Writing for The Financial Express on Facebook. What’s Your View?
The Financial Times has requested me to write a balanced story on the whole Facebook privacy issue. What’s the issue? Facebook claims that whatever your write is theirs.
You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute any User Content you post.
I’d like to get your view on what you think of this. Are you feeling insecure with what Facebook can do with your content? Is it right for Facebook to own what is rightfully yours? Or are we unnecessarily crying foul considering that most of the sites anyways has the same clause from the beginning? Maybe its just media hype to fill the space and air time?
Whatever your views are, however strong and critical they may be, do send them to me. If you are OK with it, I may use your opinion in the article. Please make sure to type in your full name and your designation. On the contrary if you don’t want to get printed, please explicitly state that as well. I respect your right to privacy!
You can either leave your opinion as a comment to this post or mail it to me at Kiruba @ Kiruba.com. Thanks in advance.
Thanks Chintan for the links. Yes, I have read the comments on TC and Scobleizer before. What I’d like is to get feedback from Indians. The majority of what I can take of this is that, us Indians really don’t bother much. But would like to get a better dipstick on this.
Kiruba, I agree with you. People in India don’t care so much about the TOS. Thanks to the high prevalent piracy, corruption and so on … we think, TOS are not for us and we can always get away from reading or following them. But what we don’t understand sometimes is that this can be used against us … literally .. anyways, looking forward to see people’s reactions on your post …
The only worry I have is that you will probably get reactions only from a certain category of people …
What if Facebook Holds Right to your data..?(though it is just a lil improper communication)
It is not that Facebook is going to take all your data and sell it to some Mafia Gang and make Money…
and it is also not that facebook is going to go out of business tommorrow and they want to make money with your information…
If you have a prespective of facebook’s vision “Helping people to communicate better),they are doing that job pretty gud…
and i think they are busy handling millions of users that gets added every month to their userbase…
and that is a big enuf job by itself and thinking that “Facebook will leave all that works and come and hack your picture gallery of you having a lunch at a lavious hotel with your girl friend and threaten you for money fo it”…
I mean…come on….Facebook is Much Bigger and they have Much bigger things to Focus…
I ‘ve No clue why People are such a control freaks..
P.S:for those people who say facebook had done a wrong thing,it is the facebook server which still holds your pictures and status updates and your those nice comments…IT is not stored in your computer and gets displayed everytime you go online…
Well.. I’m not a writer, and I hardly share something that is entirely ‘original’. It’s mostly shared links, content from other sites, etc. Who pays for content online anyways. If facebook wants to own my “I’m feeling crappy today” status message and make money off it, hey, be my guest
We should appreciate Facebook for accepting what they have been doing or are planning to do. Facebook respects our privacy and has hence warned us. It is for us to decide if we can allow them to use our details OR withdraw our membership.
I agree with you and Chintan that we dont really read TOS and simply hit the Agree button to get over with the registeration. On close scrutinity there will be many more sites with similar terms, Facebook got into media spotlight.
Though it may not make too much difference, its ethically wrong. One cannot own the content just because users are using the platform, facebook can monertize through advertising, which they are doing.
Its like if you are using a mail service like gmail or hotmail then all your mails are property of the service provider. Scary isn’t it!
Hopefully this controversy will deter similar policies
Kiruba!
Just an info! Hope your are aware of the same from labnol:
Facebook to Users: We Are Sorry, Please Don’t Delete Your Account
It looks like lot of Facebook users have deleted (or are in the process of deleting) their Facebook profiles due to the recent uproar over Facebook’s new privacy policies.
Facebook has since then reverted to the old terms of service but that may not have prevented exodus so they now also show a “we are sorry” message to anyone who tries to erase his or her Facebook account. The message when you delete your account reads:
Are you deleting because you are concerned about Facebook’s Terms of Service? This was a mistake that we have now corrected. You own the information you put on Facebook and you control what happens to it. We are sorry for the confusion.
You can see this page live here but please don’t click the submit button else it will permanently delete your Facebook account and there’s no way to reactivate a closed account. Thanks Jeremiah.
1) if you email to your friend from yahoo to gmail, delete your yahoo account, the original email still is in your friends account, and in gmail servers.
2) it is started from the paranoid american society, which values privacy much more than us indians. Whenever i come to india, i get routine questions like from relatives like “how much do u make?, how much is in ur savings account?” – which is a BIG no-no here.
So media fanned it for what its worth, and now you(FT) want to propagate it further… its yesterday’s news… personally i’d drop it.
