Beware Facebook's New Terms of Service
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Lawrence Sheperd
Well-known
Randy, ironically the entire issue of Facebook "clarifying" their terms of service stems from the settlement on August 26, 2013 of a class action lawsuit brought by Facebook users against Facebook for using their "likes" and likenesses (i.e. portraits) in advertising within Facebook without their knowledge, approval or compensation.
"A US judge approved a deal in which Facebook will pay $20 million for using members “likes” as endorsements for ads.
The pot of money is to be divvied up among attorneys, Internet privacy rights groups, and Facebook users who filed claims in the class-action lawsuit.
US District Judge Richard Seeborg on Monday reasoned that the sum, a small fraction of the billions being sought in the case, was fair given the challenges of proving Facebook members were financially harmed or that signaling “likes” for products didn’t imply some form of consent.
Facebook’s Sponsored Stories program used members’ names or likenesses to endorse ads without getting their permission, according to the legal filing. [emphasis mine]"
The pot of money is to be divvied up among attorneys, Internet privacy rights groups, and Facebook users who filed claims in the class-action lawsuit.
US District Judge Richard Seeborg on Monday reasoned that the sum, a small fraction of the billions being sought in the case, was fair given the challenges of proving Facebook members were financially harmed or that signaling “likes” for products didn’t imply some form of consent.
Facebook’s Sponsored Stories program used members’ names or likenesses to endorse ads without getting their permission, according to the legal filing. [emphasis mine]"
See entire story here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/...-settlement-in-facebook-class-action-lawsuit/
and many other stories on the web.
zauhar
Veteran
Larry, that puts it in better perspective. It seems that FB no longer engages in this practice, but after paying up they have sort of covered their tracks in typically slimy corporate fashion. "OK, we won't do this anymore, but we COULD if we wanted to, and if we did there wouldn't be anything wrong with that."
Sort of bolsters my point though - can't other people see if I "like" someone's post on Facebook? So if you choose to "like" a product, why can't FB show that you did that? This was a very limited attempt to squeeze some commercial value out of Facebook users, and even so it did not get very far. The expansive language in their TOS is just bluster to try to cover any future trouble they may get into.
Randy
Ranchu
Veteran
How would you know this? Pure speculation. And you seem to have ignored the fact they want to steal and sell images of people's children.
Lawsuit filed.
http://www.mediapost.com/publicatio...tories-settlement-faces-ne.html#axzz2eqIoRhNh
enasniearth
Well-known
Face space
Face space
It kind of like posting a dog lost , on a phone pole at the intersection of two major roads Hopeing some one will call .
Face space
It kind of like posting a dog lost , on a phone pole at the intersection of two major roads Hopeing some one will call .
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Goodness gracious, no. Not if your opinions are objectionable on the grounds of religion, politics, unpopularity among the hard of thinking, or failure to wear a tin-foil helmet.
Cheers,
R.
zauhar
Veteran
The FB terms of service are part of the suffocating environment we are encased in. Look at the fine print anywhere, and you are forced to confront the hard fact that from the corporate perspective we are pigs lined up at a trough eating their 'product'. They don't care about us, they often don't care about their product. Just so long as we keep eating and they have a mechanism to make money from our consumption.
This does not mean the product may not have real value to us - after all, pigs in the factory farm do need their food to stay alive! What it means is that we are alienated from the things we use and rely on day-to-day. We do not participate in their creation, distribution, or the policies that regulate them.
You have focussed on FaceBook, I assume because you are a regular user. I have seen similar complaints about terms of service of Flickr and Google. Roll any rock over and you will find sh-t underneath.
Actually, why are you worrying about this at all? It was recently revealed that Microsoft, Google and others maintain unencrypted pipelines of our private communications direct to the US government.
Our government is pleased that we are squabbling about some crap in the FaceBook terms of service.
Randy
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Randy,
...as Galbraith pointed out repeatedly, perhaps most trenchantly in The New Industrial State in 1967. But most people are perfectly happy as long as their snouts are deep enough in the trough.
