1. OSP’S & OWNERSHIP OF USER-
CREATED CONTENT
The Facebook T.O.S. Scandal
Lara M. Ali
MBAA 609, Spring 2009
2. FACEBOOK
Online Service Provider (OSP)
Social Networking Site that enables users to create
personal profiles and publish various types of
content
Public profiles viewable by everyone
Private profiles viewable by restricted audience, which
user selects
175 million users
Similar sites: Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter
3. FACEBOOK’S NEW TOS
February 4th, 2009 – Facebook changed its Terms
of Service.
It excluded previous language about the perpetuity
of user created content on its site.
4. FACEBOOK TOS - BACKLASH
Online blog “The Consumerist” noticed the quiet
change and launched a massive, Internet-wide
uproar against the new Terms
Next morning, EPIC filed a formal 25-page complaint
with the Federal Trade Commission
Facebook Group was created the same day – “People
Against The New Terms of Service” – and was 90,000
members strong within hours
Two days later, Facebook reverted back to old TOS
in response to the uproar
So, what was everyone complaining about?
5. FACEBOOK TOS – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
New TOS no longer promised that the use of
member content would “expire” once the user
deleted his/her account.
Online community interpreted this to mean that
Facebook owns user’s personal information –
photos, music, emails- and can use it without
permission, for its own gain, forever.
This causes two specific ethical problems:
Invasion of Privacy
Copyright Infringement
6. ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDERS – ETHICAL
ISSUES
PRIVACY COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
Emails Intellectual Property is not
very well protected Online
Photographs
Publishers of creative content
Blogs
can be harmed b/c OSP can
Status updates
profit from use of their
Music
music/writing/art/etc.
Videos
“Non-exclusive” licensing
7. CURRENT OSP LANDSCAPE – COPYRIGHT
ISSUES
Most OSP’s Terms of Service focus heavily on
copyright concerns.
“Non-exclusive” licenses
OSP does not have “exclusive” ownership of user
content
But can still re-use it or keep it in public distribution
But these licenses limit the scope of the OSP’s use
of content – only things in connection with the
normal services it provides
8. CURRENT OSP LANDSCAPE – PERPETUAL
LICENSES
Most service providers claim perpetual use of
content
Google & Yahoo! Have perpetual licenses to non-
pictorial content
Claim they need perpetual use of content like
emails, photographs and videos because of
Copyright Law
Ex.) Email - Without a non-exclusive perpetual license,
after a user has deleted account, Facebook would have
to go into other users’ inboxes to delete every email that
user has sent – time consuming, impossible.
9. WEB 3.0 – ETHICAL DANGERS
Web 2.0 is successful because sites like Facebook
allow users to create their own custom service for
FREE.
Others like Google, Craigslist, Twitter, LinkedIn & Picasa
have this same model
Web 3.0 is where ethical missteps can happen.
MONETIZING millions of users who have grown
accustomed to free online experiences
The reason for the Facebook TOS change is so that FB
could PROFIT from users by using their content.
Other OSP’s will continue to find ways to do this that
may be underhanded.
10. CONCLUSION
OSP’s user base continues to grow and their need
to profit from these users will trump ethical
obligations
Terms of Service are written with the ultimate goal
of protecting the OSP, but there are many grey
areas that will cause legal/ethical dilemmas
Today’s legal environment does not clearly
delineate the rules of the game for IP on the Web
FB scandal will happen again and again until laws
preclude them in the future