Facebook recently reviewed its Terms of Use, which brought about arguement and disagreement from the community. The dissent from around the web has made Facebook revert to its old terms. Well, this could be said to be the power of community.

The new term said thus:

“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.”

The old term (now current) says :

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

The wording I think is too formal and could make a lot of people confused translation to give it. Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg wrote two blog posts here and here to clearify their stand on the issue and He has promised to keep the Trust that people have for Facebook. You can also join the Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

Many people rarely read the term of use, when they get freaky about any website they just click on. Some argued that Facebook is surpose to alert users of its new terms but, Facebook stated clearly that it’s the users’ responsibility to always check the terms for update. But, surprisingly, I got alerted on my Facebook page about the revert to old term. Good! But kind of late.

People have trust in Facebook, and that has to a large extent made it the largest Social Networking site on the internet. Obviously, Facebook is bigger than some major countries, about 175 millions user would have made it sixth biggest Country had it been a Nation state.

Next time you visit, any site, read through its Term of Use. It is the guiding principle to what the company can do to your data and how you can protect yourself.

Do you have any issue understanding term of use? Drop comment below.