Facebook's new Terms of Services agreement: All U're Posts Belong to Us

Agent Colleen Lindsay blogged about it as well:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-facebook-terms-of-service-grant.html

FB's rights apparently extend to your blog posts that have RSS feeds into FB. And anything you write within FB itself.

At least they are being honest and telling the user about it.

Well, I won't be feeding my blog to FB anymore, that's for sure.

i dont think they can claim ownership of blogs that have RSS feeds into facebook. that seems very illogical to me.

Ah! I must stop posting content immediately. 'Cause, y'know, if they're going to use anyone's stuff, it'll be my word-count updates and pictures of my retarded dog. My top-secret stuff is just so fascinating, it's not fair. *pout*

from The Consumerist:

Make sure you never upload anything you don't feel comfortable giving away forever, because it's Facebook's now.

(Note that as several readers have pointed out, this seems to be subject to your privacy settings, so anything you've protected from full public view doesn't seem to be usable in other ways regardless.)

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I've got my Facebook privacy settings arranged so that only my friends can view photos, notes, status updates, etc. Does this mean that, under Facebook's new terms of service, that they can't own my stuff in perpetuity?

This is certainly troubling. I don't believe that can claim ownership to my blog posts fed via RSS. I already own it by posting it on my blog.

What does this mean, are Facebook going to sue me if I publish a photo I uploaded to Facebook as well?

What is "Facebook"?

Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content.

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This also sounds like they're going to share your information with whoever wants it. It may not seem like a big deal now, but times change.

Bravo said:

i dont think they can claim ownership of blogs that have RSS feeds into facebook. that seems very illogical to me.

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I thought it was weird too. I'm assuming Colleen Lindsay was saying FB own the snippets that get put into the Networked Blogs application. Although I think there is a way to automatically publish your new blog posts as "notes" on FB, so maybe they mean that? I'll have to poke around and see if anyone else has brought that up.

I hardly think FB will be exploiting my photos and wall posts for big bucks, but the blog thing would irk me, not that I've been blogging much lately!

Wayne K said:

This also sounds like they're going to share your information with whoever wants it. It may not seem like a big deal now, but times change.

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Yeah, I agree.

I'm pretty careful what I say and do on Facebook already because of this. Maybe being a socialist makes me more wary because if times change, they can easily use info on Facebook to come after us commies.

I guess they want to lay claim to the "25 random things about me" meme before MySpace or LiveJournal jump on it...

The only reason I know about this is because a friend posted about it. Otherwise I wouldn't have known. And I'm on fb as much as I'm on here (and I'm here A LOT lol)

I'm sure that my "I'm going to take a nap" will come back to haunt me one day...

This is why I don't talk about things of consequence on FB. Only non-Googleable chat rooms and emails.

Although I dislike the idea that if it's on FB's servers, they own the content. Are email providers going to follow suit? Because I'm damn sure USPS doesn't own anything I put through snail mail...

Dunno. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's not comparable. But it does bother me a little.

If I ever see one of my status updates in neon I will scream bloody murder!

I've only just gotten an account there and I'm finding there's too much crap on it for me to even be remotely interested in keeping up on it. I might be making it too complicated for myself, but I can't follow it too well.

Oy - I came down with this stupid cold-flu-thingy, and came back to find over 30 requests. Sadly, I had to ignore a lot of them - sorry any AWers who sent them. It wasn't you. It was me.

That said, I have my settings on friends only. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it was the only way I was comfortable putting up pictures.

I wouldn't have heard about this either, except the groups page showed a friend had joined a group that was anti- the new TOS. Shouldn't FB be sending us all a message to tell us they have changed the TOS?

I too am concerned about my blog content. Sometimes I repost it not as feed but as a 'note', which FB friends are more likely to read and comment on, for some reason. Anyone else use the Networked Blogs application? I just love it, I find great things and keep up with blogs that interest me. Anyone know how that is affected by this change?

Williebee said:

Share? More likely sell. All your history to potential employers, marketing firms, etc.

ON THE OTHER HAND -- This would also function as a preemptive move, to streamline protecting themselves when they comply with some govt. agency's request for info.

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I didn't want to be the first conspiracy theorist, but that was exactly what I was thinking.

See that's what FB is famous for. When they made this change from the old format to the new one they didn't make half the effor to inform anyone they were thinking about it as they did with their 'you're switching to new fb whether you like it or not.' Basically, they don't give a shit about their users. It's all about the cash. The new change was mostly done so that they could put more ads on the side.

bsolah said:

Yeah, I agree.

I'm pretty careful what I say and do on Facebook already because of this. Maybe being a socialist makes me more wary because if times change, they can easily use info on Facebook to come after us commies.

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Our last president proved that we are vulnerable to dictatorship.