Monday 16 February 2009

Facebook keeps your data - forever!!


A worrying change to the terms of service from global social networking behemoth, Facebook.

It's bad enough the media darling of online chatter wanted to keep your personal data archived indefinitely in their former TOS. Now it emerges that even if you deactivate your account, their new agreement with users gives the company perpetual rights to sell, market and re-distribute anything you've posted. Frankly, that's terrifying and users should think very carefully about what they upload to the site.

The only light at the end of this dark tunnel is that the company does permit a small get-out clause when it notes that these rights are 'subject only to your privacy settings.' In other words, if you don't let anyone see your content, by restricting access, then they might leave you alone. But given how people use Facebook it seems unlikely anyone will notice.

Read more here.

6 comments:

Sunny said...

Now, that's scary! Does it mean that a photo of a drunk me at a recent party may hit tabloids in a few years? Cool!

Sacha van Straten said...

A few years? I sold it to the National Enquirer yesterday!!

Mark S. Steed said...

The changes in T&C conditions have not gone down well - they are doing a U-turn:

See

http://blog.facebook.com/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/facebook/4687434/Facebook-does-U-turn-after-personal-data-row-Mark-Zuckerberg-announces.html

Sunny said...

Sacha van Straten, how dare you! :))) Well, at least I'm famous now.

Sacha van Straten said...

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the update. I think I was writing my latest post as you were responding!

That's the power of the web!

Regards,

Sacha

Sacha van Straten said...

Sunny - they're celebrating you in trailer parks across the nation.

What more could a girl want??