In case you didn’t read him quoted in some 1,700 newspapers last week, NBC’s Press:Here has an interview with Chris Kelly, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer this week. The show, which focuses on technology, airs in the Bay Area on Sunday mornings after Meet the Press, and the young show has already been beating Meet the Press in the ratings. You can also watch a clip on the jump or the entire episode online here right now. (I was one of the guest reporters on the show this week.)
Kelly said in no uncertain terms that Facebook does not own your data and content, never did and never will. What’s more: Any reproduction of your data has to be subject to the privacy settings you choose as a Facebook user. You can sense his frustration amid a scandal that was essentially cooked up by Consumerist on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend without even calling Facebook to check if their assumptions on the Terms of Use changes were right.
But this isn’t the first or last time users will be in an uproar over Facebook, despite all of Facebook’s best efforts. Why? There’s never been a Web site—or media property for that matter—that people trusted with so much personal, emotional and intimate information, whether it’s your cell phone number or a video of your child taking his first steps. And with Facebook’s business model still uncertain, that trust makes us legitimately nervous. You think all the search data Google has been collecting on us for all these years is scary? Things you do and upload to Facebook are far, far more personal. For the conspiracy theorists out there, Facebook is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.
I asked Kelly—on this, the third major user uproar the company has faced on privacy that caught it completely by surprise—if the issue was a blind spot for the company or if Facebook was doing something so new in organizing the data of human relationships that it was bound to take all the arrows as these issues of privacy continually emerge. Kelly essentially said its the latter; I think it’s a mixture of both, although Facebook’s privacy sensitivities have clearly come a long way since the News Feed and Beacon debacle days. Give them credit: Each time they learn how to handle the crisis better, and this time they sprung into action quickly and decisively.
Either way, this is not the first or last time a user revolt will spark up around privacy and the site. And that’s one reason Facebook is inviting users to help them craft the language this time around. You can’t blame yourself for violating your rights, right? But as Elizabeth Corcoran of Forbes pointed out on the show, can you really organize a committee of 175 million people?
The clip featuring both of these conversations is below, or go here for the entire episode.
Sarah
I am sorry, this was not cooked up by Consumerist. The TOS was a legal document that Facebook drafted and tried to ram through its users hoping no one would notice.
I hope when you sign legal contracts, mortgages and the like, you read the fine print and not simply trust the other party.
Anjali Sen
i’m not saying it wasn’t a legitimate thing to bring up, but what consumerist alleged was NOT what facebook was saying in its terms of use. *that* was my point. i think there’s still a misunderstanding about that– which is understandable because most facebook users are not lawyers. again: props to facebook for quickly reversing from arguing that point to just scrapping the change (for now.) and props to consumerist for sparking the debate.
Unfortunately, I completely disagree.
I am part of a community of writers and artists. After reviewing the Terms of Service, we clearly saw how legally FB could sell our content to third parties.
In this case, it does not matter what Facebook “says” with respect to their TOS. You could have a publisher, for example, who claims that they would never do anything to your IP — but if it’s spelled out legally that they can, the publisher’s words are meaningless.
The uproar was justified, in my opinion, and hopefully it will help tools like FB understand the importance of protecting copyright.
I can only agree with Monica.
Just take a look on this excerpt from Facebook’s Terms:
“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”
May I ask what part of “perpetual” do you not understand?
And (the cherry on the top): what part of “license – with the right to sublicense” do you not understand?
And there is also: “distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising or otherwise”. Which part of “commercial” do you not understand?
In their official statement, Facebook said they need to find a way to express themselves in a more clear language. Indeed they need! For I am having a really difficult time trying to understand what “perpetual” means, as long as it concerns the right of use of my private data and intellectual property which I am obliged to grant Facebook if I want to join, and Facebook claims they will only use this granted right as long as my account is active.
I think that while they are looking for those clear English terms to explain what, in their opinion, millions of upset users have not understood, Facebook should not forget to make it clear for us why they oblige us to grant them a license to sublicense the use of our private data and intellectual property for commercial and advertising purposes? Could the clear English terms be they are making money on our private data and intellectual property?
Last but not least, as Facebook asks users to trust their good will and commitment to respecting the law, they might find some clear English terms in which to explain their users why they are allowing so many applications that are offensive, privacy invasive and bullying, or groups that promote hatred and discrimination. Any explanation for the fact that there are thousands of users who have reported such applications or groups, and have not even received an answer from Facebook – and the said applications and groups are active and well?
A lot of contradictions between words and reality on Facebook, I’d say. And users are asked to trust their good will?!
Wow – the legal language contained in Helen’s comment (quoting Facebook’s TOS language) seems completely unambiguous to me. I hope we see Sarah respond directly to your post, Helen, because right now not only does Sarah have egg on her face, but she seems really out of her league if she misconstrues that language to mean “all is well, we don’t own your content, settle down folks”.
Pretty pathetic article writing, and should be owned up to.
what consumerist alleged was NOT what facebook was saying in its terms of use
If this was true, they woudn’t have had to reverse the TOS change. They could have just explained it.
*that* was my point. i think there’s still a misunderstanding about that
That was not your point, because you never once attempt to articulate the difference between the popular interpretation of the change and what (you say) the change actually was.
And why didn’t you ask why they don’t let the users decide how their information is used? A bit of an elephant in the room, no?
Sarah, I also disagree with you and I am a lawyer. The terms of use didn’t say Facebook owned users’ content but its license provisions were very broad and pretty much allowed Facebook the right to do whatever it wanted with users’ content as well as content which had the misfortune of being linked to from Facebook or using a Facebook “share” link, quite irrespective of the content owner’s wishes or whether the license was even competent.
This controversy was not “cooked up” by the Consumerist blog. There were very good reasons to be concerned about those terms of use and while Facebook did the right thing pulling them, the restored terms of use are still not that great. At the same time Facebook has committed to revamping their terms of use so we’ll have to wait and see whether the new terms will reflect Facebook’s stated intentions.
