Blogs Feb 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm

Comments

2
I suspect this is more for legal CYA - I don't expect to see my kids photos show up in new wallets & picture frames any time soon.
3
OMG that's funny.
4
It is simple... don't post anything you don't want Facebook (or anyone else) to use or own. Anything we post on the internet is already subject to people copying it and using it, legally or illegally.

If you've got an idea for a patent or new business, don't post it on Facebook. If you want to stay connected to people and share what you are doing for the weekend, Facebook is the place.

I don't see how my Facebook status messages, website links and event invitations are worth worrying about. I have nothing of monetary importance on Facebook, it is for social networking only.

Facebook has connected me with people from high school that I haven't seen in 30 years. It allows me to stay connected with friends. It allows me to post invitations to events I'm hosting. It's a great, free, networking tool.
5
That in a nutshell is why I'd never join any social networking site
6
Current generations evidently have no sense of public and private sphere. There will be little or no outrage about this Facebook transgression because no one cares anymore if everyone knows everything about them at all times. Fine for them, but I am concerned about my own privacy rights becoming non-existent. Someone care... please.
7
Edward Champion is a little late.. there was quite a controversy more than a year ago when it was revealed that Facebook owns, and can use, any of your posted photographs.

Listen to Suz @4, but might I add: Keep photos of your drunken fratboy days in a locked safe, not FB.
10
i bet slog is going to steal the above comment and make millions off it.
11
if you want privacy, stay off the internet.
13
This is scary! As an artist I sometimes use facebook to post images of my current work for my friends and fellow former grad students to see. Usually, it is in progress stuff that I put out to get feedback from my friends. Some of it makes it to my website, some does not. I won't be posting anymore work that is for sure. Fucking assholes - I knew Facebook was too good to be true.
15
I'm wondering what all of this will look like in two or three thousand years.
17
Wait... they own ALL 25 of my random things? I thought 23 or 24, sure.... but 25? Sheesh.
18
Today my status message on Facebook says: "Suz is waiting for Obama to stimulate me with his big package."

Facebook can have that one too.
19
Hmmm...that would presuppose I'm putting up anything Facebook would actually want to steal. I suppose if I were a professional artist of any kind, this would deeply concern me, but as it is, the messages I send to my friends and a list of books I've read are unlikely to present themselves as financial boons to either Facebook or myself. I suspect far more than 99% of Facebook users are the same way.
21
You'll see the same or similar things if you read the ToS on most other social networking sites. Unfortunately no one really does so everyone is surprised when they do read it. Here's some advice: don't post stuff on other peoples sites if you don't want them to have it. You don't own Facebook so you shouldn't be using it to host your files. Get your own site if you want to post something on the Internet and retain all rights, or read the ToS before you go around posting. Sites like FB don't hide this fact, people are just too dumb to read it and realize it.
23
What commercial interest is ever going to care about my Facebook status, favorite music, or blurry photos of a road trip through North Dakota?
24
more from the user agreement ... that, hello, people agreed to"

"You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. 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 represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses."
25
Of course they have the rights to display it - that's kind of required in order for them to... display it. Like you asked them to when you put the photos on there.

Do people really not get how this works? Every single social networking/photo/art site is set up like this. It's the trade-off you make when you put things up on someone else's system. If you don't like it, get your own. And if you still want to use Facebook, then don't put up anything that you're concerned they'll use.

You all know that they use your information to market and target ads, right? This is how we get "free" services that require a lot of physical equipment and bandwidth. That's the exchange - like "free" television that's supported by ads.
26
I just deleted my "deactivated" account. What a relief. There aren't that many accounts that can't be deleted on the Internet, but they should tell you if the account you're about to set up can NOT be deleted.
27
awesome. maybe this wave of hysteria over something that was completely in the open, and NOT hidden or sneaky or even slightly illegal or unethical, will strain out all the douchy idiots new to facebook that have been making it really irritating for me to just keep in touch with work associates and occasionally post photos of a road trip.

you know-the douches that complain that myspace is better than facebook...

so if you dont know what it is, what its for, or how to use it (you dont frickin READ the terms before signing up???) then yes-get off!!! maybe there will be less "IQ chalenges" and "Drink gifts". so stupid.
28
As Eddie Izzard says, the first EULA makes a liar out of all of us.

As something I read somewhere said, it's amazing how much information you can extract from very little data. Date of birth, zip code and maybe gender, and you own the person. Can identify them by name, anyway. Age, zip code and shopping proclivities, very valuable.

Even the ability to blackmail today's twenty-somethings when they're thirty-something would be priceless. Yes, I'm old.
29
Also, there's no haste. Remember Friendster? LinkedIn? The next social networking site is five minutes away, and maybe they'll have better scruples regarding privacy.
30
Just use the Wayback Machine and it's all there anyway.

Want privacy?

Move to another country.

Please wait...

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