The latest is a flap between Facebook and their users over who owns the content of their pages. Facebook quietly modified their Terms of Use policy to state that they own your content. That didn’t go over well with their user community. Thousands closed their accounts and others actually prepared to sue over the change. Then, shock-of-all-shocks, Facebook backed down.
It seems to me this is standard practice lately; quietly modify agreements, then wait to see if anyone notices. People noticed. But before you crack open the champagne, two important things to consider:
- Facebook left wiggle room as to what they’ll do in the future. To quote from the WSJ article above:
“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.” (Italics added)
Resolve ‘what’, exactly?
- This issue is entirely beside the point because to me, it isn’t about who owns the content, it’s about who has access to it.
Every day that your information is up on Facebook, it may be available to everybody, everywhere. Maybe you should swap that champagne for tranquilizers…
