It's all about the timing

[brynndragon]

NPR is doing a piece on "the benefits of joining Facebook" on Talk of the Nation (starts now, not sure when in the next hour they'll be discussing that subject). Any bets for how long it'll take for someone to point out their recent "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever." changes to the ToS?

ETA: It was the first question the host asked, before they went to the phones. He did the standard "oh, it's just so Facebook doesn't have to keep track of things you put on friends' walls to make it go away when you delete your account". Someone should tell them that using legalese to make up for lazy coding is not cool.

Comments

[lawbard.livejournal.com]

Well, thats a BS excuse in my opinion.

That legalese, to me, means that anything on Facebook becomes their legal property, meaning they can do whatever they want with it, including sell it, and you have little to no recourse with how they handle it. They own it...you do not.

And thats so excessively horrifying that I will never have anything to do with Facebook, ever.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

Especially since they're lying out their asses. It's so they can pull things like using your photos in ads, which they got in a shit-ton of trouble for last time.

Weirdness

[pezzonovante.livejournal.com]

I get in my car to go to the bank, and this is the first thing I hear.

"[static] ... the virtual contract you sign when you create your profile. The new terms state that Facebook can use ..."

[pockethedgehog.livejournal.com]

And this is exactly why I don't put anything really interesting or important online unless (a) it is on a site I do not control and there is some way for me to also put a copyright or creative commons license on it, or (b) I control the site, or directly know the person who does.

[pockethedgehog.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, Facebook just posted this:

"A couple of weeks ago, we posted an update to our Terms of Use that we hoped would clarify some parts of it for our users. Over the past couple of days, we have received a lot of questions and comments about these updated terms and what they mean for people and their information. Because of the feedback we received, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised."