Dr Freddie Acosta

Dr Freddie Acosta, a senior lecturer of Business Information Technology at Strathmore University has been tracking developments on Facebook, a social networking site now with 150 million members.

Most users probably don't know that Facebook updated its terms of use in early February and deleted one important provision: users' ability to remove their content at any time. This means Facebook now retains the right to a user's content even after one has closed his account.

"We found that majority of people don't actually read through the Facebook Terms of Use webpage when they sign up for a Facebook account. They just click the ‘I Accept' button," Dr Acosta said.

"When you join Facebook, you give the network all the rights to use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute his/her information," Dr Acosta said.

The changes on terms of use went unnoticed until a consumer-oriented blog exposed them. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, replied in a blog post and said: "Our philosophy is that people own their information and control whom they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they've asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn't help people share that information."

Dr Acosta suggests that people balance between sharing information and retaining privacy on Facebook. Revealing so much information about oneself is a marketer's dream. With the advances in data analysis today, companies can analyse vast quantities of data gathered on individuals to develop detailed profiles of individual behaviour. He also added that "one needed to be careful in choosing and accepting friends in his/her network."
In line with the statement from the CEO, Facebook has changed its ‘Terms of use'. The new terms are as below.

Terms of Use Update

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, 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. If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.