Facebook Changes Terms of Use

Facebook has caused a bit of a stir with a change to its Terms of Service (ToS) – that vital small print that few of us can be bothered to read.

The terms always gave Facebook permission to do what they want with content you upload, that’s fairly standard. However there used to be a clause saying that this permission ceased if you closed your account. That clause has now gone.

As The Consumerist points out, Facebook is now effectively saying: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.” Deleting content you’ve previously uploaded and cancelling your account doesn’t mean your stuff won’t continue to appear. Needless to say this has angered many people.

To be fair I don’t think that this is Facebook being evil. It smells like an over-eager legal department trying to avoid being sued. This change in the ToS means that if you close your account they don’t have to worry about ensuring that your content is deleted from every single backup, partner site, piece of marketing blurb, etc. But whatever the company’s intentions this change has understandably annoyed many people. If not reversed it will set a very bad precedent.

Of course there’s no real guarantee of privacy or control of content anywhere on the net. Once it’s out there, there’s no way of getting it back. Best not to upload anything unless you’d be happy with your granny, your boss and the police viewing it either today or in years to come.