Hi, Sarah,
I urge you to read the terms. In plain English they said they could sublicense your content. I’m a pro photographer and that means they could sell any images I posted. It was a rights grab, and their protestations would only be defensible if they were too stupid to know what they had written.
sarah you’re an idiot… a sleective idiot at that.. you selectively reply to those who don’t right away point out how flawed your thinking is and in turn your article.
it’s a lot like looking at the side-boob armpit of a fat person from 2 inches away and fantasizing about pamela anderson
this means i can start a company, give facebook $20.00 and take drunk pictures of my friends who i have a grudge against and then go pay other popular sites x$ to have their ad displayed online for y period of time and tarnish the image of my annoying friend.
Sarah
,
I AM SORRY BUT YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG HERE.
When a used car salesperson tells you “don’t worry about the fine print, just trust me,” do you defend the used car saleman’s practices? THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING HERE.
In my view, Chris Kelly in his comments is no better than the sneakiest used car salesperson.
The issue is about privacy AND transparency AND ownership.
If you go to the Internet Privacy Forum’s What do Internet Sites Know About You Page,
http://www.inte...how-private.php
it is clear that you reveal a lot of information when you visit a website.
But what Facebook did was to go much beyond this and to claim that they own your information and content and can license, sublicense and prettymuch do with it as they please.
It doesn’t matter what the used car salesman says, it is what is written on the contract that matters. But what is worse, is that they tried to sneak this fine print in hoping no one would notice.
This is like a used car salesman after he has made a sale and after you had signed a contract, then writing into the contract withut informing you that you thereby give up your rights to sue him if he sold you a lemon.
THIS IS WRONG, and Consumerist was the hero for standing up to Facebook.
Sarah, you are defending a used car salesman here.
Anjali Sen
The uproar over this shows just how much people support copyright– as long as it is their writing, music, photos, or art that is in danger. When it comes down to the line most people agree with strict copyright laws. People are fickle though. They want their writing to be protected, but at the same time they will download music tracks without paying.
Excellent point.
cooked up – to fabricate; concoct
The terminology seems to imply that it’s something the Consumerist falsified, rather than a legitimate issue.
not falsified, but misunderstood and hence generated a controversy not entirely based on reality:
from consumerist: “Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.” that is not a true statement based on the TOS
again, i think it’s good that they were watching closely and flagged the change. we need to have these debates. but what they wrote is not what the TOS says.
It is not a question of misunderstanding the TOS. Perhaps a lawyer could help clear it up if it’s not clear enough as it is.
I’d much sooner trust a lawyer–or even my own grasp of English–than a Facebook PR man’s spin. He’s pulling your chain as he’s pulled many people’s. Now he’s got you helping Facebook spin its way out of this debacle. Feel nice being used?
The TOS is clear as it is–have you read it? Anyone with any content they’d like to maintain control of but was thinking of uploading to Facebook was right to be worried.
I agree with you James. That is pretty much what the terms said.
“that is not a true statement based on the TOS”
You keep saying that but don’t explain why. This means you are simply acting as an apologist for Facebook.
If you want to be taken seriously, try demonstrating a basic understanding of the topic in question. For instance, the difference between ownership and licensing. That’s such a fundamental point with respect to intellectual property that if you just parrot lines regarding ownership you’re really adding no value to the conversation.
Jon: That’s exactly the kind of writing that TC tries to avoid by saying they aren’t journalists.
Sarah.
Why you drop grammatical niceties such as capitalization in the comment section?
It seems quite unprofessional.
It’s pretty clear that Facebook is taking arrows because, if they have a business model at all, it must involve monetizing the data they’ve gathered. After all, that’s all they have!
The consumerist didn’t “cook up” this story. It was there in plain legalese in the new Facebook TOS, that they have since rescinded under scrutiny.
“Why *do* you”, I meant.
As anyone who actually read the TOS knows, it gave FB a NON-EXCLUSIVE LICENSE to use your data for certain purpose, SUBJECT TO PRIVACY SETTINGS. It was there, it perfectly clear English – nobody needed lawyers to figure that out. FB never claimed to own your data, nor did they claim that you could never use it however you wanted. That part of the TOS never changed, but people chose to ignore that. And that wasn’t even what people were upset about – the only uproar was over what happens to data when you delete your account. Except that most people don’t delete their account – they simply de-activate it, and FB makes it quite clear in the FAQs about de-activating, if you restore your account all of your data will be restored as well.
What really amazes me are the people who claim to be artists and photographer who stated that FB was stealing their business because of the TOS. Really? You post un-watermarked pictures, and then complain that somebody might use them? I suggested to one “photographer” that he only post watermarked pictures, and that if somebody wanted to buy an unmodified version here could enter a one-to-one contract with that person outside of FB, but you can imagine the indignant response that provoked. Maybe it’s just this culture of entitlement that must in the water, because I can’t explain where else these attitudes come from.
That’s a brave attempt to sound intelligent but it fails on several points.
The “certain purposes” include the right to “use” your content. Unless you seriously think there are a significant number of specific “purposes” that are actually excluded by the ToS, cut the pretentious bullshit. The language is clearly best expressed in layman’s terms as “any purposes”, not “certain purposes”.
Introducing the fact that something is “non-exclusive” suggests a complete lack of understanding of the meaning of “privacy”. A breach of privacy remains a breach whether or not it was “exclusive”.
Likewise, licensing is separate to ownership, and therefore ownership is not necessary for abuse of privacy, commercial exploitation, etc. Even if Facebook’s intention was to rip you off and then emotionally blackmail your entire family – it wouldn’t need “ownership” of your data.
The reason most people only deactive their account is because that is the only option readily available to them on Facebook. It takes a heightened degree of foolishness to reference yet another example of Facebook’s disregard for the consumer as a defense of their ToS.
Before going on about “this culture of entitlement”, consider that one reason you can’t explain things is that you don’t understand the basic issues, so how could you possibly expect to understand people’s views on the matter?
By insulting someone with your first sentence, you make your message less likely to be read and absorbed.
