Facebook: Terms of Service, Endearment and Control

With a Fortune article like, “How Facebook is taking over our lives” (by Jessi Hempel, February 17^th) it’s easy to get caught in the premise that with ubiquity comes a nascent power.  The article is excellent and is a great snapshot of Facebook’s place and influence in the world as it stands demographically, politically and even technologically.  But the premise of the article makes it sound like Facebook has more control than they likely do, as evidenced by the events that were happening while this article was busy posting with Facebook’s Terms of Service.

The short-hand version of the Terms of Service story is that Facebook added a line to their bulk glob of text that few users generally read (a their peril, of course) and this triggered a largely negative reaction more toward the ToS in general than just the one line change.  The line essentially extended privileges to license user content after they have deleted their accounts.  Unlike many worried it did not suggest that Facebook owned any intellectual property shared on Facebook.  (There’s a great article on cnet by Caroline McCarthy, “Facebook: Relax, we won't sell your photos” that explains why it’s probably not evil on its face.)  I asked a lawyer and friend of mine who specializes and follows Web 2.0-law matters on the property issue many were concerned about and he responded:

“Dean, The policy says Facebook doesn't own user content. They take a perpetual license, but say they will only use the content for promotional purposes and to actually distribute it over the site, and related services (which is what you WANT them to do). I would not be too worried. It is, in fact, a very well-written agreement. As an aside, unfortunately many of these TOS are very one-sided, but courts nevertheless enforce them. I think you do have certain arguments, though, based on ’contract of adhesion’ principles and equity.”

And then this morning, Facebook taketh away: 

“Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.

If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.”

- From http://blog.facebook.com

So in a single day, they listened. 

The company heard the calls, and even though they clearly disagreed, changed it back to where it was and then pledged to clarify everything what they meant to do. Can you imagine Microsoft doing such a thing? Apple? Ford?  And on a Terms of Service document?  What I like about this is that they acknowledge their terms EVEN BEFORE THE CHANGE were vague and want to rewrite them. That's an important point since had they just changed them back, many people would have been happy and sated (even though much of their problem stemmed from the original ToS they never read not the line-adding of late).

With the perspective of the Fortune article, which was published amid (despite?) this brouhaha, we begin to see that for all the potential energy Facebook has, it is only at the will of the users/people. It is a prized, important and impressive animal that deserves garnered praise even when it acts a bit spoiled with its decisions.  But regardless of its poise and significance, it is still essentially owned by a million handlers.

-Dean