Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg responds to privacy concerns

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has responded to the privacy concerns raised in this post by Consumerist.  The post pointed out that a change Facebook made to its terms of service left the impression that the social network could keep and use copies of user content (e.g. photos, notes, and personal information) in perpetuity even if users removed the information and closed their accounts.

"One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever," Zuckerberg wrote.  But, oddly, he did not answer that question.  Instead he opted for a rather roundabout explanation: if you send a friend a message via Facebook's e-mail system, Facebook must create mutliple copies of that message -- one for your "sent" message box and one for your friend's inbox. That way, if you leave Facebook, the copy your friend has would not be deleted. Fair enough.

The implication is that, by extension, Facebook also keeps copies of all your other information, too. 

But the e-mail example has a major hole in it. Copying content makes sense for e-mails, where the medium itself depends on messages being copied. The thing is, Facebook users generally do not 'send' other types of content to one another, including photographs. Rather, they post them on their own profiles for others to stop by and see. There's no obvious reason that Facebook would need to perpetually store multiple copies of photographs -- because, as far as the user is concerned, they appear only in one place.

Plus, Zuckerberg seems to underestimate his users' understanding of e-mail.  My guess is most Facebook users don't think that if they close an e-mail account that all the e-mails they've ever sent will disappear.  Frankly, it's not e-mails that are at issue here; it's this other, more personal category of content -- the stuff that people post within their own digital walls.

Zuckerberg goes on to write that despite the presence of "overly formal and protective" language that Facebook uses to cop eternal rights to your content (a slightly condescending formulation, if you ask me), "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."

Facebook should at least get credit for announcing the terms-of-service changes in this Feb. 4 blog post, even though it drew no specific attention to the content ownership amendments, focusing instead on new prohibitions against harassment and providing false information.

And, truth be told, I doubt the company has any nefarious plans to sell all your old photos to the government, or spill out your archived wall postings into the public domain.  But you'd think one of the biggest social media companies in the world -- one that's dealt with outrage over privacy issues before -- would have taken steps to avoid a publicity stink bomb like this.  Step one: proactively explain to its tens of millions of users exactly what these types of changes mean.

In that vein, it seems dubious that users will accept Zuckerberg's entreaty to 'just trust us' when, in his response to user confusion and suspicion, he has skirted the very question that he would have us believe he is addressing. 

Users still don't know why or whether Facebook keeps all their content on file without their explicit permission.  Not just messages, but "photos, text, link, audio, video, designs, ads and anything else that you post on or through the Facebook Service."

A direct answer to these concerns might help with the trust-building.

-- David Sarno

Comments

[@OnlineStrategy]

Hello there,

Regarding your comment that you doubt "the company has any nefarious plans to sell all your old photos to the government, or spill out your archived wall postings into the public domain.", I wouldn't be so sure. Facebook would not be the first one. In 2007, Virgin Mobile got sued by a family because it used content that was posted on Flickr in a "CC" (Creative Commons) license. The terms and conditions were there for both the family and Virgin to know, yet a seemingly personal photograph was used for commercial purposes.
If the right content came along, I doubt that it'd be beyond Facebook to do the same.

@OnlineStrategy

[joe]

Facebook has a high cash burn rate. Their revenues are paltry compared to the size of their user base. Facebook is throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the wall in an effort to monetize user content before they go broke.

[nefarious]

I do NOT doubt the company's nefariousness when it comes to selling your photos or the content of your messages to the government or other interested parties. After all, the telecom companies recently faced some heat (not enough, sadly) over their willingness to provide info to the gov't NSA program. I just find it ironically hilarious that it's now the hipster Facebook which is selling you out, not just stodgy old Ma Bell.

[Michael Strickland]

True: Facebook never deletes your old photos, videos, etc., even when you delete your account. But that's not because they plan to use it - it's because of the way they store media files you've uploaded.