By using passive voice, you imply that you are speaking for more people than just yourself.
In case of a dispute around a contract only the court and judge can come up with a ruling what has been ‘cooked up’ and what not.
Tech Crunch is full of emotional statements based on ‘You need to believe this guy, not that guy. He’s a good guy, I BELIEVE HIM” – presumably we are so in love with the author of a post that we should run as a herd in the direction, pointed to us by the prophet…
Got it.
hehe
huh? i don’t believe anyone, that’s why i actually read TOS and am careful what i upload anywhere.
Sorry if it sounded too aggressive, Sarah.
The issue should be subjected to a legal review. You are NOT a lawyer, am I right? Why this ‘cooked up’ STATEMENT in your article then? Why do you consider the words of Chris Kelly to be credible without a review? Just because he decided to tell you their side of the story? Yeah, they had enough time to ‘cook it up’ after the conflict. See what I mean? You are taking sides in a civil dispute.
You can continue doing that as much and as long as you want. More ‘Sarah Lacy episodes’ will follow inevitably, sorry to say that.
IMHO reporters shouldn’t cross this line if they don’t want this ‘yellow press’ style and… mmm… garbage… drown us all. Reporting is one thing, lynching and opinionated junk are another. Who would know the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ better than you after that episode?
I’ve known Chris for some time. He’s a great guy who’s made privacy his career focus. He was one of the first people out there to realize that companies should be focusing on privacy issues and became one of the first “Chief Privacy Officers” out there during Web 1.0. Even for those of us who have drafted terms of use for more than a decade it’s a very hard thing to do, especially when you have to try and anticipate all of the ways that you might expand your website and make more services available to visitors that may require that data they uploaded earlier be used in a new way. Props to Chris and Facebook for having a continuing dialogue about privacy and listening to their users as they try to move forward with their business.
Bullshit. If you don’t believe anyone, you wouldn’t repeat corporate lines and say they are “in no uncertain terms”.
(arguably, if you were careful about what you upload, you wouldn’t post transparent nonsense like that either)
Dear Kevin, please re-read what I said before. What you’ve just said falls under the pattern completely.
I have nothing against Chris, moreover, I’m ON HIS SIDE (been on that side). If the filthy crowd of users want to make a point that their ‘rights’ were violated – let them file a lawsuit and we’ll see who wins. Settling disputes by pasting labels on your opponent forehead is a bit… uncivilized, you know… kinda’ stone age… a bit obsolete.
I think Jon is right. It’s just a propaganda article purchased by FB from TC in order to round up the story… as if it has been resolved already (otherwise people will start reading the fineprint with a magnifying glass, who knows what else they will find there hehe).
I agree that something is fishy in the blogosphere. There are a lot of tech blogs that have come down on the side of Facebook, where the writers have personal relationships with people in high positions at Facebook. I wouldn’t outright assume that Facebook is paying Techcrunch or Sarah Lacy, but they are probably highly aware that they are kissing Facebook’s ass and will expect to get more access in terms of information, interviews, etc.
Every intelligent and accurate interpretation of the TOS recognizes that Facebook could do dirty things with our information and content the way it was worded. Why is every tech blog coming out and saying “No, they wouldn’t, trust them.” Now I neither trust Facebook nor these non-journalist bloggers.
Its a good idea where ever you are on the internet to watch what you post. I will say this I am sure there are those that will read the TOS & Privacy Statements, but I am also sure the vast majotity don’t.
It would be interesting to know how many people actually read the aggrements they are asked to agree to when they sign up. You can bet the website owners have a good idea.
Hm. Techcrunch is full of college-educated folks who appear to believe that having a framed degree on the wall is equivalent to having critical thinking skills, which is a self-refuting position that I need to go no further in framing.
I couldn’t leave without commenting on “The next privacy uproar”! lol.. is this going to be a planned scheduled event next year?
FB tried to put cuffs on its users and it failed. just another scar on the belly of a jellyfish.
CK and MZ are better pancake flippers than leaders. waffles anyone?
PrivacyLocator.com – hide yourself
privacylocator? isn’t that an oxymoron?
Sarah:
This is the 2nd post that seemed like an ad. First one was about younoodle and now this.
This article appears to be as if you work for facebook.
What part of “cooked up by Consumerist” do you not understand?
AND
What part of “NON-EXCLUSIVE LICENSE to use your data for certain purpose, SUBJECT TO PRIVACY SETTINGS” do you not understand?
Another marketing gimmick?
” quoted in some 1,700 newspapers last week”
I had a great time reading (CNN Money): Why I hate Facebook – http://ahref.in/2e923
Seriously, the hypocrisy of Techcrunch is astounding. All this self-righteous, better-than-thou attitude towards the Consumerist (who reported on a legitimate issue), while the “story” about Last.fm giving data to the RIAA was completely false. Ridiculous.
Nail > Head.
Here’s an easy solution to Facebook privacy woes…
Don’t use Facebook… Researchers have shown that people who don’t use Facebook are 54% more productive than people whgo do use it.
How simple is that ???
Reassuringly simple, if you think that the internet has no future and therefore the issues that we face today are pretty much irrelevent.
Overly simplistic, if you think that digital media and personal content is not just an interesting topic but one that will grow increasingly important as use of the internet continues to grow.
Sorry Frank, you, like most others here, failed the Jon test for intelligence.
I agree, Frank.
Although Jon has a point too…albeit, Jon’s point keeps one within the dialectic. The dialectic he falls within is more intelligent than that of the average Joe but it still leads one to continue dealing with the issue at hand.
Why side with Frank? Basically I side with him as a matter of opinion rather than fact (’fact’ is relative). He is correct in my opinion because he recognizes and chooses option C while the rest of us concern ourselves with A or B only. While privacy issues are important in terms of what we place online, they aren’t important to those who choose not to play the game (the Facebook game, in this example) given to us to play.
For those of you stupid enough to post tons of personal information online about every step you take…(just remember), they’ll be watching you.
