Today’s hoopla over changes to the Facebook Terms of Service have prompted a rare blog post from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In the post, Zuckerberg falls short of apologizing for the changes, but rather, uses the opportunity to explain why Facebook more or less keeps your content indefinitely.
He writes, “When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.” This is true – without making this part of the Terms of Service, someone could technically claim they didn’t know anyone would see their Status Updates, as silly as that may sound.
Continuing, Zuckerberg explains why the site keeps content indefinitely. “When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work.”
That makes sense as well, but I don’t think it gets to the heart of the issue that has people so concerned about Facebook’s terms of service, as the company fails to answer the question of why this piece of the TOS was removed: “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.”
Ultimately, Facebook’s stance can be summarized as “trust us, we won’t do anything bad.” Zuckerberg writes, “In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.”
In the end, this fiasco isn’t going to change the way I use Facebook, and I imagine it won’t do much to alter other user’s plans either. Their terms of service, like those of any other company operating on the Web, are designed to put their interests first, and eliminate just about any potential legal risk that their lawyers can think up.
Once again though - like with Beacon and the Facebook re-design revolt - Facebook has done a poor job of communicating the changes, leaving Zuckerberg on the defense instead of proactively keeping users informed on potentially controversial moves the company is making.
Chances are Facebook won’t abuse the privileges they are granted under their TOS. The backlash over doing something insane like using member photos without permission would be enormous and Facebook is smart enough not to do it. But as a user, it’s another reminder that what you do on the Internet is probably permanent, and much of it, probably outside your control.
---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Mais quand même, le "terms of service" de Facebook stipule donc dorénavant que les données ne sont pas effacées lorsque l'on ferme son compte et que, surtout, tout le contenu déposé sur le site de Facebook lui appartient, "pour toujours"! On ne pourra pas se plaindre de ne pas avoir été mis au courant chers "friends"...
The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service, regarding user-generated content.
In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way - even if you quit the service.
The TOS says the following:
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 or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.
It also used to contain another bit that is now missing.
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.
This is also reinforced by the “Termination” section:
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
Sure, most users don’t really care (or think they don’t care) about all this, but the idea that you now cannot stop Facebook from using your content should you ever want to is frightening to say the least.
Is Facebook Connect the reason?
Commenter OrtensiaCadmium on Consumerist finds a probable reason for this change in Facebook TOS.
“That’s fairly common language in terms for various sites such as Facebook. While it gives Facebook some far-reaching and scary possibilities, the basic idea is that things you upload may end up residing on servers outside of Facebook’s direct control. These broad rights make it so that you can’t sue Facebook for some cached content on some other server…”
Yes, with Facebook Connect in place, it’s likely that Facebook simply must do this in order to avoid possible lawsuits over content that isn’t even stored by them anymore. However, the same commenter rightfully notices that “…yes, it also means they can sell your photos or use them in advertising with no recompense to you.”
It’s not just your stuff, it’s everyone’s stuff
The possible implications of this TOS change go beyond these concerns. Sure, you can choose not to use Facebook at all, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Someone can still take your photo, slap it on Facebook, and now neither you nor the author of the photo can stop Facebook from using the photo in whichever way they please.
Looking at it globally, millions of people are uploading bits of information on everyone and everything, to a huge online database, and by doing so they’re automatically giving away the rights to use or modify this information to a private corporation. And not only that; they now also waiver the right to ever take it back from it.
Facebook should take a long, deep look into how it treats its users. Until now, users had options with regards to how the data they generated on Facebook was used. Now, they have no options whatsoever, rather than quit the service altogether. It’s a major difference; I’m not going to take it lightly, and neither should you.
---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:
Wow! Assez gros, fallait oser... Ca va chauffer sur FB, c'est certain! Un/Des groupe/s a/ont bien entendu été créé sur FB pour contrer cette modification du TOS (c'est une attitude assez légere tout de même --et une très mauvaise communication--, puisqu'elle est de facto imposée aux personnes déjà membres du site et qui s'étaient inscrites sous d'autres "terms of service"...)
