Facebook's Users Ask Who Owns Information
By BRIAN STELTER
February 16, 2009
Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook’s terms of service, the company’s chief executive moved to reassure users on Monday that the users, not the Web site, “own and control their information.” The online exchanges reflected the uneasy and evolving balance between sharing information and retaining control over that information on the Internet. The subject arose when a consumer advocate’s blog shined an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading when they use a Web site.
The pages, called terms of service, generally outline appropriate conduct and grant a license to companies to store users’ data. Unknown to many users, the terms frequently give broad power to Web site operators. This month, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire.
Further, it added new language that said Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was terminated.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/pop... Facebook being hacked by Hackers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technolo...
February 16, 2009
Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook’s terms of service, the company’s chief executive moved to reassure users on Monday that the users, not the Web site, “own and control their information.” The online exchanges reflected the uneasy and evolving balance between sharing information and retaining control over that information on the Internet. The subject arose when a consumer advocate’s blog shined an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading when they use a Web site.
The pages, called terms of service, generally outline appropriate conduct and grant a license to companies to store users’ data. Unknown to many users, the terms frequently give broad power to Web site operators. This month, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire.
Further, it added new language that said Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was terminated.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/pop... Facebook being hacked by Hackers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technolo...
Facebook Withdraws Changes in Data Use
He said Facebook representatives contacted him on Tuesday night to ask whether his group would refrain from filing the complaint if the company backtracked to the old language in the contract. Mr. Rotenberg agreed.
Facebook’s retreat can also be credited to the mass of members who made their voices heard in a strikingly vociferous movement that spanned the globe. Facebook made the changes to its terms of service on Feb. 6, but they were highlighted Sunday by a blog called The Consumerist, which reviewed the contract. The blog, which is owned by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, warned people to “never upload anything you don’t feel comfortable giving away forever, because it’s Facebook’s now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technolo...