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Facebook terms of service /ownership of your content

Well here's one for those of us that naively think we own the photos etc that we store in social networks and other places on the Web. A short while ago Facebook decided to change its terms of service. cnn.com/technology summarises these changes as:

The company deleted a sentence from the old Terms of Use. That sentence said Facebook could not claim any rights to original content that a user uploaded once the user closed his or her account. It replaced it with: "You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. ... (H)owever, you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
PCWorld reports:
the changes were actually made in early February but not widely noticed until Sunday, when The Consumerist's Chris Walters stumbled upon the subtly shifted language. The section in question explains how Facebook has an "irrevocable, perpetual" license to use your "name, likeness, and image" in essentially any way, including within promotions or external advertising.
I first heard about the changes (and the reaction) through Twitter (the value of Twitter really is increasing with its ability to really show what people are thinking about now). At the time I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to it. I understand users of Facebook were notified of the changes via a message on their home page although I don't remember seeing anything - maybe I was half asleep when that one flew by. Following the ensuing fracas and back-down by Facebook, it is again my understanding that users were notified via a message on their homepage that Facebook were reverting to their old terms of service. Now I definitely don't remember seeing that one. Maybe I should look at Facebook when I am more awake. Again, it was Twitter to the rescue and I found out about the back-down through Twitter (Note to Facebook - you really should've tried harder to acquire them!). Anyway, you'd think by now Facebook would be a bit more sensitive to the feelings of their community - Remember the Beacon fiasco? As valued as Facebook is to many of us, we really do need to be aware of concerns over privacy and ownership. Obviously others think so too such as the EU and this from Canada. So, is Facebook alone in its approach to privacy/ownership or is this just a feature of the other large social networks? The afore mentioned PCWorld post seeks to shed some light on this too. Looking at this in a positive way, it is great to see that Facebook did respond to the community reaction about the changes and reverted back to the previous terms of service. I am sure there are many others who could and should learn from this ability and willingness to respond to the community rather than continue on regardless. This whole issue has been a reminder to me that we really do need to develop our awareness and understanding of these issues as we strive to survive and thrive in a 21st Century environment. Digital literacy/citizenship is so much more than knowing how to use technologies effectively - we really need to understand the implications of what we are doing in the short and long-term. Here's another interesting post from ZDNet on 'Facebook and Privacy Chernobyls'. If, like many you are stuck with Facebook whether you like it or not because that's where your network is, here's some advice from Lifehacker on privacy settings you should know. When I first started to consider the whole issue, my first response was something along the lines of .. well, I'm stuck with Facebook because that's the only network I share with a number of important contacts for me but I don't like what they're up to so I will have to store my photos (yes, I still cling to the notion that they are mine) somewhere else and just link to them. Now, if only I could find a trustworthy service that will guarantee that they will remain mine. This gets interesting for me in another area that I am looking at and that is eportfolios. Like a number of people, I have been exploring the notion that an eportfolio model may be a set of services from around the Web that are aggregated together in some fashion for management, presentation etc. Now if you are storing digital artefacts for you eportfolio in any number of places (eg Flickr, Google Docs, YouTube, Slideshare, blogs etc) you really do need to be aware of the terms and conditions associated with those services if you are going to effectively manage and own those artefacts.

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