Facebook, and their ToS

[pecunium]

A year ago I wrote about the Facebook ToS.

I did, eventually, cave in and set up an account. It has, for what it's good for, been worth it. What I don't use it for is photos, nor original content (it has a "notes" area, which is sort of like a blog, and I've linked comments at HuffPo, and other such to my account, but nothing else which wasn't specific to a Facebook app).

People told me I was worrying too much. That Facebook wasn't going to actually take people's photos a make money off of them.

Right.

Facebook uses user photos for singles ads.

They say it's an opt-out program (already they lose points), but the plain fact of the matter is you can opt out, and they are free to ignore it. From other things I've read, if you authorise an RSS feed to link to your blog/flickr/etc., Facebook (to save time) pulls a copy of the articles/post/photos, to their servers.

Which would mean they own it.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Facebook...smelled funny...and everything I hear about it stiffens my resolve never to have an account of any kind whatsoever, even though there are certainly people out there with whom I'd be interested in reconnecting. (Very rarely I post photos. Which reminds me...)

Facebook may as well be the recruiting arm for those kids who grew the asses' ears in Pinocchio.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

ugh.

And apparently I have to figure out how to un-adblock something so that I can change my settings to 'no one'. I have no clue how to un-adblock things...

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

figured it out.

thanks for linking this.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I'd already opted out of every damn thing they want to try to use, I never post anything like photos or essays, plus I take down my posts after a couple of days. I don't trust FB further than I can throw them.

[savorie.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

[beable]

1) Facebook privacy sucks. Everytime they add a new setting (e.g. allowing one to finetune a privacy for who can see your stuff) or something else, they seem to default you to the most permissive setting possible.

2) Didja see the news about the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's concerns with Facebook: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/16/facebook-privacy-commissioner.html

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, those sons of ... guns. DAMN.

[janetl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! I took a look at my settings, and found that "appearance in Facebook ads" was already set to "no one". I went through and shut most things down about 5 months ago, but have no recollection of that one. If it's a new control, then FB set it like that by default on my account.
I did see a survey from FB on the site today, and when I clicked it, I got questions about how much I valued locking down who can see my account. You might want to take a look for the survey yourself, to swell the voice of people calling for more privacy.

[zhaneel69.livejournal.com]

The article updated, it was a 3rd party ad network going against Facebook's TOS, and has been shut down. So it shouldn't have happened in the first place, per Facebook

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I was able to change my FB settings. Hopefully, that will make a difference.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"Which would mean they own it."

Um, no. It would mean they think have a contractual claim to ownership.

IANAL, as you know, but I suspect there's very little case law in these matters.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

And this would be why my FB icon is a portrait of my cat.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

And one of the reasons that I use my LJ icon on FB as well. (The other being so that when I friend someone from LJ, they stand a chance of recognizing who it is without having to ask.)