Facebook volte face on new user terms

18 February 2009

Confronted with massive protests from tens of thousands of users, the popular networking site Facebook has backtracked on its recently introduced user policy which allows it to retain data even after an account has been deleted or cancelled.

The site, which boasts 175 million users from around the world, had quietly updated its terms of use a couple of weeks ago, causing uproar. Facebook has now reassured its users that it will revert to the old terms, at least for the time being. On Wednesday morning, users who logged on to Facebook were greeted by a message saying that the site is reverting to its previous terms of use while it resolves the issues raised by the protesters.

Avoiding the legal jargon that may have led to confusion, the Facebook message said that it "doesn't claim rights to any of your photos or other content. We need a license in order to help you share information with your friends, but we don't claim to own your information".

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, told users in a blog post Monday that "on Facebook, people own their information and control who they share it with". Zuckerberg, who started Facebook while still in college, also acknowledged that a "lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you".

But this wasn't enough to quell user protests, so the site created a group called "Facebook bill of rights and responsibilities," designed to let users give input on Facebook's terms of use. It also apologized for what it called "the confusion around these issues".

"We never intended to claim ownership over people's content even though that's what it seems like to many people," read a post from Facebook on the bill of rights page.