Autant donc dorénavant considérer FB comme un espace public... et de s'y comporter comme tel. Nous avions avancé une telle idée dans nos projets Knowscape et Knowscape mobile il y a 6 ans de cela. A la différence près que les données en question étaient certes publiques, mais également open source (n'appartenant donc pas à une société privée, mais à tout le monde!).
Berlin yet again; Chicago yet again. Earlier, we made a passing comparison between NURBN's Tempelhof See with The Hole. Now, to bring balance to the universe, we're twinning together Jakob Tigges' Tempelhof Mountain and a ski jumping ramp temporarily inserted into Chicago's Soldier Field in 1954, after all, is the ramp not an intimation of a mountain in the way that the other is a facsimile of a real one?
The latter is a mathematically perfect combination of topographical conditions. Contour lines, slopes and snow type, and maybe even favorable sun angles and prevailing wind direction for the athletes, and for the better enjoyment of the audience, an optimal viewing perspective, have all been co-opted to actualize a very specific event space.
The former is similarly a complicated exercise in mountain design. Tapping into a pathological desire for unspoiled Nature, a patch of Alpine wilderness is recreated hundreds of miles away in the center of Berlin. If actually built, it would mostly likely be ridiculously programmed in the same way so many parts of the Alps have been absurdly landscaped for winter enthusiasts.
Before its renovation in 2003, the result of which garnered a rave review from The New York Times, even placed fourth in their list of the year's best new buildings, but got pummeled by local culture observers, Soldier Field was already being augmented, spectacularly at that if we are being honest.
Perhaps Zaha Hadid could be persuaded to design another ski jumping ramp, though this prosthesis would be hinged and can be flipped up whenever there's a Bears game. Those traveling along Lake Shore Drive or boating on Lake Michigan would see the wavy profile of a half Eiffel Tower. It's the technolicious abstraction of geology.
In any case, this sort of thing isn't as rare as we first thought. This ramp was erected in Empire Stadium, Vancouver, in 1958.
Even the stadiums of winterless Los Angeles were similarly augmented.
If you can't go to the mountains, bring the mountains to you.
An intriguing mix of the bleeding-edge of recent times (seen at my hotel in Paris yesterday):
- this rfid key that you swipe on your door to enter your room
- the stability of the past: this old and commong keyring which is so heavy that you would not keep the rfid key in your pocket during a whole day: you must put it back at the hotel desk when you get out (delegation in design).
The flat, sober and white plastic key and the old copper keyring.
Commissioned by Covent Garden, UVA lit up the market halls of Covent Garden with a contemporary responsive light installation. Launched as the flagship piece of the winter season program at Covent Garden the installation features 600 custom designed LED mirrored tubes hung above the entire Covent Garden market space. The volumetric arrangement of the tubes created a canvas in which three dimensional light formations were made possible. Constellation was also individually controllable using a custom designed control panel, enabling the installation to have an intimacy with the public.
TARMLED GmbH & Co. KG of Bochum, Germany supplied a total of 578, 2m long, double-sided, LED-strips, and 37 DPDUs (Data Power Distribution Units), to power the installation in the English capital that has become the talk of the town after just a few days of operation. In just 10 weeks TARMLED’s engineers developed double-sided, video-compatible LED-strips based on it’s TARMLED STRIP 25-modules that were premiered at the “PLASA 2008″ show. The LED strips were incorporated into polycarbonate tubes coated with a semitransparent reflective film, in accordance with UVA’s design. Together with 37 customised TARMLED DPDU’s, the tubes are allowed to hang elegantly in the space, as the DPDU’s allow for cable runs of maximum 20m from the fixture using a single CAT5e cable carrying data and power to each fixture. The 25mm pixel spacing of the TARMLED STRIP and UVA’s regular grid layout of the tubes allow for spectacular 3D-displays of voluminous, complex, geometric patterns and effects. The system is entirely driven by UVA’s d3 production system.
This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.
We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.
Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations.
This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.