Facebook Launches Governance App
In the continuing saga of Facebook’s effort to formalize its Terms of Use policy, the social network today launched an app that will allow users to vote on which version of the governing document they prefer.
The central debate here revolves largely around the issue of privacy and content ownership, and previous efforts to announce a final resolution on the topic were met with a huge public outcry. Wronged users complained that Facebook should not have the right to own or even use user-posted content at their own discretion, whether or not that was Facebook’s intention. In response, Facebook turned to users to provide feedback and inform a new version of the terms.
Where has this netted out? The revised rules state:
“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how we share your content through your privacy and application settings.”
However, the same section goes on to say:
“You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”
Will this provision satisfy users who were aghast at the previous version? Facebook took a great step by embracing user collaboration to revise the rules, but have they gone far enough? The social media world will wait with bated breath to see how the vote pans out on April 23rd. Something tells this user that the revised rules will prevail. Regardless, the revised version is sure to spark some serious debate.
Tags: collaboration, facebook, privacy, social media
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 4:54 pm and is filed under social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