Some one took the pain to read the ‘Terms & conditions’ Not only Facebook…i am sure there are more serious Terms concealed in most agreements which most of us hardly read…We choose to consiously ignore them.
Hi Kiruba:
This is a great topic to write about. Facebook is treading unchartered territory and it is ok to make mistakes. However, the main problem is they dont seem to be learning from it. They engage the community after the fact, but not before the fact. Heck, they are running a social network, so there cant be any shortage of opinions. Engage the community before the fact, look at what people have to say and then figure out what makes sense for you. You may not satisfy everyone, but atleast you have given everyone a chance to be a part of the process.
I was considering deleting my Facebook account, but then this sorry message started flashing and now I decided against it!
If I want to delete something, I should have the right to do it completely, I wouldn’t want facebook to own a copy of it or whatever..
It’s something within our rights and we can’t be stripped of them, and if they give a GO to the new TOS, they’ll be losing a lot of people including me!
Initially, even Google had this funny TOC/TOS for its browser. They had a clause which stated whatever you download/upload using their browser is theirs. That is even more hilarious than Facebook. In case of Facebook, atleast whatever you put in Facebook’s account belongs (past) to them. In case of Chrome, Google initially claimed everything you write using Chrome belongs to them.
After the issue came to public, Google changed the TOS/TOC for Chrome.
Respected Sir,
Please share your opinion on slumdog millionaire. Being India’s most famous blogger you have not yet expressed an opinion on slumdog millionaire. Kindly requesting you to oblige the desire of this sincere fan and many others like me who are waiting to read your pearls of wisdom and weighty opinion on the topic
Hey guys,
how many of us read the T and C before agreeing to install a software or open a mail/blog/file sharing account?
Thats how much we care for such stuff.
However, I hope people realize that posting sensitive information or confidential stuff on the internet is not secure anyways. Hackers have been around since software has been invented. Facebook has come upfront to say that the content is not secure. The others have not.
It is obviously incorrect for any company which hosts user generated content to claim full rights over the content just because it is hosted with them. You may know that Yahoo had drafted similar agreement for geocities but had to withdraw after there was lot of noise about it.
Let’s give it to facebook – they may not have any evil intent to steal my family photographs or resell the stuff I post to some third parties. They are probably planning to use something for their promos or such not-so-evil reasons. It is unlikely they are just plain thieves.
However, protesting against such policies is necessary, lest it sets a trend and opens a door to people who actually want to misuse your data. It is not very hard for someone to begin a community based website with a revenue model that relies on stolen content, if facebook was allowed to get away.
Kiruba,
Long time reader and first time commenter
Facebook is not wrong in claiming that it owns your content. The terms of service are similar to those when when you join a company – you sign an agreement that says anything that you create/invent/develop is propietary to the company. You join facebook, anything that you write or post would by default be owned by facebook. Heck, its their servers.
If one is worried is that whatever they write is owned by facebook, they are free to create their websites and own what they write by adding the copyright disclaimer. Like one commenter, Vamsi put it, if facebook wants to own some silly status messages, and frivolous conversations please go for it and make something useful out of it.
On the other hand, has facebook stumbled upon some user content that it can use to create a potential revenue generating product? Is that the reason, they came up with the new TOS to preclude the resulting legalities that it could be faced with? Even then, its not wrong. They provide the services – people have choices to use them or not. just be careful with what you post.
Been used as informal means of social networking these issue where taken lightly…if it where to consider the privacy of the facebook members, you need to follow the rules.If you dont like it..choose another social networking sites there are many…why choose facebook?
Srinivasan
Business Analyst
Though I’m least bothered about what Facebook does with my content, I gotta say “choose some other social networ, why facebook” is not an answer. By their very nature, social networks are valuable because of their existing users. “Just choose another” won’t work here, as it’s not a standalone product.
Which is why none of the Twitter competitors really took off. The network effect is a very powerful one. Mass exodus of users won’t start until the social network does something really stupid, or is shutting down.
I think there’s too much fuss over nothing being made here and this facebook privacy thing is blown WAY outta proportion.
Two things I wanna say:
1. How many people know EXACTLY how much privacy they’re entitled to?
Put in other words…when was the last time anyone ever read a “Terms&Conditions” page before clicking on the Yes-I-agree button to continue registration or software installation.
2. What about Email, your blog accounts, online financial accounts (like paypal), travel agencies (I know for a FACT that airline reservation CRS’s store personal data forever!), and practically every single darn thing under the sun!?