Most websites stores files like images individually - you enter the url of the file, with an extension like .jpg, and the server gives you that exact file. The server can also delete that file without affecting any other files. Facebook, however, doesn't store individual files - they store large (2 gigabyte) chunks of media that are essentially thousands of images compressed into one piece of data. When you try to view a photo, Facebook finds that datachunk, and finds the location inside that datachunk that your photo is stored in. This is a very advanced and efficient way to store the terabytes of data that Facebook has to process.

They don't delete your photos because it would be less efficient - every time a photo was deleted, they would have to modify that 2GB file, which takes a lot of time. Instead, they just delete the photoid - which is the only way to find that individual photo in that 2GB chunk. Sure, the photo still technically exists - but it's virtually inaccessible.

[Waldo]

This is why I caution my friends to NOT sign up for FB. They have a history of disregarding privacy and making it difficult to close your account. Screw 'em.

W

PS- Michael Strickland-- that's a lame explanation. Technical "constraints" are hardly a valid excuse for continuing to store info.

Someone sooner or later is going to design an open-source, extensible social networking platform that will just end this crap once and for all. Drupal, I'm looking at you.

[Kent Davidson]

Strickland: Really? Is there *that* much overhead on a file-per-file basis that they have to store most of the data in a big stream? I've never heard of this before, either. Can you quote a source?

I believe the technical "excuses" for their TOS are not really valid:

http://www.razzed.com/2009/02/16/technical-rebuttal-of-mark-zuckerbergs-rebuttal-to-facebook-tos-change/

[Freddy J. Nager]

Hmmm... Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984 -- is that doubleplus ungood for the rest of us?

[Michael O'Neill]

My favorite part is that perpetual and sub licensing don't actually mean perpetual and sub licensing. Making words un-mean things is an awesome feat.

[Kakie]

How does this affect business owners , authors and artists who have their work in their photo albums in facebook or who feed their blog rss through facebook. What about copyrights and trademarks that do not belong to facebook?

[Austin78613]

Is there a grandfather clause in place for users who created an account BEFORE February 4th?

[Tiffany]

I am 36 and just got on FB a few weeks ago to get in touch with old friends. I am scared silly now. This is unbelievable and the very reason that my 11 year old does not touch my home computer and is not allowed to get in front of one until she HAS to for school...hopefully not until high school.

[MattL]

>>The thing is, Facebook users generally do not 'send' other types of content to one another, including photographs. Rather, they post them on their own profiles for others to stop by and see.<<

Actually, you are incorrect. Maybe you do not have a Facebook account?

When a friend puts up photos it shows up on ALL of their other friends main page.If you put up photos from a party on your site it WILL show up on other users site.
You do not have to tag others for the photos to show up on their site.
I see photos all the time that friends have posted and I don't have to go to their page to see them. It is right on my main page.
So if one of these friends ends his/her account their info is most likely still copied on my page.

[David Sarno]

@MattL -- That's a fair point. It's not correct to say that photos only ever appear in exactly one place on the site. Indeed, as you point out, they might appear in hundreds of places because of the news feed. But here's where that observation stalls: the news feed is supposed to be a temporary view into friends' activities, not a permanent archive. If it were permanent (like Twitter), then you could scroll backwards indefinitely, or search it, or link to old feed items.

So the point remains: while there's obviously some kind of logistical reason for Facebook to claim rights on user content, there's no user-facing reason. If I disable my account, I can't see how I'd be wreaking havoc on hundreds of other accounts -- and if I am, that's really Facebook's problem, not the users'.

I'd say the same goes for a technical explanation like the one Michael Strickland offered (and which I haven't tried to confirm). The exigencies of the system architecture should not negatively affect the rights of the end-user.

[tribecards]

Okay, here's the deal. first, if you post something online, ANYTHING online, assume it's public. Period. End of discussion. If you don't like that scenario, don't post anything online. Really, it's pretty simple.

