News Report #3

News Report #3
“Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Their Information
Brian Stelter, NY Times
2/16/09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Due to a recent change in Facebook’s terms of service, a good many frequenters of the site are growing suspicious and uncomfortable; this comes in spite of being assured recently by the site higher-ups that the users are the ones who own their material. This sense of unease came about in part due to an independent blogger who shone an “an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading”. The reason Facebook users are in such a state of excitement over the new terms of service has to do with an older part of the terms being deleted and a new part added. More specifically what was removed was a proviso saying that people could remove their content at anytime. What this was replaced with was a condition that even when you cancel your account, Facebook still retains their license to the content of your account. When the site users reacted to this the president, while regretful of their unease, did not make any indication that they would revise the language. While Facebook stresses that they make no claim to own their users materials the evidence is all to the contrary.

I can easily see why people would be unhappy with this turn of events. Not too long ago I heard story about a girl whose picture was taken from her MySpace account to be used in a virgin mobile ad campaign. She said they took it without her remission and is suing, but the terms of service of that site do not seem to protect her. I can only imagine how she (and others) feel; knowing that people who are already rich beyond imagining are getting more so from her while she sees not a dime. It is getting to the point that so much personal information is just put out the on the web without any substantial laws to protect the people it belongs to. Overall I find it unnerving and infuriating that these sites are able to take advantage of people in that way and we have no real protection from them.