The AP Has No Idea What They’re Doing

The AP means business on this “let’s start suing people” tip, which I posted about yesterday. The first shot rang out yesterday when the AP sent a cease and desist order to WTNQ-FM in LaFollette, Tenn. for embedding videos from AP’s YouTube channel on their website. Perfectly reasonable, right? Well, no. Not so much.

What did you really agree to when you signed up for MySpace, Picasa, YouTube, Twitter…?

Amanda L. French posted an interesting article a few days ago comparing Facebook’s Terms of Service with the Terms of Service of other sites, including MySpace, Picasa, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and LinkedIn.  While this article was written before  Facebook returned to its old Terms of Service, it still provides some really interesting and important information about what you really agreed to when you signed up for these sites.  

Facebook Goes into Full Retreat

When I logged into Facebook this morning, I found this message at the top of my stalker news feed:

Anyone who has used Facebook for an extended amount of time knows the subtext of this message: Facebook users are mad as hell and have formed the internet equivalent of a mob with pitchforks and torches. Last time we saw something like this, it was when Facebook introduced the aforementioned news feed. People were up in arms about how much information was being disseminated to their Facebook friends, so Facebook back tracked a little and installed more advanced privacy controls to quiet down the mob a bit.

In this case, they’ve retreated back to the original terms of use and started a group establishing a Bill of Rights for Facebook Users while they reconsider their terms. But, that doesn’t mean they’re out of hot water. Their original terms have been underfire too. This blog post from 2007 analyzed Facebook’s terms of service, dissecting it section by section and detailing why users should be concerned. Some of the comments are petty about minor things (“Oh, I guess you can’t insult the king of Thailand according to these terms since it violates the laws of Thailand”), but largely the concerns are about how vague the wording is and how sweeping Facebook’s administration’s power is.

Facebook’s response is under the cut.