way, and perhaps the only way, of assuring that they can kill stuff that needs to be removed without being hassled with nuisance suits.
I don't see any way of running something like FB without these kinds of policies. The only surprising thing here is that FB didn't realize it needed ownership forever until recently.
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:2, Interesting)
Who needs Big Brother when your friends will give for free all the pictures anyone would ever need to get you in trouble?
Facebook was great (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Once you upload or post it, it's no longer your (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:Current users? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a little sketchy on this one, can they actually do this? I mean, the users signed up under the expectation that copyright law would be honored. I don't think that they actually have a legal leg to stand on here. You can change the TOS so that new material uploaded will be owned by Facebook, but changing the TOS and expecting that to change the copyright on a lot of media retroactively? I only pray that this is what kills facebook so I can stop hearing people rant about how great it is and how I should join.
FB was already gambling that old users who no longer have accounts wouldn't know their content is being used for internal advertising, etc (since they no longer have accounts with FB), so now they're just taking the next step of saying they own you (they say they can use or relicense your _likeness_ , not just your original content, forever and ever). You read the ToS and object? Well, you had to use FB to cancel your account since there's no external email, phone, snailmail contacts, so they own your stuff now.
Can they do this? Sure they can. They'll make $X on the advertising, and every 1/1,000,000,000 times, they'll have a user notice that their content is used inappropriately. That user will sue for $Y where X>$1,000,000>Y. Facebook makes a profit.
What sucks is that FB _is_ really useful for getting in contact with old friends that you would otherwise have to hire a PI to find. What really sucks is no amount of "they can't do that" "that's illegal in my country/state/city" "I'll sue if they use my stuff" willchange their actions. FB is going to act on what they believe they can do until they are rudely informed otherwise by some government(s).
Re:Data Protection Act (Score:3, Interesting)
I use the DPA regularly to close accounts and it seems to work. Once the relationship with the company has ended, they no longer need the data. This is when it should be deleted.
I beleive the gist of the law says "data may be kept as long as nessesary". Well, once the relationship has ended, it is no longer nessesary to keep the data. There are very few reasons to keep data after this.
I've even demanded that a qualified and certified individual deletes the data, not a minium wage clerk who just presses the delete button. I've even asked for backups to be deleted too. This is part of the DPA - I picked this up from a site that campains agaist using fingerprints in school libraries.
Of course I have no way of checking.
William Hill was the last company I used the DPA against. They complied with minimum fuss.
Honor system whopper? (Score:3, Interesting)
How does Burger King know you've unfriended someone?
Re:Current users? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around why I should really care too much about this, though?
I've had a Facebook acct. for a little while now (only "social networking" type site I ever really got into using), and the thing is FREE. I assume they ARE using me and my info as an advertising/marketing tool in some way, or else they wouldn't generate enough revenue to justify keeping it online.
If you post any original content there you believe is of enough "value" so you'd be upset if they got to keep it after you left? Then I'd say YOU were the one being foolish, using their system as its distribution point in the first place!
Here's an even more devious possibility. (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
Re:Current users? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it's probably closer to quid-pro-quo. Apple sells more iPhones/iPod Touches, and the app featured in the ad (which was probably wholly developed and paid for by Apple) gets free marketing and they actually do sell significantly more [macrumors.com].
I'm sure the app authors have right of first refusal to have their app show up in an Apple ad, but it appears to go both ways - Apple sells more, and the app's developer sells more. There's probably a huge queue now for people who want their app featured in an Apple ad. And all the developer had to do was pay Apple $100. Given the amount of flotsam and jetsam in the iTunes store, anything that gets your app out helps...
Re:Naive thinking... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wasn't joking. I just got moderated that way.
Re:Looking forward to the collapse of Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Having been online in one form or another for 27 years, I think it's safe to disregard allegations of ignorance. I've watched online communities come and go for decades. In that time I've learned that small, focused communities tend to have better longevity than those which attempt to be all things to all people. Facebook will be supplanted by someone or something that doesn't try to take over the world.