Internet and privacy online

Facebook's new terms of service

The question of privacy online is one of the greatest questions throughout New Age. Many of us were wondering how safe we are while surfing on the web sitting in our chairs, but only recently this thought became public matter. The guilt goes to, as you may assume, Facebook


By LJILJANA SAMARDŽIĆ
from Sombor, SERBIA


It is a common opinion that, if we hide our name on the internet, then our personality is absolutely protected. But, did you know that even your email address is quite enough for someone who is interested in you in any way to trace you through the web? Your email address is probably on lots of sites you don't even remember you visited, but, believe it or not, your data is stored. You thought that Facebook is violating your rights? What about a site called Spokeo, which can show to your contacts which forum you use, what kind of messages you're posting and what photos you are uploading? In a way, we should be thankful to Facebook for reminding us that we are NOT PARANOID, because there is someone "watching" us.

You guarantee to Facebook that you will...

When applying for social network or installing new program how many of us really read terms of use and service? This Facebook's attempt was justified from that point of view. But, it looks that there is someone among us who actually reads terms.

Thanks to those patient Facebook users, the world founded out about new, interesting, terms:

"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."

Someone got a little bit greedy - this part existed already, but with less demands:

"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

Quite expansion of your promises, don't you think?

Facebook is guaranteeing to you that...

"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."

This literally means that your data can be (and probably will be) used for any purpose Facebook likes or thinks it will be useful for their company and if they gain any profit due to your data (a.k.a. your personality) they are not obligated to share their profit with you. So, be free to remove your User Content from the Site at any time.

They also made a promise that some of content will not underlie termination during removal of your profile:

"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."

So, think twice before uploading any content, because it seems that you are no longer the only owner.

Zuckerberg strikes back

As a response to global online newspaper protests, Mark Zuckerberg published a blog entry in which he claims that, despite terms, "people own and control their information". His strongest argument for this statement is Facebook's promise that they "wouldn't share your information a way you wouldn't want". How, in a world, do they know which way we consider as right or wrong? There is one more explanation why would they have rights to save and use our data. "There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with". Meaning, you already lost control under your information, why keeping what's left of it? Give it to Facebook!

What seems even more interesting is the line which says that Facebook is "the leading service for sharing information". There is a huge difference between definition "social network" and "service for sharing information". How many users would Facebook have if people knew that they will be "shared" without asking them?

Back to old TOS

It seems that Facebook underlied the protest. They put back the old Terms Of Service, but for how long? Even by the old terms, we do not preserve the right on privacy. But, if you go back to the beginning of this text, you'll see that our privacy has nothing to do with privacy any more. The only way to protect ourselves is to refrain from using Internet or at least avoid registering on various sites. If you find it impossible, try to keep in mind that some of uploaded materials you might share with the rest of the world.


(Published: 10.03.2009.)