CNN: After huge backlash from members, Facebook backs down from trying to own member content forever

[Turborama]

Run time: 03:27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91WMKR4iVHU   Posted on YouTube: February 18, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 18, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 837

 
This is how it was reported on CNN before Facebook backed down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9uoW3I-7A&feature

Facebook backtracks on Terms of Use update



After outcry from just about every corner of the Web over Facebook's controversial change to its terms of use, the company has hit the rewind button.

Facebook has reverted to the previous version of the terms -- one that doesn't include the disputed clause that granted the company permission to maintain user data indefinitely, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on a post to the company blog late Tuesday. The change came just a day after Zuckerberg's unsatisfying response to privacy concerns.

Now, Facebook is back to the drawing board to craft a less divisive set of terms. The company will put together a more approachable document with less formal language, Zuckerberg wrote on the blog. "Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now," he wrote.

The loud dissent over the terms-of-service alteration was akin to that of a national protest.

Zuckerberg has compared the website to an actual country in the past. Since then, Facebook's population has surpassed that of Bangladesh and Pakistan, making it the sixth most populous "country" -- for those who are keeping track.

But the Palo Alto company has taken the state analogy to a new level. The Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities is a group page that the company created to collect suggestions from users about its terms of service, which Facebook is calling its "governing document."

Every Facebook user is being alerted to changes in the terms with a box that appears at the top of the website once a user logs in. The notice contains ...

... a link to the bill of rights group, which has begun growing at a pace of thousands of members and hundreds of discussion and wall posts per hour (32,201 members and counting). And Facebook continued to update the group description to clarify questions during the midnight hours.

Continues with embedded links: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/02/facebook-tos.html

Facebook's Privacy Flap: What Really Went Down, and What's Next
By JR Raphael, PC World
Feb 19, 2009 2:53 am

Facebook may have done an about-face with its policies on using user data, but the social network's struggle to balance business with privacy is far from over.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would revert to its old terms of use in a blog posting late Tuesday night. The decision followed wide-reaching outrage over the service's updated policies on user-generated content. The changes essentially gave Facebook a "perpetual" license to use any uploaded materials within advertising or any number of other venues--even if the user had long since deleted the content, or even deleted the account.

Advocates in Action

Facebook's backtracking announcement came just hours after word broke that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., intended to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the altered licenses.

"What we sensed was taking place was that Facebook was asserting a greater legal authority over the user-generated content," says EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg. "It represented a fundamental shift in terms of how the company saw its ability to exercise control over what its users were posting, and that really concerned us."

Continues with embedded links: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159743/facebooks_privacy_flap_what_really_went_down_and_whats_next.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. This is BUT A START.

Legalese in Facebook? ridiculous.
But what about the legalese in your credit card contract? Let's attack that the same way.

[raystorm7]

2. Testing the waters of Fascism...only to return later when no one is actually looking =/

[mackerel]

3. That's the thing. Should I be worried?

Is my facebook really mine? I only have a couple of personal photos and I don't get too personal. I've decided not to use the blog. If it's not copy written anyone can swipe it.