Facebook is always walking on eggshells when privacy is concerned. Last year it came under fire for storing user information after an account was deleted. In 2007, it revised its Beacon service, which shared users’ activity on other sites with their Facebook friends. Now Facebook is facing allegations that it is trying to take ownership of users’ content.
The latest row occurred after the blog Consumerist called attention to minor but potentially wide-reaching changes to Facebook’s so-called terms of service (TOS), the set of rules users tacitly agree to when using the site.
The revised terms, posted a couple weeks ago but only noticed recently, suggested that Facebook would be able to use any uploaded content in whatever way it pleased, even after users deleted that content from their accounts. (Previously, the implication was that deleted content was off-limits.)
Following Consumerist’s post, the mainstream media ran with the story. Facebook groups protesting the changes sprang up overnight. On Twitter, “TOS” became one of the most searched terms as discussions about privacy flared up.
Hoping to defuse the crisis, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on Monday that “people own their information and control who they share it with.” His argument was that users haveto grant Facebook sweeping rights in order for the site to even function.
“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,” he wrote. “Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.”
But Mr Zuckerberg’s explanation fell flat. Protests continued and consumer groups began mobilising.
On Tuesday, hours before The Electronic Privacy Info Center was to file a 25-page complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission, a Facebook representative called EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg with an offer: Facebook would revert to its original terms of service if EPIC didn’t file the complaint.
EPIC agreed, and Tuesday night, a notice was posted on Facebook’s home page announcing that the company had reverted to its previous terms of service.
To Mr Rotenberg, the bloggers who seized on the removal of the account deletion language actually missed the larger story. “The significance in the changes of the terms of service was that user content would be less under the control of users and more under the control of Facebook,” he said.
Mr Rotenberg said this was a slippery slope that could lead to future abuses of users’ information. “If there aren’t very clear rules put in place, over time some of these users will find their information being exploited,” he said.
In a blog post today, Mr Zuckerberg gave his version of the events. He restated his claim that the revised terms didn’t reflect a change in policy so much as a clarification of the legalese necessary for Facebook to operate. Mr Zuckerberg said that revisions to the terms of service would be coming, but the company will solicit user input on the changes through — what else? — a new Facebook group.
A more consultative process sounds well and good. But to privacy advocates like EPIC, Facebook will have to hold fast to Mr Zuckerberg’s claim that “people own and control their information.”
“That has to be the key to social networking sites,” Mr Rotenberg said. “Just because you put something online, doesn’t mean you give up an interest in how it is used.”