In fact, your analogy may be insulting to pigs, which are brave and intelligent creatures.
Cheers,
R.
Michael Markey
Veteran
Dear oh dear , a fine example of priggishness .
sanmich
Veteran
Totally on a legual point of view, I wonder if it's even possible to have these new TOS. What I mean is that, at least in certain countries, one cannot renounce certain rights, even if he apparently agrees to by signing under the small prints.
Ranchu
Veteran
Doesn't seem like many actually read the link at the OP. Here's an excerpt and the link again.
"Q: What Do These Changes Let Facebook Do With My Information And Content?
A: Facebook is now able to exploit your name, likeness, content, images, private information, and personal brand by using it in advertising and in commercial and sponsored content — without any compensation to you. Facebook is monetizing not just your images, but a sizable portion of your entire online identity.
Q: I Don’t Share A Lot Of Private Information Or Images On Facebook. What Does This Mean For Me?
A: Facebook is still collecting and exploiting private information about you. It is ASMP’s interpretation that the statement “…when you are using Facebook, or when Facebook is running” allows Facebook to monitor your web browsing, as well as to gather information from your mobile phone while the Facebook mobile app is running such as your location, recent calls, and other mobile activities.
Q: Can’t I Protect Myself By Making My Profile Private?
A: Maybe, but probably not.
Facebook has specifically removed the language from their TOS that allows you to limit how your likeness, information, and content are associated with brands, commercial uses, or sponsored posts. The have also removed the clause that makes them subject to the privacy limits set in place by you on your profile."
http://asmp.org/fb-tos#.UinVgmRgZqZ
Also
"If Facebook were found in violation of the 2011 settlement with the FTC, the company could potentially face huge fines, which would be based on the number of U.S.-based Facebook users affected and the time they were affected by the violations, said Ashkan Soltani, an independent technology consultant. Facebook could face large fines in that scenario because its policy changes affect hundreds of millions of Americans, said Soltani, who investigated Facebook's consumer privacy as a staff technologist at the FTC in 2010 and 2011.
"Being under settlement with the FTC is like being on probation, and you have to take extra steps to protect consumer privacy," Soltani said of Facebook's 2011 settlement with the FTC."
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/12/ftc-reviewing-whether-facebook-violated-privacy-rules
"Q: What Do These Changes Let Facebook Do With My Information And Content?
A: Facebook is now able to exploit your name, likeness, content, images, private information, and personal brand by using it in advertising and in commercial and sponsored content — without any compensation to you. Facebook is monetizing not just your images, but a sizable portion of your entire online identity.
Q: I Don’t Share A Lot Of Private Information Or Images On Facebook. What Does This Mean For Me?
A: Facebook is still collecting and exploiting private information about you. It is ASMP’s interpretation that the statement “…when you are using Facebook, or when Facebook is running” allows Facebook to monitor your web browsing, as well as to gather information from your mobile phone while the Facebook mobile app is running such as your location, recent calls, and other mobile activities.
Q: Can’t I Protect Myself By Making My Profile Private?
A: Maybe, but probably not.
Facebook has specifically removed the language from their TOS that allows you to limit how your likeness, information, and content are associated with brands, commercial uses, or sponsored posts. The have also removed the clause that makes them subject to the privacy limits set in place by you on your profile."
http://asmp.org/fb-tos#.UinVgmRgZqZ
Also
"If Facebook were found in violation of the 2011 settlement with the FTC, the company could potentially face huge fines, which would be based on the number of U.S.-based Facebook users affected and the time they were affected by the violations, said Ashkan Soltani, an independent technology consultant. Facebook could face large fines in that scenario because its policy changes affect hundreds of millions of Americans, said Soltani, who investigated Facebook's consumer privacy as a staff technologist at the FTC in 2010 and 2011.
"Being under settlement with the FTC is like being on probation, and you have to take extra steps to protect consumer privacy," Soltani said of Facebook's 2011 settlement with the FTC."
