In an earlier blog I brought up the question of us not really knowing our privacy rights with sites such as Twitter and Facebook. So when we agree to their terms and conditions without actually reading them, what are we actually signing up to?
I'll happily admit that I signed up to Facebook because all my friends had started using it and it was the cool thing to do... but i'll also admit there is no way I actually read all the terms and conditions that I agreed to before I created my account, and i'd almost bet my life that half the people using Facebook, like me, didn't read the terms and conditions. So when were posting all our photos and status' about what were doing, how do we know we are in control? We dont.
http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
Above is the link to the terms and conditions that everyone has to agree to before their account is created. Some of them, to me, are quite disturbing and has certainly made me think twice about what I post and upload because in effect anything we do upload Facebook then owns.
"When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture)." This is just one of the terms and conditions that we agree to, so not only do we allow Facebook to use our information and pictures we also allow people off of Facebook to do the same.
I found a video which puts into perspective the full terms and conditions to facebook, and it shows that maybe we should be a tad more apprehensive about Facebook and similar sites. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfY_HTzd_4U
I think maybe its time to do something about what we have all agreed to. What would happen if we all deleted our accounts until the terms and conditions were changed so that we could really trust Facebook? They would surley have no choice but to make some changes to get users back. It certainly seems that it is something people should be thinking about, to protect themselves and all their information that we naively publish.
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