As for researchers, I tend not to trust ‘experts’ and the like. Why? Well, thats another (very long) conversation.
Regards
If I REALLY OWN all my data on Facebook, then when I delete my account, my data should be wiped, erased, deleted. Simple.
That’s why, in fact, a person deletes their account vs. just abandons.
Does it work this way on Facebook with the new/old TOS?
Facebook does do this. You just have to e-mail them and tell them to delete your account and all of your data will be erased.
Jeff, you really shouldn’t comment on something you don’t understand.
This entire PR-post and comment thread is about Facebook recently changing their TOS to allow them to own/sell data collected on their users even if you close your account.
ORLY? Show me where Facebook said they would sell your data — exactly, you can’t. It’s all over extended BULLSHIT.
http://consumer.../facebook-wont- let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy
‘Nuff said.
A solution to having a social network without a marketing influence could be to pay a monthly user fee. But, Facebook could make much more by selling access to the data base to companies.
I think the first question that needs to be asked by Facebook’s data mining program Lexicon on Facebook itself is, “Will you utilize a free social network if companies can access the database for social marketing research?” Yes, No, Possibly, leave comment. Then parse the comments for popular keywords.
Thank you for covering a very interesting debate, I’ll be around and following this closely.
Sarah Lacey, I really don’t like your articles.
Also: look up the word, “supercilious.” It’s not a good tone to have in interviews. You may want to consider a voice coach if you can’t help it.
Sorry but that TOS that they tried to sneak into users backyards was crap, and you don’t need a lawyer to figure that out. They tried something underhanded, and got caught.
This is great! Thanks so much. Hope it will continue.
you can get interesting post about web usability and technology on my Web Usability Blog.
I hope to see comment flagging here someday.
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Wow. TechCrunch, seriously. Let me hand you a shovel, because this hole you’re digging yourself into is getting bigger and bigger by the minute.
If I may quote part of this particular article: “You can sense his frustration amid a scandal that was essentially cooked up… on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend without even calling Facebook to check if their assumptions on the Terms of Use changes were right.”
Much like the RIAA post, which damned last.fm on no legitimate basis – with a completely false story that didn’t even have a BASIS in truth – on a Friday night when the UK based HQ was already closed and empty thanks to it being, what, like MIDNIGHT there?
You people just don’t know when to stop.
“You can sense his frustration amid a scandal that was essentially cooked up by Consumerist on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend without even calling Facebook to check if their assumptions on the Terms of Use changes were right.”
Sarah, it’s nice to see you hold onto your value in decent journalistic principals, but in doing so I fear you may not be cut out to write for TechCrunch.
Scandalising companies without adequate verification is completely acceptable here.
Facebook TOS {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/iRzGvQVlU0_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Facebook TOS ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/M433JqyBpP”}}}
I wonder how many people going nuts over the FB TOS have read any TOS from any Web App. They all say pretty much the same thing.
To the point about retaining the NON-EXCLUSIVE rights to publish your data even after you delete your account, you have to think of FB’s communication tools in line with email. If I send a “Friend” a message, that message will stay in the recipients inbox.
If I delete my Gmail account, Google doesn’t go to every recipients inbox and delete messages I sent to them.
This is why they had to make the change. FB has become a communication tool more then a “Look at the stuff I like and while you’re at it, send me a hug” tool.
You are comparing apples and oranges, since you are describing scenarios in which there is nothing to control both sides of the communication.
Here, let me give you an example of a very common situation where this has already been dealt with: dating sites. Many online dating sites delete all references to messages to: or from: an account that has been deleted. Communication tool? Sure. Common carrier? Not hardly.
Facebook is not GMail. Use some rigor.
“Facebook is not GMail”….yet.
http://www.web-...supplant-email/
GMail TOS says that the license for the use of user material lasts as long as the user doesn’t terminate their account. Facebook would have to institute a similar “we have a license until you quit” clause for your point to hold.
To reiterate: G lets the user terminate the license.
EH,
Let’s run down a scenario:
I gmail a song to a band mate who also uses gmail (common carrier). I terminate my account (thus the license).
Can I now sue Google for publishing my data (intellectual property) when my band mate plays the mp3 in gmail’s media player? I can sue them for distribution of my intellectual property if my band mate downloads the mp3 to their desktop?
For your dating site point to hold, gmail would have remove all content I sent to another gmail users.
As far as comparing Apples and Oranges, comparing FB to a dating site is like comparing Apples to Zucchini. You have multiple long term relationships on FB. Presumably, you have multiple short term “relationships” on dating sites until (hopefully) you find the one long term relationship you’re looking for. Once you have found that relationship, I would hope you move your communications to another platform.
I don’t think I would be sending my mom a message about my sister’s birthday party on match.com.
“I wonder how many people going nuts over the FB TOS have read any TOS from any Web App. They all say pretty much the same thing.”
Wrong!
So why MySpace doesn’t have the same TOS?
Simple: they automatically delete my messages on other people’s inbox when I delete my account. I find NO reason why Facebook doesn’t opt in this simple solution instead of delivering those ridiculous TOS.
“So why MySpace doesn’t have the same TOS?”
Because they’re behind FB as a communication tool.
MySpace has been playing around with ways to make their messaging more like email as well. They may delete your messages today, but what about tomorrow?
this had to do with the loss of IP after deactivation of ones account. Facebook was claiming ownership of our media. Our music, videos, graphics. so much so, that political cartoonist cagle stopped uploading his work to Facebook over copyright concerns. When someone leaves facbook, facebook has no right to use any media whatsover in it’s onsite or for third party advertising, without compensating the creator. PERIOD.
Is the uproar about Facebook’s TOS and privacy issues? or a pissing battle between Techcrunch and the Consumerist? Looks like the latter.
The Facebook lawyers wrote a TOS to protect Facebook’s rights with respect to user content. The Consumerist has sensationalized it for self promotion – which everyone has the rights to do so.
Sarah Lacy hit the story – dead center. Negative comments about her writing style are out of place – particularly coming from populist fans.
