Facebook's policy allows them to keep any of your data. They are saying that they won't do that but will delete it after you deactivate your account but they are keeping the policy in place. I suspect MySpace probably has a similar policy and given that I've been able to find clutchfans BBS stuff on Google this is yet more reason to always remember that online social networking isn't private. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29239948 Facebook data policy changes spark protests Social-networking site claims ability to control user information forever NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of Facebook users are protesting new policies that they say grant the social-networking site the ability to control their information forever, even after they cancel their accounts. Facebook's new terms of use, updated Feb. 4, largely went unnoticed until the popular consumer rights advocacy blog Consumerist.com pointed out the changes Sunday. That prompted a clarification from Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, although the new terms remain in force. Zuckerberg told users in a blog post Monday that "on Facebook, people own their information and control who they share it with." When someone shares a photo, a message or a status update telling friends what they are up to at the moment, they first need to grant Facebook a license so the site can pass that information along to authorized friends, Zuckerberg said. Without the license, he said, Facebook wouldn't be able to help people share information. Zuckerberg said the new terms are necessary to reflect the fact that friends may retain a copy of that message or other information once a user shares it with them. "Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message," Zuckerberg said. "We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like e-mail work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear." Zuckerberg did acknowledge that Facebook, which boasts 175 million users around the world, still has "work to do to communicate more clearly" about how information is shared on the site. The rapidly growing site has had several run-ins with users over its short history. In late 2007, for example, a tracking tool called "Beacon" caught users off-guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and activities at other Web sites. After initially defending the practice, Facebook ultimately allowed users to turn Beacon off.
Well it's a good thing I only use facebook as a convenient way to keep in touch with friends. I'm not that kind of person that puts every waking moment of my life on those social sites.
i had a myspace years ago, didnt have too much on it. However, since i barely ever used it, it got hacked I think? I can't access it anymore, nor do i really want to. However, I kinda wanna delete the account, but I can't figure out how to get back on... suggestions?
i don't see why it matters.. it's not like you have your ssn, bank, CC info on there. Big deal, people can see some pictures of me, my name, and some of my favorite movies forever. go have fun with yourself...forever!
I still don't understand why people live on this thing....is it that important to people to know what others are doing 24/7 (and usually its NOTHING but pointless crap) and for you to let people know every single time you do something in your life....I mean you can keep in touch with everybody you need to on the phone....wth is the point of putting a crap load of your pics online just to let others people see you.....is there something I'm missing here, b/c I honestly do not understand the obsession with facebook and myspace.
Well duh! Obviously this is the case, these types of sites are controlled by govt's for mass control of society. Anyone who thinks that this is simply crazy conspiracy theory - just as an example, dont you think its just a bit strange that you can choose not to display your full date of birth when you register for Facebook, but you can not have an account unless you enter a full date of birth.....
I'm with you. There are people with something like 100+ "friends" and 3-8 people actually communicating with them from the looks of it. I joined and I started looking at some of these "status updates" on Facebook that amounted to "I moved my foot". Wooptie doo. lol. I have to admit it's better than myspace, though. Most myspace pages look like an excursion into "how annoyingly painful can I make my page look to the human eye?" I was discussing this with a friend the other day and one of the things we laughed at was how you have all your old friends from the past and some of your newer friends/co-workers or just 2 different groups of friends and it's like a real-life example of that Seinfeld episode of "worlds colliding". In some cases you reeeeeally don't want those two groups coming together.
I use it to communicate with friends that live in other states or countries. It's very convenient to use in situations where a phone call isn't necessary. No different than email really, and best of all I don't have to keep track of everyone's email address changing every year, or my harddrive getting wiped and losing all emails, etc. Here is actually something I have used it for lately that has been very convenient: I'm putting together a spring break trip for myself and 5 of my friends. I had them all join a private group for our spring break trip. This allowed me to easily disseminate information to the whole group, and respond to questions so that the rest of the group could see the responses. This has been so much easier and more organized than CCing everyone on an email, then making sure they all "Reply to all" each time information needs to be disseminated. I don't understand the people who put up updates every single day or have hundreds of pictures though. I have my pictures set to private, personally. If there are pictures I have that my friends want or pictures that they have that I want, I'll just have them email them to me (much better resolution and quality that way anyway). My only guess is the most obvious one: that they have a "look at me! look at me!" mindset and want people to look at and comment on their updates. They probably just want attention and want to seem more important than they are.
Not really - because US law requires you to be at least 13 for the company to collect information about you. You have to provide them that information, but there's no need for that to be displayed publicly. .
It's a great way to keep in touch with people when they scatter around the country. The reality is that people lose touch over time and its more difficult to keep up with people out of state or living abroad. Sure, you can email them all or call them all, but being able to keep up with their everyday life makes it a much more real experience than just communicating about the big things every so often. And being able to update lots of your friends at once means you can keep in contact with more people without consuming as much time. Of course some people use it for silly stuff - but that's kind of the idea. Everyone can use the service for whatever benefits it provides them individually.
The problem within it is that a lot of people have the impression that what they post is private or only for a select group of people. A lot of people don't realize that what they post on Facebook could come back to haunt them the rest of their life. Even if you don't post your ssn there are many things that you post that could be problematic. For example. You are in college and you post a picture of yourself doing a bong hit. After college you take the picture down but your friends still have it on their page and an employer doing an online background check sees it and doesn't hire you. Another thing is that Facebook uses data on your page to better market for you. What if you shutdown your Facebook account but they sell your information so you continue getting spammed with all sorts of ads. Many people get very sensitive about the government tracking us and surveilling us yet we are voluntarily allowing companies like Facebook to do that very thing.
Agree with all that. Once in a while Myspace and Facebook still opens my eyes to how much attention people reallly need to validate themselves, including myself I dont know why I havent deleted it yet there's still some pull. People just have a need to want other people to know what they're doing, ALL the time. For the benefit of ... A profile page can be some lauching pad into pseudo celebrity status I guess. OR, it simply can be just a page with pics on it with less than 200 views over 4 years, 150 of those by spam
Everyone that has a problem with their TOS, delete your account now that they've reverted to their old TOS
I just got into Facebook within the last few months. My wife turned me onto it. Her sister turned her onto it. Neither one of us are the social website types. Once she signed up, she started telling me how many of her long lost friends from high school and college were contacting her. I’ve never been as good as I should be at keeping up with all my old friends and I missed my 20-year reunion last year, so I thought I’d give it a try. Once I signed up, I started finding a LOT of old friends from 20 years ago. Some very good friends that I never would have found if not for FB. It’s fun to see how everyone has turned out. FB is a harmless (and fun) way to reconnect with and stay in touch with old friends that you never would have found otherwise. I’m not going to call these people on the phone to tell them my life story. Hello? Can you say STALKER? That would just be creepy. It’s a lot easier to just have a FB account, post a few harmless pics and write a few notes to each other. Seriously, what’s wrong with that? For me, it’s been like classmates.com except that it’s FREE. As far as the TOS, I’m not really worried about the government tracking where I graduated from high school or the fact that my favorite band is The Police. And no one can see your profile unless you confirm them as friends, so how could an employer screen you? Why would you confirm someone you don’t know as a friend?