Second, what is there to be scared of? Ooo, you posted a slam on your friend's wall. as the old adage goes: if you don't something nice to say, don't say it. Photos? Photos should be the property of the original owner. period. unless that owen gives up the right to own the picture. If you aren't sure about that when you post to a site, then um, DONT POST TO IT!

Last I checked, these are SOCIAL NETWORKS. Privacy isn't even implied the type of site it is... Hence, 'social.' Then again, maybe I'm making this way too simple.

[Tom Meyer]

It's not that Facebook STORES the image I created, it's that they EXPRESSLY state that they have the right to retrieve it from that "vault" (however you describe it) and then USE it, or SELL it, or DISTRIBUTE it, whenever and to where and whomever they want, FOREVER, and I can go screw. Sorry but that's not gonna happen with MY artworks. I just deleted 6 albums of over 100 of my fine art photographs.

Facebook has all kinds of protective language concerning their logos and terminology, but they are unwilling to let me protect mine IF I post on Facebook. And it would be easy to do.

It's fine with me that they use my works as long as I am using theirs. But they can't have mine forever to use as if it belonged to them... it doesn't. Sorry, I'm out... t

[stratman351]

I now realize that deleting my photos from my profile doesn't delete them from FB's servers, but I deleted them anyway. I'm an amateur photographer, and I'd uploaded a bunch of my best pics so that friends could see them. Now that FB is claiming rights to users' content, I think I'm going t close my account. At least that will allow me to argue later that is was never my intent to transfer the rights to my photos to FB. FB is fun, but it's not such a great thing that I'm willing to transfer my rights to my intellectual property as a condition of participating. There are other, less intrusive, ways to connect with people.

[Wilhelm Hagberg]

All these narcissistic artists make me smile! Do they seriously believe that Facebook would STEAL the low-res jpegs of their art from the database and SELL THEM? Where would the market be for that? Face it, an artist today must be GRATEFUL if someone even wants to look at his work!

[Neil Walker]

People are only now beginning to understand the implications of trusting Facebook with their personal information and photographs. Here in Australia, Australia Associated Press (AAP) make Facebook photos available to media outlets via an Image Gallery on their site. AAP refused to confirm whether they have a commercial arrangement with Facebook. Facebook did not respond. I wrote an article for Australian media website Crikey on the subject [ http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20090205-AAP-mines-Facebook-for-the-dead.html ]. Unfortunately, it's subscriber read only but if anyone is interested feel free to email me at: mediamook@gmail.com and happy to email copy of full article to you.

[Troy]

If I'm a company who were to exploit nudity, I might want to do a back room deal with facebook to own everything appealing to my business interest. And I don't have to pay a model for it.
Or if I am in the music industry and someone posts a new song they've written and want to share it with their friends, it is now owned by facebook who may have a back room deal done with me.
And last, but not least, the clean cut kid may someday be staring at more money than he can turn down, and your rights will be sold to the highest bidder and he will be sipping his Bahama Mama Mango on the beach, while you are being sued by the music industry for trying to introduce a new song that is actually owned by Face Book.
You never know what goes on in the hearts of conspiring men.

[KARLI]

Myspace once someone erases there page all of the comments and messages go away with them. Why does facebook have to keep everything??

there is No reason at all.

[Tierany]

Ok... so what if you just have a friend on Facebook... if you delete that friend, do all the comments you left on that person's wall disappear? Obviously, any messages sent will stay but what about the other stuff? And not even deleting the whole account- I just mean "de-friending" them.

[moses kwereba gathua]

good work facebook!

[Care Bear]

If anyone has any clue at all about Facebook, they would see/know this....If you have a friend and you post on their wall, or anything else that you do goes on their wall, you can remove that person from your friend list, and all posts go away. This does not mean however that the private messages sent to someone's inbox go away. I have tested this, and know for a fact that anything on their wall that references you will be removed if they are no longer your "friend".