Not much point in all of that, but I just want to note that this is not the first time TC acts as BFF to FB, running interference.
The negative comments aren’t about “her writing style”, but rather, the substance of her assertions.
“populist fans”? What does that even mean? Fans of what?
All that outrage made a difference. The user should be the owner of the data. Let this be a warning to other online services.
“cooked up” sounds like words right from Chris Kelly, FB. But I read “perpetual”, “license and sublicense” in their TOS. It all sounds a major PR bungle up for FB, something badly handled, badly explained too. I was hoping TC would take a more pro-user stance.
Definitely TC has jumped the shark.
Thank god we now have Hacker News to cover startups, and not pay-per-post like TC does all the time.
Well, until they piss on our pond too…
I like how she stopped trying to defend the story. It’s published, her job is done. Transcribe, spell-check, publish.
Thanks for the HN tip, nice one.
Basically, all you FaceBook/MySpace users are stupid. (And that includes you Mint.com users too.)
You’ve given over your personal information to companies that are using that info to make money. You think you own “your” data but they rent it for free. Meanwhile, Google and others scrape all your personal info off to resell to still other people.
You’ve make it so easy for the whole world to steal every detail about your life its silly.
Eventually, some Russian kid will be applying to Harvard with your creditentials and sending you the bill. You’re credit score will be set by how much some 14 year old kid in Pakistan wants to jam on your credit card. Some kid in India will buy a house with your bank account because a failed venture backed company sold its data to someone else after they hit the deadpool.
Smarten up.
Ohhh… you’re *that* Sarah Lacy.
Of “Journalist becomes the story at Mark Zuckerberg SXSWi keynote” fame.
You really should stop ‘reporting’ Facebook.
I have some of the best (and most expensive) lawyers in the country – and their take on the FB TOS was that my content was at risk. Given the amount of money they collect from me for rendering their opinion, I am going to believe them over the spokesperson for FB or some blogger (who is NOT a lawyer) writing about the controversy. My account is closed at FB and I won’t re-open it. I am also looking more carefully at the TOS at all the so-called social media sites to make sure I am not at risk there.
Are you giving a Bourne Ultimatum?
Does Techcrunch or Facebook pay this blogger? This is a CRAP CRAP CRAP post. Its like Sarah Lucy is reading a Facebook press statement. Total crap post about a crap company like Facebook.
Sorry Sarah to burst your Facebook ass kissing bubble, but they went to pull a fast one on all users to turnaround and make a quick buck. Everyone needs to understand that the press and media are just as easily persuaded to sell the party line, thinking that all readers a dumb sheep ( well facebook users are kind sheep like )
The typical Sarah Lacy post will contain one or more of the following:
1: Personal perspective of a story other media outlets are tired of talking about.
2. Misunderstanding about what made the issue relevant in the first place.
2. Constant self-reference in the first person, often with semi-relevant personal experiences thrown in/
3. Shameless self promotion of either your book, your other gigs, or professional appearances.
4. Comment replies that state that you didn’t quite mean the inflammatory statements of your article, sans proper punctuation or capitalization.
Bravo!
Exactly.
A mainstream media “reporter” playing a wannabe clueless techno chick… lame. Next stop: TMZ.
First rule of who to trust on the internet is, if everyone is using normal punctuation except for one person, that person is unlikely to be on the winning side of the debate.
No, you can’t always judge a book by its cover — but it’s often a decent indicator.
“you can’t always judge a book by its cover” — True, however, Sarah Lacy has “opened the book” widely with her articles. Check them out.
It is about her minimal IT knowledge and her style, more appropriate for a chick magazine.
chick magazine……….Dont be so harsh those magazines have much higher standards.
Why is this idot posting articles in a Tech website?
Move your photos to http://www.photoswarm.com. We definitely don’t own your photos and never will (and we look way cooler).
The strange case of Facebook not letting a sister remove her dead brother’s profile:
http://consumer...page-per-policy
Facebook’s Terms of Service compared to MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, etc:
http://amandafr...rvice-compared/
Law Firm Blunder Reveals Value Of Facebook Payout To ConnectU: $65 Million:
http://www.tech...ent-65-million/
People are so Ga-Ga over Facebook that most of this has been overlooked and under-reported…
I have a question regarding TOS that no one ever seems to address.
As far as I know a person under the age of 18 cannot enter into a legal contract. So how could TOS be enforced on hundreds of thousands of Facebook users?
Can Facebook just do what hey want with content uploaded by the underage person, or does the fact that the person who uploaded the content cant sign the rights to it away mean Facebook cant do anything with the content?
This confuses me, but then again i’m easily confused
Well, the way I read it. They want to be able to use your data however they feel like, especially since this absolves them of having to keep any of it private. However, if in some future scenario where data-breach winds up actually being against the law, minors would probably have different rights here. Whether it would be easier or harder for them to put the thumbscrews to FB remains to be seen, but history tells us that it’ll involve different rights in some way.
Don’t know why people think they own their data in web2. Grow up. Those companies want to make money with UGC — you probably heard that term before. Now guess why those companies try to enforce terms that allow them to do anything.
I’m feeling some negative vibes here, just put on some reggae and chill
Sarah,
Your doing a great job!!!
Thx
D
Thanks for clearing that up Sarah! It was all a concoction of consumerist. Facebook didn’t do anything wrong! I’m glad that there are good people like you around so that I don’t have to believe my ‘lying eyes’ and can instead just believe whatever you or facebook tell me to believe.
1. Just because they don’t say ‘we WILL sell your private data’ in a document doesn’t mean the words they use disallow that.
2. A cooked up scandal? The article has quotes from both the TOS and Mark Zuckerberg. It has facts and links for the reader to make up their own mind. And updates. YOU link NBC vids.
3. I could be wrong here, so someone please comment if I misunderstood. The TOS gives itself grandfathered rights to license items you posted before it changed.
So if you accept, login, clear out your posted content, then delete your account, they are allowed to go back prior to the change to retrieve and use posted or linked content.
