Facebook Creates, Removes New Terms of Service

Recent changes to Facebook’s Terms of Service have reignited online privacy concerns and raised the specter of the Beacon debacle as the social networking powerhouse seeks to effectively manage personal information online. The new Terms of Service troubled many of the service’s users, especially the following section:

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.

As the New York Times asks, “Who owns information [disseminated online]?”

The online exchanges [between bloggers and Facebook] 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.

The hue and cry raised in the blogoshpere and social networking sites was sharp and severe. As CNN reports:

Thousands of indignant members either canceled their accounts or created online petitions. Among them were more than 64,000 who joined a group called “The People Against the new Terms of Service.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacted to user concerns quickly and ultimately the company reverted to their old terms of service.

“Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised,” Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote on The Facebook Blog.

Zuckerberg said the move would be temporary.

“Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now,” he wrote in the updated blog.

ReputationDefender applauds Facebook’s decision to amend their Terms of Service. Respecting the privacy of users and their data will be paramount as people share more of their real lives online. ReputationDefender is a privacy advocate and believes in a secure browsing experience for all individuals.