Facebook: Continuing the Conversation

Last week the New York Times covered voluminous, negative consumer responses to Facebook's change in Terms of Service (TOS). Reaction came in response to a blog piece, not directly after the TOS changes were made. The blog's author, Chris Walters, described the changes as effectively allowing Facebook to use posted content forever. The Times also reported Facebook's several responses. Mark Zuckerberg succinctly described the conundrum on the Facebook Blog page (February 16, 2009):

Still, the interesting thing about this change in our terms is that it highlights the importance of these issues and their complexity. People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them—like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on—to other services and grant those services access to those people's information. These two positions are at odds with each other. There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with.

As Brad Stone and Brian Stelter wrote (February 18, 2009),

Analysts say that much of the confusion and rancor this week stemmed from the fact that sites like Facebook have created a new sphere of shared information for which there are no established privacy rules. E-mail between two people is private, for example, and a post on a message board is clearly public. But much communication among Facebook members, which is exposed only to their friends, sometimes on a so-called wall, lies in a middle ground one might call "semipublic."

According to their article, Facebook reverted to the previous TOS, but plans to invite users to help create new terms which accurately reflect what happens to information after consumers terminate service with the company.

What does this all mean to Facebook users? As with any Internet activity: once posted, forever cached somewhere.