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/12/ftc-reviewing-whether-facebook-violated-privacy-rules
zauhar
Veteran
Michael, you are correct - under the Uniform Commercial Code, any contract that abrogates certain fundamental rights is null and void. Doesn't matter if you signed it.
Curiously, I never hear of that bring used as an argument !
Randy
zauhar
Veteran
Ranchu
Veteran
That's simple, all communication between private parties, and all information about it should remain private, deleted preferably. These companies should not be permitted to sell information about anyone's communications. If they can't exist without doing that, too damn bad.
Tejasican
Well-known
If pursued as a business strategy, legality is irrelevant. Individuals tend o be apathetic, and the ones who are not rarely have the wherewithal or the will to get into a legal war of attrition with a giant. Given the number of images and the possible rate of sale, combined with smart lawyers to minimize te coverage of any suit that, even if filed, gets to completion, Facebook would make a fortune before being required to pay a relative pittance. The people agreed Facebook could do what they want with te data. The math works for Facebook. Ethical? I would have to say no. Legal? Maybe, I'm not an attorney. Profitable? Oh, yeah.
Tejasican
Well-known
I always rather enjoy the iron sharpening iron of different viewpoints as long as people remain polite and act like adults. It is quite enriching whereas echo chambers are rather boring.
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
You are 100% correct, sir.
That's the new version of "tolerance" for you: If your opinions do not conform to the tenets of Newspeak v.2013, you will pay.
You refer to the hard of thinking, many of whom take particular umbrage toward any reference to Facebook that is less than adoring - regardless of the facts substantiate those references.
I find those kinds of reactions both curious and puzzling.
Yet, that is.
The question remains: If that is not Facebook's intent at some point in the future, then why did they implement a TOS amendment that makes it lawful for them to do so ?? That is the question that the Facebook apologists are studiously ignoring.
If I have absolutely no intention of constructing a building, am I going to go apply for a building permit??
Uh, no... 🙄
DNG
Film Friendly
Exactly... This is for future profit, and future growth for the Stock Holders... no one else...
RichC
Well-known
Good grief - this thread still going!? Noisycheese, Ranchu and others of similar mind: GET OVER IT!
The world's changed. Facebook is merely a symptom...
You need to to get to grips with modernity, with its aspects of Brave New World ("everyone belongs to everyone else") and Big Brother ("The instrument (the telescreen it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off").
Ownership in the 21st century is a shrinking concept: what was private in the previous century is public in the 21st. The millennial generation - those born post-1980 - are redefining the boundaries of the private and public. They have a "share everything" mindset - not always a good thing as it can have dire consequences (for example "sexting" by children), but that's how this IT-savvy interconnected generation sees our world. Ninety per cent of the millennial generation use social media. Facebook's not going away!
As for copyright - a subject that crops up time and again on RFF. You have a choice today: be a hermit and never share your work, or let it out into the world (which in the 21st century means using the internet) - in which case accept that you will lose control over what you make. (Be savvy: you still have choices. I have come across huge digital files on the web of images by well-known photographers, e.g. a 12 MP photo by Cartier-Bresson and a 9 MP photo by Sam taylor-Wood. That's just foolish.)
It's not just technology that's redefining ownership and privacy. You can't just blame the internet and how the young use it. Take economics: American Capitalism is a major driver in making the private public - all in the name of profit, as exemplified by Facebook. I specifically mention America, as free enterprise is deified there - the European Union (EU), like the US, is avowedly capitalist but balances economics more equitably with public good, and one area where there's a difference between the US and the EU is privacy: the EU is always taking American internet companies to court for severe breaches of EU privacy law (the legislation isn't even very onerous, since it needs the approval of nearly 30 countries to become law).
This brings us to politics, Americans may recall the furore over the Orphan Works Bill a year or two back that got killed by the House of Representatives. This Bill would have made it lawful for anyone to use a creative work for any purpose if its copyright owner can't be found. The legislation was aimed more at historical works (e.g. the type of thing museums can’t digitise under current copyright law) than at work created by the living - us - but it has major implications for me and you, as it's impossible to find the source of many images on the web, which are often copied from website to website.