4. It allows them to gain ‘right to use’ with content that you linked to but do not own.
5. A change like this should be announced. When any other company makes a change in privacy policies, they have to mail everyone a notice – calling attention to the change. Clicking OK on another TOS doesn’t raise eyebrows (at least not at Techcrunch).
6. This is for the Sarah apologists. If she’s not shy about snarking at the Comsumerist, I can’t see how you can take offense that people are complaining about her tone.
And finally, 7. This article is cooked up. It’s an editorial that generated a lot of heated responses, which I believe is the reason it was written, and maybe that’s just me.
A different EH.
wrong. not cooked up by Consumerist. And Facebook can “say” what ever they want, in the end the TOS needs reform.
I am going reiterate what others have said here: This was NOT a cooked up story. The things said by Zuckerberg and Kelley are modern day ‘don’t read the fine print’ pleas. Just because they say they won’t doesn’t meant that they can’t. The ONLY thing you should ever make decisions about is the actual TOS, not some propaganda video on NBC’s website. The FACT is that they took the TOS too far, and were called out on it. I personally don’t believe there was some nefarious intent here, just a mistake by an overzealous legal department… But what if FB was ever sold? There is no provision that guarantees content will only be used for the purpse it was uploaded for (unlike Flickr, and though google apps retains a promotion of the service clause, it has similar wording about usage of content). This doesn’t even bring up the issue of FB’s ridiculous policy of never actually deleting content in the new TOS (once again, in contrast to Flickr and Google apps).
I think you just got a little to excited about the idea of getting one in on the consumerist.
Everyone is making a bit too much about this. So many people put profile on singles sites and other social networking sites without ever thing twice about it and the are the worst when it comes to your privacy.
Here’s an article that I will post for all to read:
The credits are intact!
————————–
Unwitting Exposure: Does Posting Personal Information Online Mean Giving Up Privacy?
Published: October 04, 2008 in Knowledge@Wharton
The million-and-one ways in which the Internet can be useful, efficient and fun are well known. Its potential for abuse by pornographers, phishers, scammers and spammers has also been apparent since its early days. What has taken a bit more time to emerge, however, is awareness of the Internet’s increasing threat to privacy as people become more comfortable offering information about themselves online.
Faculty members at Wharton say people who access the Internet for what have become routine functions — sending email, writing blogs, and posting photos and information about themselves on social networking sites — do not realize how much of their personal privacy, their very identities, they put at risk. Nor do they fully comprehend the extent to which they are inviting mischief, embarrassment and harm, perhaps for decades to come, from others looking to dig up digital dirt. In addition, legal experts say that while laws already on the books provide criminal and civil remedies for some nefarious uses of personal information, the ways in which the Internet can be harnessed for questionable purposes that encroach on privacy have yet to be fully addressed by the courts.
Consider a few examples of how personal information and actions can take on a life of their own once they are posted on the Internet for all to see. In early September, a web developer took an apparently real advertisement placed online by a woman looking for a sexual liaison and posted it on the Seattle “casual encounters” section of the Craigslist bulletin board, according to press reports. There were 178 responses to the phony sexual solicitation, many of which included compromising photos. The developer then posted all the responses on a public website, including photos, email addresses and other personal information — where anyone could view them.
Also in September, the social-networking site Facebook, which is popular among college and high school students, was the subject of protests by a number of users when it made some design changes. According to Reuters, more than 500,000 users complained about a new service called “News Feed” that instantly notifies members whenever friends post new photos or update information about themselves, such as their political affiliations and dating status. Users were angered, not necessarily because News Feed revealed personal data — after all, the same information could be viewed in the user’s profile — but because it made it easier for users to track one another, said Reuters. “Stalking is supposed to be hard,” one user said, according to the Reuters account.
The Federal Trade Commission announced on September 7 that Xanga, a social networking site popular among young people, will pay a $1 million civil penalty to settle charges it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which is the only federal statute on the books governing Internet privacy issues, according to legal scholars. Xanga collected, used and disclosed personal information from children under age 13 without first notifying parents and obtaining their consent, according to the FTC. The government said the penalty was the largest ever assessed for a violation of the child-privacy law.
Then there was the case of a young woman in Seoul who was on a subway train with her pet dog when the animal relieved itself on the floor. The woman did not clean up the mess, angering other riders, and the woman herself reportedly became surly as tensions escalated. Using a camera phone — at 99%, South Korea has the highest camera-phone penetration in the world — a passenger snapped a picture of the woman and the mess her dog had created. The photo, along with language describing what had happened, was posted online and eventually appeared on many sites. Some viewers were able to identify the woman, who became such a pariah that she dropped out of college and went into hiding.
Other examples abound of how online information can be used, often quite legally, in ways that people never intended. How many job applicants have not been hired because prospective employers saw embarrassing online photos of them at parties? How many employees have been mortified when their critical email comments about their bosses or peers were circulated without their consent?
Who Owns You?
Anita L. Allen, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading expert on privacy issues, says the core questions raised by misuse of the Internet are not new.
“It goes way back to the general problem that people will use personal information that they can collect through surreptitious or open means to advance their interest at our expense,” she says. “Gossip, which has been with us forever, is the same type of problem. As long as there have been businesses, there have been issues of confidentiality. There’s nothing new there. What’s new is the ease with which information can be collected and shared, and the ease with which it can be maintained for indefinite periods of time.”
“In general, there has never been so much personal information about individuals as readily accessible as there is today with the Internet,” adds Kevin Werbach, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton. “It’s particularly so with social-networking sites. It’s also the case that the younger generation — teens and 20-somethings — are by and large more comfortable with putting personal details on websites than prior generations.”
Indeed, Werbach says he often discusses Internet privacy issues with his undergraduate students each semester. Whenever he asks how many of them post personal information on sites like MySpace and Facebook, just about every hand goes up.
