Facebook, Privacy and Contracts

Facebook was trying to solve a legitimate problem: People who deleted their accounts did not realize that information that they shared with other users would persist on their Facebook friends' accounts. Thus, they needed some way of telling users that the information might remain. The proposed change in the contract noted that:

"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."

Essentially, according to these new terms, if you created a Facebook page, posted content on one, created a link from one, or allowed someone else to do so, you had transferred the intellectual property rights to the content to the company, subject to your privacy settings.

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