New Facebook Fine Print: We Own Your Content, Period

The blogosphere has been abuzz this week over revised terms of use for the popular Facebook social networking site, after the Consumerist blog pointed out hitherto little-noticed changes announced earlier this month.

As before, Facebook users give the website a license to use content "on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof." But an automatic expiration provision that formerly applied if content was removed from the website is now eliminated, reports the Chicago Tribune.

"They're saying, 'Once data gets in our database, we can do whatever we want with it,' " says associate professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University School of Law. He is director of Santa Clara's High Tech Law Institute.

Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg tells the newspaper that users can trust Facebook not to use information in a manner they would find objectionable.

Additional and related coverage:

ABA Journal: "Copyright in the Age of YouTube"

Consumerist: "Facebook's New Terms Of Service: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever"

MediaFile (Reuters): "Facebook and the ownership society"