Hi Kiruba, We need forums such as this to start paying attention to the fine print. However, when you are using someone’s service, as in this instance, placing your data on the Facebook site, then obviously, you have to go by their rules. It is equally good that they reverted their policy to keep themselves user friendly. It shows more than anything else that they are willing to change. That is welcome. In the context of fine print, have you seen http://www.googlebooksettlement.com?
I don’t we should have any problems with the terms of facebook as I think only foolish, mentally stuntedly gullible people post such sensitive, private information, which they wouldn’t want anybody to lay their hands on. Now facebook has reverted his stake, but what if some third person somehow (I know one allows only friends to view the profile..but what if friends turn foe) lay their hands on that stuff, then what will you do!!!
I should say that web is becoming to old for the old techies who used the Usenet. Most of the content in the web has no privacy and this has been there all along, whether it be social networking or blogs. We know that already, but its just that most dot accept that – anonymity is what everyone call it as a screen between you and the commercialization.
But is this privacy really a matter of concern, most people on net are able to proclaim themselves as they are and some even are proud to say that they are gay on a social networking site. So apart from my photos being misused, i dont think that privacy is an issue here.
Rather, it is that only the people who are against the commercialization of their personal stuff that is of concern. In terms of Seth Godin it is just, ‘We are against advertisements, and u got to get my permission to sell to me’ stuff. and nothing more.
My views may be a little radical, but again we all know that this is going to happen when we joined the site and we did not even read the TOC or TOS when we joined the site.
So its just a small roadblock, had they added another clause stating that they will bot misuse our personal stuff along with the new clause, i suppose there will not so much commotion as it is now.
Data Collection and data mining are different from data ownership, I think each creative individuals first right is to own the data he/she creates, in these terms, Facebook is wrong if it wants to capitalize on its popularity, its usage of ur info is acceptable to a point, but owing what a person creates is so not done!
Read your article on The Finanacial Express (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/user-revolt-pays-off/428028)…Frankly i had expected more from you. The article was structured on our comments, it was more of a collage of comments and not an opinion from Kiruba (Which is what i expected).
Syndicate this site
Kiruba,
Did you see these and the comments there:
http://friendfeed.com/e/4120be9d-9d5e-65fb-351b-c6dd86bdd666/User-data-ownership-on-Facebook-and-why-it-doesn/
http://scobleizer.com/2009/02/17/ownership_facebook/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/zuckerberg-on-who-owns-user-data-on-facebook-its-complicated/
My opinion -
I am more than glad they reverted back to the old policy.
Thanks Chintan for the links. Yes, I have read the comments on TC and Scobleizer before. What I’d like is to get feedback from Indians. The majority of what I can take of this is that, us Indians really don’t bother much. But would like to get a better dipstick on this.
Kiruba, I agree with you. People in India don’t care so much about the TOS. Thanks to the high prevalent piracy, corruption and so on … we think, TOS are not for us and we can always get away from reading or following them. But what we don’t understand sometimes is that this can be used against us … literally .. anyways, looking forward to see people’s reactions on your post …
The only worry I have is that you will probably get reactions only from a certain category of people …
Kiruba,
I Just want to know one thing?..
What if Facebook Holds Right to your data..?(though it is just a lil improper communication)
It is not that Facebook is going to take all your data and sell it to some Mafia Gang and make Money…
and it is also not that facebook is going to go out of business tommorrow and they want to make money with your information…
If you have a prespective of facebook’s vision “Helping people to communicate better),they are doing that job pretty gud…
and i think they are busy handling millions of users that gets added every month to their userbase…
and that is a big enuf job by itself and thinking that “Facebook will leave all that works and come and hack your picture gallery of you having a lunch at a lavious hotel with your girl friend and threaten you for money fo it”…
I mean…come on….Facebook is Much Bigger and they have Much bigger things to Focus…
I ‘ve No clue why People are such a control freaks..
P.S:for those people who say facebook had done a wrong thing,it is the facebook server which still holds your pictures and status updates and your those nice comments…IT is not stored in your computer and gets displayed everytime you go online…
I think that pretty much speaks all..
Well.. I’m not a writer, and I hardly share something that is entirely ‘original’. It’s mostly shared links, content from other sites, etc. Who pays for content online anyways. If facebook wants to own my “I’m feeling crappy today” status message and make money off it, hey, be my guest
We should appreciate Facebook for accepting what they have been doing or are planning to do. Facebook respects our privacy and has hence warned us. It is for us to decide if we can allow them to use our details OR withdraw our membership.
Hey Kiruba,
I agree with you and Chintan that we dont really read TOS and simply hit the Agree button to get over with the registeration. On close scrutinity there will be many more sites with similar terms, Facebook got into media spotlight.
