Facebook: "Oops, reset, that was a mistake"

I wrote yesterday about the furor over the new Facebook Terms of Service statement, but Facebook has gone and reverted to their old terms while they figger out which end is up. I can't even access the Facebook blog, so forget an URL, but here's what the top page says:

Terms of Use Update

A couple of weeks ago, we posted an update to our Terms of Use that we hoped would clarify some parts of it for our users. Over the past couple of days, we have received a lot of questions and comments about these updated terms and what they mean for people and their information. Because of the feedback we received, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.

We'll see what happens. I think FB should charge something for their service. Why do people assume bandwidth and hardware is free anyway?

The Facebook TOS Furor - "Just Trust Us"

Facebook changed its terms of service, and there's a furor rising up about it. Despite the subsequent Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's attempt at explanation to smooth over ruffled feathers and downplay Consumerist's original post about this, if you read the TOS, it says that you grant a perpetual, fully-paid license to Facebook to all your content you share via Facebook or its partners, and even to your "likeness" and name. The wording is clear. Further, they make sure you, the poster, are responsible for the content.

My Reading of the New Facebook TOS

My reading of this language is that it unambiguously means, Facebook can use your content when and how they like, and, if you have uploaded something that is copyright someone else, you're responsible for that content (and presumably any legal action against you for doing that). Nice. Here's the section in question:

Licenses

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. 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 (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

Other TOSs

By way of comparison, here's links to PDFs of the terms of service for Twitter, Google Docs and Facebook at the time of this writing. The other guys make it pretty clear that you own your content.

• Twitter TOS
• Google TOS
• Facebook TOS

Facebook has issued waffly post-furor statements that the TOS does not really mean that Facebook owns your content and that nothing bad will come of it. However if that is true, then there should be absolutely no problem for Facebook to change the language of the TOS to something that clearly states that I own my own content. Pretty simple. In the end, I think if the TOS does not change in short order to something reasonable, then it's time to seriously considering cutting ties.

Ping.fm - "update all of your social networks at once"

Ping.fm is an interesting service that lets you update your social networks simultaneously. You set up your social networks, such as Plaxo, Blogger, Twitter, Linked-in (30+ sites are supported), and then post to them in various ways. You can post from your ping.fm dashboard page, or via email or chat client. That said, I know I would be kind of irritated to get the same exact post from a person on multiple networks.

Don't Inundate Your Readers

I would say it's important to use a powerful service like ping.fm with care, and in a very specific way. Currently, I have the special email address from ping.fm in my address book, and I am updating only business-related sites like Linked-In with a status related to my professional situation.

UPDATE - Ping.fm was not working for Plaxo updates up until 30 Dec 2008, but now it is fixed.

Ping away!