Facebook Owns You and then Gives You Back

This has little to do with BlackBerry, but it has been in the news enough to post about it.  As many of you are Facebook users and thousands of people are signing up everyday, Facebook tried to change the game on us.  Two weeks ago Facebook changed their sign up agreement policy.  Before it stated that Facebook could use your information as long as it was on your page.  Recently though, they took that part out which meant that they intended to reserve the right to use any information that you ever put up, even if you deleted it.  This means that any content you put on Facebook is free for them to use.

Well this change in privacy policy got people angry when the consumerist.com posted about it.  Here is what they changed policy stated:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

Here is what Facebook decided to delete:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

Wow, what a mistake they made trying to swoop on its users.  That is totally a MySpace move, not Facebook.  Boo.

Anyhow, with all the recent bad press they have been getting, Facebook decided to issue a retractment statement and try and make up for their wrong doing.

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.

I think they knew that in court, there would be a way out of it.  Just think of how messy this could have gotten.  Already trademarked and copywrited material on Facebook, theirs to keep just because it was posted?  I don’t think so.

Sound off in the comments.