Although this Bill never became law in the US, it will return: as Monty Python said, it’s not dead, just resting. Other countries have and will pass similar legislation, and among the first is the UK, which passed an Act this year that puts the basic legal framework into place - it will probably require a licence fee to paid into a fund, which the copyright holder can claim if he or she ever finds out their work has been used.
Using someone else's work without their permission is thus no longer the "cut and dried" situation it once was.
So, in summary, we have:
(a) young people and IT interacting to create a shared, interactive world dependent on technology
(b) companies wanting to access our personal information to increase their profits
(c) politicians making it lawful to use stuff belonging to someone without their permission.
In addition - shades of 1984 and Big Brother - the modern state collects a huge amount of personal information. Just how much only came to light with whistleblower Edward Snowden's recent revelations in "The Guardian" newspaper. And let's not forget security cameras: the UK has 6 million CCTV cameras, 1 for every 11 people in the country - it's impossible to go out in an urban area without being videoed. However law-abiding you may be, how palatable do you find the idea of your every action being seen? It seems most people aren't bothered by this scrutiny, and America may go the same way as the UK with its plethora of security cameras: according to one survey, nearly 80% of people want more public cameras. It's not just governments that watch and intercept our communications, as the UK's newspaper phone-hacking scandal revealed (although it may have been most pernicious in the UK, newspapers in other countries doubtless use similar tactics).
As the millennial generation increasingly takes over the reins of power, and advances in technology make the world an ever more radically interconnected and shared one - one where the boundaries blur between not only people and technology but also between people - the older generation will have to adapt and accept this new paradigm of the public private or else become disenfranchised from society.
You can opt out of using Facebook today, but the combination of technology and the millennial generation will change the world in ever-more radical ways. If you opt out, a time will come when you will be unable to function within society. The thin edge of the wedge is already here in the "grey digital divide" - for example, in the European Union just 20% of those aged 65-74 used the internet compared with 80% of those aged 16-24 (2011 study). An even more stark example is mobile phone use in the UK (2011 figures): a UK government report found nearly 80% of respondents aged 16–24 used a mobile phone as their primary communications device, but this fell to 12% for 65–74 year olds, and to just 5% for those over 75.
The message is clear: IT technology has, and is still, radically changing the world. Adapt or die.
Pulling accounts, railing against Facebook, PayPal, Twitter and their ilk - GET OVER IT! The erosion of ownership and privacy is inevitable, and posters decrying it in threads like this are modern King Canutes, to be swallowed by the tide of change unless they accept the inevitable.
I'm not saying these redefinitions of private and public and ownership are good or bad: my opinion is irrelevant. Like the incoming tide, this change will sweep away those who stand against it.
To bring us finally back to photography, I addressed some of these issues in my project "Digital Archaeology": http://www.richcutler.co.uk/photo/digital-archaeology/
The world's changed. Facebook is merely a symptom...
You need to to get to grips with modernity, with its aspects of Brave New World ("everyone belongs to everyone else") and Big Brother ("The instrument (the telescreen it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off").
Ownership in the 21st century is a shrinking concept: what was private in the previous century is public in the 21st. The millennial generation - those born post-1980 - are redefining the boundaries of the private and public. They have a "share everything" mindset - not always a good thing as it can have dire consequences (for example "sexting" by children), but that's how this IT-savvy interconnected generation sees our world. Ninety per cent of the millennial generation use social media. Facebook's not going away!
As for copyright - a subject that crops up time and again on RFF. You have a choice today: be a hermit and never share your work, or let it out into the world (which in the 21st century means using the internet) - in which case accept that you will lose control over what you make. (Be savvy: you still have choices. I have come across huge digital files on the web of images by well-known photographers, e.g. a 12 MP photo by Cartier-Bresson and a 9 MP photo by Sam taylor-Wood. That's just foolish.)
