Your data no longer expires when you close your account.
Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has a response on the facebook blog:
“In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. “
Sorry, Mark. Not going to cut it, I’m afraid.
In his defense, Mark does trot out the example of messages, which are copied when sent. You don’t want your received mail disappearing when the original sender leaves Facebook. Facebook is going to keep the message around after they de-activate they account. It’s just like my internet service provider (or Google), storing my e-mail, right?
Ummm… no. Not even a little bit. Neither Google nor my ISP force me into the following (from the Facebook TOS):
“You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses. ” [Emphasis mine]
If my ISP decided they were going to perform a dramatic reading of my e-mail on Broadway, you can bet I’d see them in court. But Facebook? Anything for you, Mark! You’re so shiny!
The other half of Mark’s argument boils down to, “Managing content is really hard”. If someone posts a comment on an item, who owns the comment? The commenter or the original item poster? What happens when the item is removed? The event cancelled? Can you keep a comment around that has lost its original purpose?
This is a general problem – conversations which were previously transient are now permanent. We used to be able to say things with the knowledge that they would be forgotten. We never before had to argue over who owns words – the speaker or the hearer? When one person hates the memory of an Event and wants the record expunged, but to another, it was a priceless memory and should be upheld forever… That’s the makings of an argument.
Facebook is left as the mediator of the argument, and their answer is, “It’s all ours. We’ll do with it whatever we want.”
Saying, “This content is ours forever” is unacceptable for content that is more of a passive publishing mechanism, such as Notes. On a traditional blog, the blogger has the option to edit or delete content. If someone submits a comment to The Happy Moron, they own the copyright on the comment, but I can delete it if I so choose. I can wipe away the whole kit and caboodle. If you really think that your comments are that valuable, repost them on your own blog.
All of the complex questions around, “Who owns the data?” can really be mitigated by three very simple principles:
- If you want something to stick around, don’t post it exclusively somewhere it can be deleted.
- If you want something deleted, don’t post it where you can’t delete it.
- If you want to keep ownership of something, don’t post it on Facebook.
Suffice to say, nothing that I care about, even just a little bit, will be authored on Facebook.