Though it may not make too much difference, its ethically wrong. One cannot own the content just because users are using the platform, facebook can monertize through advertising, which they are doing.
Its like if you are using a mail service like gmail or hotmail then all your mails are property of the service provider. Scary isn’t it!
Hopefully this controversy will deter similar policies
Kiruba!
Just an info! Hope your are aware of the same from labnol:
Facebook to Users: We Are Sorry, Please Don’t Delete Your Account
It looks like lot of Facebook users have deleted (or are in the process of deleting) their Facebook profiles due to the recent uproar over Facebook’s new privacy policies.
Facebook has since then reverted to the old terms of service but that may not have prevented exodus so they now also show a “we are sorry” message to anyone who tries to erase his or her Facebook account. The message when you delete your account reads:
Are you deleting because you are concerned about Facebook’s Terms of Service? This was a mistake that we have now corrected. You own the information you put on Facebook and you control what happens to it. We are sorry for the confusion.
You can see this page live here but please don’t click the submit button else it will permanently delete your Facebook account and there’s no way to reactivate a closed account. Thanks Jeremiah.
Venky, that’s great info. Thanks.
Hi Nivas, Vamsee and Anitha, many thanks for your input. Appreciate it.
Regards,
Kiruba
its way overblown -
1) if you email to your friend from yahoo to gmail, delete your yahoo account, the original email still is in your friends account, and in gmail servers.
2) it is started from the paranoid american society, which values privacy much more than us indians. Whenever i come to india, i get routine questions like from relatives like “how much do u make?, how much is in ur savings account?” – which is a BIG no-no here.
So media fanned it for what its worth, and now you(FT) want to propagate it further… its yesterday’s news… personally i’d drop it.
Lets think about it this way: Is there any information, we can share with 100 people. But, won’t share it with 6.7Bn people[*]
The answer to the above question should clarify: What we should expect from privacy policies on social networks and How important this whole issue is.
As per me, Privacy is not a big value-add on social networks and I don’t care so much about it.
Thanks!
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
[*]Other than Direct contact information Email and Mobile Nr. Nothing else strikes me.
Some one took the pain to read the ‘Terms & conditions’ Not only Facebook…i am sure there are more serious Terms concealed in most agreements which most of us hardly read…We choose to consiously ignore them.
Hi Kiruba:
This is a great topic to write about. Facebook is treading unchartered territory and it is ok to make mistakes. However, the main problem is they dont seem to be learning from it. They engage the community after the fact, but not before the fact. Heck, they are running a social network, so there cant be any shortage of opinions. Engage the community before the fact, look at what people have to say and then figure out what makes sense for you. You may not satisfy everyone, but atleast you have given everyone a chance to be a part of the process.
I was considering deleting my Facebook account, but then this sorry message started flashing and now I decided against it!
If I want to delete something, I should have the right to do it completely, I wouldn’t want facebook to own a copy of it or whatever..
It’s something within our rights and we can’t be stripped of them, and if they give a GO to the new TOS, they’ll be losing a lot of people including me!
Initially, even Google had this funny TOC/TOS for its browser. They had a clause which stated whatever you download/upload using their browser is theirs. That is even more hilarious than Facebook. In case of Facebook, atleast whatever you put in Facebook’s account belongs (past) to them. In case of Chrome, Google initially claimed everything you write using Chrome belongs to them.
After the issue came to public, Google changed the TOS/TOC for Chrome.
Greed!
No difference .. Pimps
No respect for your intellect
People who think Money first
think you are an object like door-mat.
The word ‘shun’ mean anything now ?
Respected Sir,
Please share your opinion on slumdog millionaire. Being India’s most famous blogger you have not yet expressed an opinion on slumdog millionaire. Kindly requesting you to oblige the desire of this sincere fan and many others like me who are waiting to read your pearls of wisdom and weighty opinion on the topic
Hey guys,
how many of us read the T and C before agreeing to install a software or open a mail/blog/file sharing account?
Thats how much we care for such stuff.
However, I hope people realize that posting sensitive information or confidential stuff on the internet is not secure anyways. Hackers have been around since software has been invented. Facebook has come upfront to say that the content is not secure. The others have not.
It is obviously incorrect for any company which hosts user generated content to claim full rights over the content just because it is hosted with them. You may know that Yahoo had drafted similar agreement for geocities but had to withdraw after there was lot of noise about it.
Let’s give it to facebook – they may not have any evil intent to steal my family photographs or resell the stuff I post to some third parties. They are probably planning to use something for their promos or such not-so-evil reasons. It is unlikely they are just plain thieves.
