Although this is not directly related to economics, I thought it was important because I know that most everybody in our class has a facebook. Apparently, two weeks ago, facebook changed its “terms of service” for its users. It wasn’t until the beginning of last week though that people were really made aware of it thanks to the blog The Consumerist. What exactly was the change?
“Facebook basically told its users that when they posted personal information to their Facebook pages (including photos, the music they were listening to at the moment, or their favorite movies), Facebook owned that information forever and could use it in just about any manner the company wished”.
Now I know everyone is intelligent enough to not put things up on facebook that they wouldn’t want anyone or everyone to see, but still! That is just disconcerting. Forget worrying about GPS chips in your cars when facebook is pretty much claiming they own your soul. And what makes matters worse is that they did this change very under-the-radar obviously realizing the uproar it would cause. But before you get too freaked out, don’t worry, they got rid of the new “terms of service” and went back to the old ones. It seems there was a HUGE commotion made about it, and well there should’ve been.
Even though this incident won’t necessarily deter people from getting facebook accounts, or make them stop using the ones they already have, it’s still good to just realize that no matter how many privacy settings you have turned on, facebook will still be watching you…
“Facebook basically told its users that when they posted personal information to their Facebook pages (including photos, the music they were listening to at the moment, or their favorite movies), Facebook owned that information forever and could use it in just about any manner the company wished”.
Now I know everyone is intelligent enough to not put things up on facebook that they wouldn’t want anyone or everyone to see, but still! That is just disconcerting. Forget worrying about GPS chips in your cars when facebook is pretty much claiming they own your soul. And what makes matters worse is that they did this change very under-the-radar obviously realizing the uproar it would cause. But before you get too freaked out, don’t worry, they got rid of the new “terms of service” and went back to the old ones. It seems there was a HUGE commotion made about it, and well there should’ve been.
Even though this incident won’t necessarily deter people from getting facebook accounts, or make them stop using the ones they already have, it’s still good to just realize that no matter how many privacy settings you have turned on, facebook will still be watching you…
4 comments:
1984 status. or not..but u know what i mean. " nothing belongs to you anymore " type of thing.
i totally saw the bulletin on how facebook totally got freaked out by the uproar and was like we will go back to the old terms of use..haha suckasss
Yeah, I believe Facebook backed off on this and not a moment too soon. The implications for photography were pretty outrageous, just for starters.
Intellectual property law in the age of the internet is absolutely relevant to both government and economics, by the way. I don't think justice will be served with anything less than a Constitutional amendment regarding privacy. In the meantime, if you actually produce something of potential value that you want people to be able to share, you ought to look into Creative Commons licensing.
I saw a facebook group about this a few days ago, that had a list of things that Facebook can do that you wont know about, and I think it must have been in response to them changing the terms, but I think it was made directly after because it made it sound like all the things they could know do (like keeping your photos)were reality, and now it seems Facebook is changing its mind?? I think it´s all a little scary, but Facebook is just so dang convenient... But the internet is so much harder to control I think... but I dont see any amendments on privacy coming along anytime soon..
Yeah, I definitely got freaked out when I saw this. Not on a personal level, but it makes me worry when something like Facebook tries to claim information. It is indeed very creepy. I read that they said they didn't write the Terms of Use to be used in that way, and that they had other intentions but worded it poorly. I don't know if it's true and people just panicked for no reason, or if it was a pathetic attempt at covering a scandal up after they got caught. Either way, I'm glad people caught it so the issue can be fixed.
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