“That being said, there’s a difference between putting information on a purely public site, like your own website that’s accessible to anyone in the world, and putting something on a site like Facebook, which is a controlled, private site available only to its members,” Werbach notes. “The question of who owns the information on these sites is a very interesting one. Most have policies saying they have ownership of anything posted there, but clearly that doesn’t give them leeway to do anything they want with that information. And they have privacy policies that impose limits on how they can use that data. But there’s no simple answer as to whether the information belongs to me or to the site.”
Wharton management professor Stephen J. Kobrin says he is not sure that “Who owns you?” is the right question. “It seems there’s just so much information out there about all of us that it’s all in the public domain. It may not be there legally, but there’s so much in so many places and there are so many ways to aggregate it, that it may not be a reasonable question. The real question is: ‘Is it possible to provide some protection to individuals to prevent everything about them from going to everyone else? And, if it is possible, how can you do it?’”
Postcards, not Letters
Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of information technology at Wharton, says some of the key questions raised by the growth of Internet usage go to the heart of the issue of privacy: “What is your expectation of privacy and is it valid? Are people aware of just how wrongheaded their expectations of privacy probably are?”
When it comes to an email message, for example, people tend to think of it as a private correspondence written to someone else, similar to a letter in a sealed envelope. But an email message is more like a postcard, according to Whitehouse. “Your mailman can read your postcard — by chance, by design or because he’s bored. The administrator of an email server is like the mailman; an email message is just a file on the server. Most administrators have no reason to look at it. But it’s there nonetheless. And let’s say you delete your email. Is it gone? It’s gone from some places, but it could be backed up by the Internet service provider. How long will it be held? Electronic documents are like kudzu: They can be hard to eradicate.”
Susan Freiwald, a former Wharton faculty member who now teaches cyberlaw at the University of San Francisco School of Law, says the legal community has been debating for years whether it is more appropriate to view personal information as a form of property that is “owned” and therefore subject to property protections, or to look at personal information as a privacy right. Over time, the privacy-rights model, not the property model, has emerged as the prism through which courts view rights to personal information.
“The ownership model hasn’t taken off in the law,” says Freiwald. “The basic idea in law is that someone who gathers the information owns it, whether it’s you [who gathers it] or not.” For instance, courts have generally rejected arguments by litigants who have challenged the ability of credit card companies to use personal information on the grounds that the litigants “owned” information about themselves.
In Freiwald’s view, however, privacy law remains largely uncharted waters in affording protection to individuals. “Our legal system does a much better job protecting property interests rather than dignity interests, such as privacy,” she says. “You can draw that conclusion by looking at the penalties we impose on people for stealing intellectual or tangible property versus for violating privacy. The law is not protecting personal privacy very well.” When courts do find privacy violations, she says, the penalties are low.
There are, Freiwald explains, limits to what one can say or post on the Internet without running the risk of being sued successfully. One limit is making money off the fame of someone else, such as a celebrity. Another is identity theft and using credit information to make purchases. So, what legal recourse would be available to someone who felt they were defamed by something posted on the web, like the Korean woman who suffered humiliation in the dog-mess case? Not much, says Freiwald, since truth is an absolute defense against defamation.
An individual can sue someone for public disclosure of private fact. But people who are members of MySpace, Facebook or other social-networking sites are taking a big chance by posting intimate information about themselves. For one thing, the sites generally disclaim liabilities for postings. Moreover, it would be hard for people to convince a court that they were harmed by photos or information that they themselves posted or by true information about them posted by others, according to Freiwald.
“What gets in the way of people bringing claims over information on the web is that it’s hard to claim the information is private; it [would have to be] highly offensive,” she says. “The more we get used to salacious information coming out about people, the harder it is to establish that the information posted about you can be [considered] highly offensive. We want norms to be kept up with, and norms are changing.”
Even the lowly email carries enormous risks. “We have a well-entrenched notion of the assumption of risk,” according to Freiwald. “If I send you an email and you forward it, I’ve taken the risk that you were going to do that by sending you the email. If I send the email, the law considers me taking the risk.”
A Declining ‘Taste for Privacy’
Allen, who is writing a book on people’s “taste for privacy,” says the general erosion of privacy today — more often than not willingly relinquished by Internet users — troubles her. If the amount of privacy desired by society at large could be ranked on a scale of one to 10 — with 10 representing a strong taste for privacy — she would rate it a four.
“What worries me the most is that individuals are growing increasingly insensitive to their own privacy interests,” Allen notes. “I think a lot of problems we’re seeing have to do with the indiscretion of individuals when it comes to giving people personal data about themselves. I worry about the loss in the taste for privacy as well as the loss of respect for privacy…. [People are] willing to put naked pictures of themselves on the web. They do all kinds of things they regret.”
Many young people hardly seem to worry about Internet privacy questions. Wharton’s Kobrin tells a story about a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a few years ago. The subject of privacy and information sharing arose, and the young editor of a high-technology magazine said, as Kobrin recalls it, “Only people of your generation are worried about this stuff. We take it for granted.”
But with all of the information available about people on the Internet, even Allen feels employers have a responsibility to use Google to check for information that might reflect on the character of job applicants. Indeed, Allen, in the process of performing her duties on boards of directors, has googled applicants seeking positions and has “found information about people that caused me to change my views about their suitability for employment.”
Carol R. Freeman, a partner who specializes in labor and employment at the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Palo Alto, Calif., says personal information on the Internet raises a number of questions related to the employer-employee relationship. The law clearly addresses some but not others. For instance, to what extent can an employer rely on information that it discovers on the Internet in making decisions about hiring, disciplining or terminating employees? About 30 states have laws protecting lawful activity outside of work, such as smoking and consuming alcohol.
“If an employer is looking to hire someone and finds a website such as MySpace that discusses how that person gets drunk every weekend, the law is not clear whether that is [evidence the employer can use] in deciding whether to hire the applicant,” says Freeman. “The law says you can drink. However, the law does not address the judgment of someone who posts such information about himself or herself. What if the applicant indicates that he is an alcoholic? Then, the employer needs to consider whether there are any implications under state and federal disability laws.”