However, protesting against such policies is necessary, lest it sets a trend and opens a door to people who actually want to misuse your data. It is not very hard for someone to begin a community based website with a revenue model that relies on stolen content, if facebook was allowed to get away.
Kiruba,
Long time reader and first time commenter
Facebook is not wrong in claiming that it owns your content. The terms of service are similar to those when when you join a company – you sign an agreement that says anything that you create/invent/develop is propietary to the company. You join facebook, anything that you write or post would by default be owned by facebook. Heck, its their servers.
If one is worried is that whatever they write is owned by facebook, they are free to create their websites and own what they write by adding the copyright disclaimer. Like one commenter, Vamsi put it, if facebook wants to own some silly status messages, and frivolous conversations please go for it and make something useful out of it.
On the other hand, has facebook stumbled upon some user content that it can use to create a potential revenue generating product? Is that the reason, they came up with the new TOS to preclude the resulting legalities that it could be faced with? Even then, its not wrong. They provide the services – people have choices to use them or not. just be careful with what you post.
Been used as informal means of social networking these issue where taken lightly…if it where to consider the privacy of the facebook members, you need to follow the rules.If you dont like it..choose another social networking sites there are many…why choose facebook?
Srinivasan
Business Analyst
Though I’m least bothered about what Facebook does with my content, I gotta say “choose some other social networ, why facebook” is not an answer. By their very nature, social networks are valuable because of their existing users. “Just choose another” won’t work here, as it’s not a standalone product.
Which is why none of the Twitter competitors really took off. The network effect is a very powerful one. Mass exodus of users won’t start until the social network does something really stupid, or is shutting down.
I think there’s too much fuss over nothing being made here and this facebook privacy thing is blown WAY outta proportion.
Two things I wanna say:
1. How many people know EXACTLY how much privacy they’re entitled to?
Put in other words…when was the last time anyone ever read a “Terms&Conditions” page before clicking on the Yes-I-agree button to continue registration or software installation.
2. What about Email, your blog accounts, online financial accounts (like paypal), travel agencies (I know for a FACT that airline reservation CRS’s store personal data forever!), and practically every single darn thing under the sun!?
Your first line states Financial Times – I think this should be Financial Express ?
Hi Kiruba, We need forums such as this to start paying attention to the fine print. However, when you are using someone’s service, as in this instance, placing your data on the Facebook site, then obviously, you have to go by their rules. It is equally good that they reverted their policy to keep themselves user friendly. It shows more than anything else that they are willing to change. That is welcome. In the context of fine print, have you seen http://www.googlebooksettlement.com?
Kribs,
Read your article in FE yesterday. Smart work on using ur blog posts as expert comments.
I don’t we should have any problems with the terms of facebook as I think only foolish, mentally stuntedly gullible people post such sensitive, private information, which they wouldn’t want anybody to lay their hands on. Now facebook has reverted his stake, but what if some third person somehow (I know one allows only friends to view the profile..but what if friends turn foe) lay their hands on that stuff, then what will you do!!!
-Rahul Anand
Hi Kiruba,
I should say that web is becoming to old for the old techies who used the Usenet. Most of the content in the web has no privacy and this has been there all along, whether it be social networking or blogs. We know that already, but its just that most dot accept that – anonymity is what everyone call it as a screen between you and the commercialization.
But is this privacy really a matter of concern, most people on net are able to proclaim themselves as they are and some even are proud to say that they are gay on a social networking site. So apart from my photos being misused, i dont think that privacy is an issue here.
Rather, it is that only the people who are against the commercialization of their personal stuff that is of concern. In terms of Seth Godin it is just, ‘We are against advertisements, and u got to get my permission to sell to me’ stuff. and nothing more.
My views may be a little radical, but again we all know that this is going to happen when we joined the site and we did not even read the TOC or TOS when we joined the site.
So its just a small roadblock, had they added another clause stating that they will bot misuse our personal stuff along with the new clause, i suppose there will not so much commotion as it is now.
Kay
Data Collection and data mining are different from data ownership, I think each creative individuals first right is to own the data he/she creates, in these terms, Facebook is wrong if it wants to capitalize on its popularity, its usage of ur info is acceptable to a point, but owing what a person creates is so not done!
extrabed.in is broken. pelase remove from your right hand side column
Hi Kiruba,
Read your article on The Finanacial Express (http://www.financialexpress.com/news/user-revolt-pays-off/428028)…Frankly i had expected more from you. The article was structured on our comments, it was more of a collage of comments and not an opinion from Kiruba (Which is what i expected).
PS: U got my name wrong too