It seems Facebook is back to their evil empire ways again by updating their Terms of Service. In the latest version of the ToS Facebook has decided that it should completely own everything you do. In previous versions of the terms of service Facebook only had "worldwide license" on all of your content that you posted or uploaded to the site while your account was open; meaning if you chose to close or cancel your account that license would expire. However in the latest version of the ToS they could care less if you want to remove your content, because it is now "rightfully" theirs.
To the vast majority of users this tweak in the terms of service isn’t a big deal, but in the grand scheme of online rights and security it is getting into big brother territory. Technically Facebook could legally steal any information you post on your profile without repercussion. Have an idea for a hit TV show? You better not blog about it or Facebook and their minions could beat you to the punch by stealing your idea. Have a digital print that you want to share with the world and to promote your art? Well, don’t upload it to your gallery because Facebook could sell your print on T-shirts and coffee cups if they wanted to. Obviously they probably won’t do things of this sort, but if they wanted to they have to "right" to do so thanks to their sneaky lawyers.
Again, to most users this update will go completely unnoticed as they feel that it doesn’t affect them, but in truth anytime a corporation chops off the limits of your intellectual property you are effected. It has nothing to do with the fact that you don’t care if they reuse your content and everything to do with a corporation flexing their muscles while bullying people into giving away their rights after you already use their service. Facebook isn’t the first corporation to pillage their users with updates to the ToS but they are one of the biggest data miners who’s main revenue stream will eventually come from trending and knowing what their users do.
Just remember that in the wild west of the internet that you need to protect your data. Sites like Facebook and Google are making a killing off of mining your data and sharing it with the world… so do what you can and protect yourself and don’t just hand these online behemoths keys to your intellectual property.
UPDATE: Zuckerberg responds and say’s, "It’s complicated."
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