Facebook has backed down from acontroversial change in its termswhich gave it rights to its users'
information.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a
blog early this morning
saying, "We have decided to return to our previous terms of use
while we resolve the issues that people have raised."
The site had changed its terms to give itself rights over users'
photos, wall posts and all other information even if users delete
the content and cancel their membership on the site.
The move caused an outcry among privacy campaigners and more
than 25,000 users joined Facebook groups to
protest.
The new terms say, "If you choose to remove your User Content
you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your
User Content."
Zuckerberg explained in his blog last night, "When a person
shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that
information are created - one in the person's sent messages box and
the other in their friend's inbox.
Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still
has a copy of that message. 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."
He insisted the company would not share people's information in
a way they would not want, but this morning the company bowed to
pressure and reverted back to its previous terms "while we resolve
the issues that people have raised".
Zuckerberg said he expects a new version of the terms, written
in "language everyone can understand", will be released in the next
few weeks.