Or, if the operator of a day-care center has a 22-year-old employee who writes about smoking marijuana on a personal blog, should the operator be able to fire her? “The day-care operator in this situation should consult with counsel familiar with the laws in which the day-care center operates,” Freeman says. “But, generally, a day-care operator is allowed to terminate an employee for admitted drug use, even on the employee’s own time.”
Or consider the example of someone who discloses on a website that she was recently arrested. “For example, under California law, an employer cannot refuse to hire and cannot fire or discipline any employee simply because the employee is arrested, but only if the employee is convicted,” according to Freeman. “Therefore, the employer should be careful not to terminate an employee based on an arrest. But, there may be other reasons that the employer can terminate — for example, unavailability for work.”
Employers “need to think about these issues before taking action,” Freeman says. “Just because information about an employee is on a blog or a website, employers have to ask, ‘Are they doing something that’s legally protectable?’”
Rethinking Social Norms
Werbach says privacy is only one way to look at the issue of the amount of information available in cyberspace in what he calls “a world of increasingly universal connectivity.” he has written a paper, yet to be published, titled, “Sensors and Sensibilities,” in which he examines why the law will gradually evolve to accommodate a radically changed world of not just a burgeoning Internet but of camera-enabled mobile telephones, wireless RFID (radio frequency identification tags) and other sensors that can track individual human activity.
“The reality of today’s world is that lots of information is out there, and it gets out there for reasons that often have nothing to do with intentional efforts to convey information about people,” Werbach says. He argues in his paper that privacy is not the best lens through which to examine such issues. He says there is a need to rethink entirely what society deems to be norms for behavior. “Privacy is certainly important; there are things that should not be disclosed. But privacy tends to impose a formalistic, hard-edged, legal categorization.”
The incident on the Korean subway, for instance, can be viewed in two ways. One can argue that the photographed woman’s privacy was violated and her reputation damaged. Or one can say that she was in a public place, and the fact that someone took a picture of her wasn’t an invasion of privacy since she was not home behind closed doors, and that she should have realized that actions have consequences. Which is right?
“I don’t say I know the exact answer,” says Werbach. “But evaluating that case through a privacy lens — whether she was doing something in private or public — doesn’t help us that much because lots of situations that used to be private are now public. It’s not a question of privacy but of social norms. Perhaps the answer is just, ‘That’s too bad.’ If someone had snapped a photo of her robbing a bank and she said, ‘You can’t take a photo of me,’ most of us would say, ‘Too bad, you were robbing a bank.’ In a perverse way, we’re going back to the small town where everyone knows what everyone else is doing by virtue of the global information superhighway. My point is, right or wrong, this is going to happen. Google is not going to go away.”
Sorry about the length, actually there was more.. :\
We deleted our image content from Facebook. Better switching to Flickr, Picasaweb, Panoramio or 360cities to get fair conditions.
In any case, I’ve removed all my private and public photo albums from facebook. I was sceptical about privacy on facebook even before I read about the updated TOS, and now I know that no one should trust any Internet based service for their privacy no matter how trusted that service appears to be.
“OMFG I have no privacy, and my profile is set to PUBLIC!”
Get a clue…
This topic is so ridiculous. People are sheep.
The issue is not about whether people can download your images or not.
The issue is not even about whether Facebooks knows things about you or not. Most people are surprised to know how much website know about you even if you don’t give them any information, for example at http://www.inte...how-private.php
The issue is about transparency and ownership.
The only sheep in this discussion are the Facebook fanboys and accomplices that are completely cluless to when their rights or freedoms are being taken away from them.
Anjali Sen
Truth be told, you forfeited your privacy the moment you made your first blog post, or entered any valid information about yourself, on any site.
Ok, transparency wise, facebook got in trouble.
Ownership… I still don’t see the big deal here? So they could have “ownership” of my photos. I fail to see how this hurts me as a user.
You’ve really gotten this all wrong, Sarah, as if you haven’t actually read the TOS. It’s a content grab. All you have to do is compare it to other services’ TOS to see the stark contrast.
Twitter is far more progressive; Second Life is even more liberal still. There is a growing consensus that technology doesn’t grant the right to own content just because of technology’s need to stream it to users to share. Content is merely borrowed to enable it to be shown; privacy cannot be undermined.
http://secondth...-our-stuff.html
Its very obvious this comment discussion is a bunch of alarmist Consumerist fanboys.
Grow up, stop getting your panties in bunch. The sky is NOT falling.
I suggest that people identify everyone at the Consumerist, post their drunken facebook photos somewhere public… the let them squirm over Google cache.
Saying “We dont own your content. Period” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject matter. Its the PR way to say, “We dont OWN your content (but we didn’t say we still have rights, just like we were an owner, because of a LICENSE which shares the rights).
I.e. Why risk the liability of ownership when they can get people to sign over all the benefits of ownership for free?
This article, in my opinion, missed the point, something which is a-typical for TechCrunch (that’s why I felt compelled to jump in here for I am also very concerned about this issue).
Spot on, Andrew. When people talk about ownership and aren’t lawyers, what they really mean is control. And whether or not Facebook owns your content, it clearly controls it. Take a look at Facebook connect. You cannot export the Facebook data that you “own” to third party sites, even if you explicitly grant such permission to the third party site. What the hell good is privacy controls when I don’t have the ability to take my data out of Facebook and move it elsewhere? That’s like saying prisoners have privacy because they can put people on their list of allowed visitors — but at the end of the data, it is the prison that controls them and all access to them. And you don’t get to leave.
I don’t know why facebook do that. What the want to do with all our private information. I think they do that becasue they want to raise new advertisement system.
Tech Crunch makes up stories, does not fact check, and Eric Schonfeld is a pedophile
I don’t need to repeat what many have correctly said here. Needless to say, this story is laughably incorrect, and it is seriously sloppy journalism. I fear for the day when newspapers go out of business and we have people like Sarah Lacy bringing us the news.
we need to know a little bit of any writer’s background either through the articles you’re writing or anywhere else.
TC can you start posting your writer’s info? this article can seriously ruin your reputation