It's not just technology that's redefining ownership and privacy. You can't just blame the internet and how the young use it. Take economics: American Capitalism is a major driver in making the private public - all in the name of profit, as exemplified by Facebook. I specifically mention America, as free enterprise is deified there - the European Union (EU), like the US, is avowedly capitalist but balances economics more equitably with public good, and one area where there's a difference between the US and the EU is privacy: the EU is always taking American internet companies to court for severe breaches of EU privacy law (the legislation isn't even very onerous, since it needs the approval of nearly 30 countries to become law).
This brings us to politics, Americans may recall the furore over the Orphan Works Bill a year or two back that got killed by the House of Representatives. This Bill would have made it lawful for anyone to use a creative work for any purpose if its copyright owner can't be found. The legislation was aimed more at historical works (e.g. the type of thing museums can’t digitise under current copyright law) than at work created by the living - us - but it has major implications for me and you, as it's impossible to find the source of many images on the web, which are often copied from website to website.
Although this Bill never became law in the US, it will return: as Monty Python said, it’s not dead, just resting. Other countries have and will pass similar legislation, and among the first is the UK, which passed an Act this year that puts the basic legal framework into place - it will probably require a licence fee to paid into a fund, which the copyright holder can claim if he or she ever finds out their work has been used.
Using someone else's work without their permission is thus no longer the "cut and dried" situation it once was.
So, in summary, we have:
(a) young people and IT interacting to create a shared, interactive world dependent on technology
(b) companies wanting to access our personal information to increase their profits
(c) politicians making it lawful to use stuff belonging to someone without their permission.
In addition - shades of 1984 and Big Brother - the modern state collects a huge amount of personal information. Just how much only came to light with whistleblower Edward Snowden's recent revelations in "The Guardian" newspaper. And let's not forget security cameras: the UK has 6 million CCTV cameras, 1 for every 11 people in the country - it's impossible to go out in an urban area without being videoed. However law-abiding you may be, how palatable do you find the idea of your every action being seen? It seems most people aren't bothered by this scrutiny, and America may go the same way as the UK with its plethora of security cameras: according to one survey, nearly 80% of people want more public cameras. It's not just governments that watch and intercept our communications, as the UK's newspaper phone-hacking scandal revealed (although it may have been most pernicious in the UK, newspapers in other countries doubtless use similar tactics).
As the millennial generation increasingly takes over the reins of power, and advances in technology make the world an ever more radically interconnected and shared one - one where the boundaries blur between not only people and technology but also between people - the older generation will have to adapt and accept this new paradigm of the public private or else become disenfranchised from society.
You can opt out of using Facebook today, but the combination of technology and the millennial generation will change the world in ever-more radical ways. If you opt out, a time will come when you will be unable to function within society. The thin edge of the wedge is already here in the "grey digital divide" - for example, in the European Union just 20% of those aged 65-74 used the internet compared with 80% of those aged 16-24 (2011 study). An even more stark example is mobile phone use in the UK (2011 figures): a UK government report found nearly 80% of respondents aged 16–24 used a mobile phone as their primary communications device, but this fell to 12% for 65–74 year olds, and to just 5% for those over 75.
The message is clear: IT technology has, and is still, radically changing the world. Adapt or die.
Pulling accounts, railing against Facebook, PayPal, Twitter and their ilk - GET OVER IT! The erosion of ownership and privacy is inevitable, and posters decrying it in threads like this are modern King Canutes, to be swallowed by the tide of change unless they accept the inevitable.
I'm not saying these redefinitions of private and public and ownership are good or bad: my opinion is irrelevant. Like the incoming tide, this change will sweep away those who stand against it.
To bring us finally back to photography, I addressed some of these issues in my project "Digital Archaeology": http://www.richcutler.co.uk/photo/digital-archaeology/
raid
Dad Photographer
I am not 75 years old.
I want to remove my photos from there.
edit: I have removed all but 4 pics there. Is there a possibility that Facebook quickly downloaded millions of images once they made it legal to do so?
I want to remove my photos from there.
edit: I have removed all but 4 pics there. Is there a possibility that Facebook quickly downloaded millions of images once they made it legal to do so?
