Comments on: Facebook: Relax, we won't sell your photos

After a blog highlighted revisions to Facebook's terms of service hinting that the site keeps deleted users' content and can use it at will, a debate heated up on the Web. Here's what Facebook had to say.

[QuetzalcoatlUSA]

Only privacy activists cared about Beacon? Hardly. Once privacy activists EXPLAINED to people that their photos and purchasing history could be used to sell products to their friends (or more likely just alert their friends that items were being purchased), Facebook users revolted en masse.

[FroZone]

I never liked Facebook.

[mgcarley]

Since I didn't like the previous TOS for Facebook, I decided to stop putting up photos or really posting content consisting of anything more than status updates - the majority of which come through Twitter.

Because my previous photos and such were put up quite some time ago, and I DID NOT AGREE to the new terms (surely they should be like every other site and put up a little note saying "we've changed our terms - give them a read, and if you accept, click accept."), I thought I would write my own TOS for Facebook, exerting my ownership, copyright (from 2001 for personal info and 2004 for company info) and otherwise complete control over anything and everything I post, including excerpts and derivatives.

My TOS exclusively denies Facebook the right to everything they lay claim to in their TOS. Of course, I can update it any time, and without warning to Facebook.

Over the top? Maybe. Potentially helpful in the future? Maybe. http://www.mathew-carley.com/cms/about/legal#facebook (IANAL - any holes? Let me know)

[WBS]

The below statement from Facebook Terms clearly says that Facebook can do whatever they want with your content even after you delete it as they may keep archived copies. You just have to be careful and not post anything that might come back and bite you in the....

Suddenly, Facebook is not so nice anymore...


User Content Posted on the Site:
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

[mntncougar]

How do I join the class action lawsuit?

[oshaughnessy_27]

If you want to publish pictures onto the facebook site, then you are doing it at your own risk. It's your decision to do so, so stop blaming facebook for this. It is a great site, I've been on it for years, and I do have pictures and content on there but I did that, and I figure that anyone, whether it be the creators of facebook or friends, can see it. If you don't want them to see your content, then why did you put it up anyway? Give it a rest.

[sirgerry]

These social networks are a waiste of time anyway, I have facebook, with 5 pictures, and that's it. Life is out there not inside the computer or a text phone. BTW, I'm no that old.

[HighwayHome]

Get out before you get trapped in the matrix.

[inachu]

But the legal wording was there to do as they wish with the photos and sell them.
Just think of Facebook selling your image and the likeness of your image to Corbis.

Then years down the road you revisit place where you took a holiday vacation and you stand in the same spot then upload that picture on the web and you get a notice from the CORBIS legal team that you are not allowed to pose in the picture as it violates your previous image to which they own. Microsoft did the same error in they legal agreement that they own all your email. Pretty sad.

[austinbarry]

Just goes to show that you get what you pay for! For a commercial company like Facebook to provide a free service, they must have some angle. I could see a lucrative market in "background checks" along with digging up dirt on the newly famous, or during "discovery" in a law cases (particularly divorce cases). As for sensitive data - it's called "Web publishing" for a reason. If you don't want the world to see it, don't publish it. And face it, FaceBook never pretended to provide secure communication between people, or provide a secure place to store data.

[philviss]

After reading all this and being a new user or member does this mean I need to worry about my music I've added to my site in hopes of promoting it, like artwork or photos? This really could be a concern that may be a reason to deactivate my account. But wait I own the rights to the songs I have on the market. Am I hearing that I should be worried that FB will try to control the rights to the material uploaded to their site. I must investigate, although I must be hearing this wrong, it goes against copyright laws and other safeguards that are in place with failsafes to protect against this.