Facebook was in the news a few weeks ago when it changed its Terms of Use so that it could own and use all of the information you posted, even after you deleted your account. Within days, public outcry was so severe that Mark Zuckerberg reverted to the old Terms of Use.
I check out facebook daily and I practice privacy law, so this story peaked my interested. I decided to read the Terms of Use to see what they were all about. Surprisingly, they’re easy to read. Privacy law has twin goals: shield the company from liability and make privacy protections available and understandable to the everyday people it protects. Facebook’s Term of Use do both.
If you take anything away from this post, take this: login to facebook and change your privacy settings — do not rely on the default settings. We can talk about workplace surveillance or protecting your online identity another time. I encourage you to change the privacy settings not because I’m passing judgment on whether they’re good or bad. Rather, I encourage you to use the settings to ensure that facebook is customized to your particular lifestyle and interests. One size fits all is never a workable approach, and in this case, the terms are stacked in facebook’s favor.
Once you’ve changed your privacy settings to control who can see your personal content, the overarching question becomes: who owns the content? That’s where the Terms of Use come in. In the battle for ownership between you and facebook, here’s what the Terms of Use say:
- Facebook owns all of the site content (pictures, words, videos, information, music, etc).
- You get a limited license to access and use the site. You can print or download the portions you have access to.
- You can’t violate copyright or trademark laws and you can’t use facebook to datamine.
- Facebook gets to use anything you post forever and can copy it, display it, or use excerpts of it.
- You can trump facebook’s irrevocable license to use your posts by taking the content down.
- Facebook, however, can retain an archived copy of your posts.
- You retain ownership over your intellectual property.
There are various other components regarding applications and mobile service; I’ve tried to highlight the most important parts. Should you and facebo
ok get into a dispute regarding your content or your privacy rights, your matter will be decided in arbitration and governed by Delaware law, regardless of where you live. That means no day in court and no jury.
So what does this all mean? Facebook crafted its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to comply with the law and to protect itself. Generally speaking, the default privacy settings expose all of your information to everyone, and facebook owns everything on its site. In plain terms, facebook wins unless you do something about it. You can change this one-sided infrastructure by limiting who can see what, and by taking things down that may be valuable to you (like your business logo/trademark, or your copyrightable videos or ideas).
If facebook were a country, based on population, it would be the sixth largest in the world. As between you and facebook, facebook generally has the upper hand but you can trump it by customizing your settings, protecting the content you post, and being aware of the rules of the game.
