Facebook recently “amended” their Terms and Conditions. Paul Jacobson wrote a brilliant article on it, explaining in plain English with accompanying audio explaining everything. Highly recommend you read it.
Basically, Facebook says:
By using Facebook, you have already accepted these Terms and Conditions.
They claim ownership of any photos, text, link, audio, video, designs, ads and anything else that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. (Note: link. As Paul says, if you linked to something, they practically own it.)
They may use anything of you on Facebook as they please. They may even sell it to third parties should they choose to do so.
You have ABSOLUTELY no say in it.
Here is the best part:
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service. In other words, even if you close your Facebook profile, they still own what you had on there.
What gets me about this is not much so the fact that Facebook owns me as it is the fact that they shafted me. Using exceptional sly, sneaky and dirty tactics, they bent over their users and buggered them right in front of the blind girl with the sword and scales. They made it legal for themselves to shaft you, the user. THAT is low. In fact, there is NOTHING lower than using the law for self gain. Exploiting the law might be a better term. Steal my stuff if you have to have it, but at least give me the option to do something about it. Don’t simply claim rights to it which you shouldn’t have.
I’m not legally sure, so I’ll ask Paul, but is it already too late? Can one still get out of the rule of these Terms and Conditions?
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Rox 9:45 pm on February 16, 2009 Permalink |
What pisses me off is that the majority of non-online peeps don’t know anything about these new TOS – there hasn’t been any notification to inform users or anything.
The whole thing stinks, put me off Facebook in a big way… and I was already getting bored with it before all this.
Stii 10:54 pm on February 16, 2009 Permalink |
I agree, it is completely ridiculous. If you’re going to play dirty like this, let people know first and decide for themselves.
Paul Jacobson 12:23 pm on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Hi Stii
Thanks for the compliments and the link.
Facebook doesn’t claim ownership of the content but the license they take is pretty broad and gives them the right to do pretty much what they want with your content, whether you post it on Facebook or link to it.
Unfortunately the only way to opt out of the terms of use is to stop using the service. That won’t affect the license granted to stuff you have already posted though.
FeistyFemale 2:17 pm on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Well since we screwed already, I figured I’d just spread the word.
I was really disappointed that this blog had no “post to Facebook” feature. I had to actually do work to get the link posted to my profile ;-)
Joy-Mari 2:45 pm on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
I dumped MyFace yesterday. We’ve been going steady since early 2007 but I finally had enough.
So I’m single again. And I’ll think more carefully next time a handsome suitor comes along.
Perhaps we should just stick to our paper diaries and scrapbooks?
Stii 9:06 pm on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Thanks for clearing that up Paul!
Mind you, there’s no bookmarking stuff. Thx Bev for reminding!
Joy-Mari, it sure was much less complicated those days!
Wogan 1:00 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink |
All we need now is for someone to go and create a group about this on Facebook, see what happens.
But you know, this is what happens when you put an unqualified, unprofessional dropout student web developer in charge of one of the fastest-growing social networks in the world. I don’t think Mark has any formal qualifications in marketing or social engineering, so why should 150 million of us be entrusting our personal information and media to a network he owns?
I’m willing to bet things would have gone a hell of a lot better had they been bought out by Yahoo.
~ Wogan
Stii 1:11 am on February 18, 2009 Permalink |
Funny you should say that, but I was thinking the exact same thing today :)