Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service

Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service

This really highlights a much bigger problem for everyone who wants to do any kind of social networking on the internet. Well, okay this is even a broader problem with computer software in general, but let's stick to Facebook for the moment.

Terms of Service such as the one you "sign" with Facebook are carefully reviewed by users....just about never. Generally they are accepted with a muttered "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just let me get to the page I want," and never even read. I'm just as guilty of it as you are. Let's face it, these are legal agreements, so any smart and careful person would have them reviewed by a lawyer. However, even if you did take the time and expense and your lawyer pointed out the potential problems, that doesn't mean you could convince Facebook to amend their agreement.

Maybe you think you are pretty clever and know what/what not to post. Who do you suppose has the vision and foresight to know the possible future consequences of sharing something on Facebook? Maybe a guy named Nostradamus, but he's long dead. As it happens, people have already had their profiles cost them potential jobs in ways that they could not foresee. Teenagers have to fear that their profiles might be reviewed by college boards. How significantly could that affect their future? What other more nefarious purposes could other people come up with in the future?

Ok, so what are we supposed to do about it?

Well, option A is to learn how to carefully apply Facebook's security options to the people on your friends list. You may not be aware that you can organize your friends into groups and carefully assign rights to those groups with regard to who can see what bits of your profile. I would highly recommend every Facebook user learn how these features work and carefully apply them to their profiles. Of course, you are still trusting that the good ol' guys at Facebook will never use your content for something you didn't intend, and never have a security feature fail to work the way it is supposed to. What if Facebook is later purchased by another company? Will there still be good guys in charge who would never abuse their rights to your content? What if the new owners decide to broaden their terms of service even more? How much money could the owners of Facebook make simply by selling name/address/phone/email data to marketers? Will you someday regret posting that personal video online?

What is option B? Maybe it's to only post the most unrevealing, superficial (translation: boring) information about yourself on your profile. Of course, in that case why bother having a profile at all?

Is there an option C? Should you get hyper-paranoid and stop communicating anything about yourself with anyone you haven't personally known and trusted for dozens of years? Fear Big Brother, have internet cut off and never leave the house? Wear tin foil hats to keep aliens from stealing our thoughts?

What other possibilities exist? Should it be made illegal for a company to expand their rights to your intellectual property (and yes, that is exactly what your Facebook profile is, folks!) without prior written consent from you the owner? But then, could excessive legislation make it too onerous and costly for services like Facebook to exist?

Obviously there's no easy answer here. Maybe you ultimately have to assume there is no such thing as real privacy, either on the internet or anywhere else, and live your life accordingly.