[Infowarrior] - Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information

[Richard Forno]

February 17, 2009
Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information
By BRIAN STELTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook’s  
terms of service, the company’s chief executive moved to reassure  
users on Monday that the users, not the Web site, “own and control  
their information.”

The online exchanges reflected the uneasy and evolving balance between  
sharing information and retaining control over that information on the  
Internet. The subject arose when a consumer advocate’s blog shined an  
unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users  
accept without reading when they use a Web site.

The pages, called terms of service, generally outline appropriate  
conduct and grant a license to companies to store users’ data. Unknown  
to many users, the terms frequently give broad power to Web site  
operators.

This month, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision  
that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time  
the license would expire. Further, it added new language that said  
Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was  
terminated.

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, said in a blog post  
on Monday that the philosophy “that people own their information and  
control who they share it with has remained constant.” Despite the  
complaints, he did not indicate the language would be revised.

The changes in the terms of service had gone mostly unnoticed until  
Sunday, when the blog Consumerist cited them and interpreted them to  
mean that “anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in  
any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.”

Given the widespread popularity of Facebook — by some measurements the  
most popular social network with 175 million active users worldwide —  
that claim attracted attention immediately.

The blog post by Consumerist, part of the advocacy group Consumers  
Union, received more than 300,000 views. Users created Facebook groups  
to oppose the changes. To some of the thousands who commented online,  
the changes meant: “Facebook owns you.”

Facebook moved swiftly to say it was not claiming to own the material  
that users upload. It said the terms had been updated to better  
reflect user behavior — for instance, to acknowledge that when a user  
deletes an account, any comments the user had posted on a page remain  
visible.

“We certainly did not — and did not intend — to create any new right  
or interest for Facebook in users’ data by issuing the new terms,”  
said Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman.

Greg Lastowka, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Law who  
is writing a book on Internet law, said Facebook’s language was not  
unusual. “Most Web sites today offer terms of service that are  
designed to protect and further the interests of the company writing  
the terms, and most people simply agree to terms without reading them.”

For Facebook, the ability to store users’ data and use their names and  
images for commercial purposes is important as it seeks to make more  
money from the virtual interactions of friends.

But balancing the desire for sharing with the need for control remains  
a challenge for Facebook as it turns five years old this month. “We’re  
at an interesting point in the development of the open online world  
where these issues are being worked out,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.

Amid the evolution, at least a few members are showing their  
uneasiness about the stance that Facebook is taking.

Some members, including Sasha Frere-Jones, the pop critic and staff  
writer for The New Yorker, said they had deleted their accounts to  
show their opposition to the new terms.

“Zuckerberg’s response to the protest is just the modern version of  
‘Ignore the fine print, ma’am, just sign here,’ ” Mr. Frere-Jones  
wrote in an e-mail message. “Why would anyone trust a company with his  
or her personal information, especially when that company’s explicit  
legal language claims eternal rights to exploit that information, and  
there is good reason to expect that they will?”