If you’ve logged in to Facebook this morning, you probably noticed a message saying they’ve reverted back to their old terms of service. They caused quite a stir when they moved to a position recently that basically said “we own all your stuff, forever.”
I don’t know if the terms of service change was sincerely meant as a power grab, or more meant to clarify what happens to your wall posts, links, etc., once you delete an account. The Facebook founder made a decent argument for the latter, and I don’t doubt that the change could have had unintended consequences. (The analogy is to compare FB with a webmail service — if I cancel my Gmail account, I don’t expect the cancellation to delete messages I sent to others.)
In any case, the lovely Web site Lifehacker linked to this site this morning. The allfacebook.com folks have some really important tips for how users can make sure their drunken tomfoolery doesn’t get shared with Mom and Dad (or with potential sources, etc.). Some of them, like hiding contact info, are probably well known; others, like avoiding photo tagging, may not be. I’m sharing them with students when I can.
Recent Comments