Andrea Vascellari

Did you have a look to the new Facebook terms of service (TOS)? No? Let’s recap a bit then…

As you probably know (or maybe not) anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook forever and in any way Facebook wants.

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.

You want to close your account? No problem, but the interesting thing is that, with the latest TOS (Feb. 4th), Facebook has still the right to use your old content.

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.

and then

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.

If I look at this from my entrepreneurial point of view it’s a great business for Facebook… but it’s also a really delicate one.

Theses terms of service raised many eyebrows (including mine)

• Ok Facebook offers a nice networking platform, but giving them perpetual right to use all my data?
• At least we should have the right of opt out if we want right?
• What about content (photos ,videos, etc.) which include people that are not in Facebook? Non-members of Facebook might not like these new terms either.
• When I first signed up to Facebook they didn’t have these terms of services. No one never asked me to agree with the new TOS. How can this have any validity?
• Isn’t this a contradiction? “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”

I guess I wasn’t the only one that stop thinking on these and other questions, Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO) spent the last couple of days focusing on how to move on. Result? Facebook reverted to its prior terms of service and Zuckerberg just posts on the company blog:

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

My take?

• Talking to your customers in plain English it’s a plus, no one likes formal and hard-to-read terms.
• No matter what, you can’t adopt to restrictive policies especially if you touch consumers’ rights

I stop here for now…I would love to hear your thoughts on this. You are more than welcome to join the conversation.

Andrea

Author: Andrea Vascellari

Andrea Vascellari is the CEO of itive.net. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. If you liked this post feel free to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to this blog.