Status: Dom is relieved
Facebook’s announcement that it was to change its Terms Of Service (TOS) had pretty far reaching implications, to say the least.
In principle, under the altered TOS, the site - which has over 175 million users worldwide - would have then been in a position to own all data, even when a user deletes their account. Not only that but been able to sub-license the use of that content.
Surprise, surprise there was something of an outcry. And perhaps not surprisingly either, Mark Zuckerman, founder of the site, has apparently changed his mind.
But has the damage been done? Already there are whispers that Facebook has ‘sold out’, is ‘doing a Google’ and the site has only promised to change the terms while it resolves some of the issues raised by users.
Regardless of where Facebook decides to go next, the storm that has already broken should give everyone food for thought. Personally, right now, I couldn’t care less if Facebook has ownership of everything I’ve posted to my page. There’s nothing of any intellectual value to me on it.
But for thousands and millions of people who have posted photos, videos and music, the question is very different. And then there are the charity sites, education sites, business sites, whose owners invest a large amount of time and resources in providing information and materials that they would not want for one second to hand over to Facebook.
Perhaps there are some parallels here with the current economic climate. For years we were encouraged to ‘buy now and pay later’. Spend and damn the consequences. Well, they were right, we did buy then and we’re now paying later.
The last ten years has seen a huge rise in phenomenal free services, Hotmail with 1mb of space was pretty amazing in 1999, but since then there has been a tidal wave of free services encouraging us in one shape or form to upload data to the web, use services to share thoughts, ideas and memories, both personal and professional.
And the vast majority of the population has probably not given it much more thought. Get a Facebook page? Free? Share my photos? Free? Brilliant.
But this recent episode does go to show how vulnerable we may have made ourselves in the process, especially as more and more organisations and companies look to use the opportunities offered by these sites in their communications.
A case perhaps of upload now, pay later?