RSS
Home
Facebook to revise, clarify Terms of Service
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Over the past few days, Facebook has gotten a lot of less-than-desirable publicity regarding a new Terms of Service (TOS) posted on the social networking. Not to put too fine a point on it, it stated that Facebook had a non-exclusive ownership of the content (including photos) that was put up there by users. As written, it sounded like an over-zealous lawyer got his hands on it.
In response to public outcry, Facebook has reset to its previous TOS while they iron out the details. According to a letter from Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt:
"We do need certain licenses in order to facilitate the sharing of your content through our service. That’s where the Terms of Use come in. The fact that you’ve raised the questions you have is proof that we haven’t done a good job explaining these licenses in the actual language of the document. In fact, as we were working to answer your questions, we realized the new version of the Terms might technically permit some of the hypothetical situations people have offered. I can assure you, however, that these hypotheticals aren’t ones we had in mind when writing the Terms, and that selling user information for profit or using it to advertise Facebook in some way was never part of our original intent. Assurances aren’t enough, though, and we plan to codify this in our revised Terms through simple language that defines Facebook’s rights much more specifically."
While some of the scenarios suggested by people are unlikely (and some preposterous), there was serious concern about photos posted there. It's an excellent reminder that, while not pretty, watermarking your photos is an essential part of protecting your online images. Most photo-editing software allows you to do this, but there are some great shareware packages that make this a lot easier. Also, remember to only post the size and resolution that you need to. Not everything you put online needs to be the highest resolution.
