How Does Facebook's TOS Compare To Other Social Networking Sites?

If you’ve been following the Facebook story over the past couple of days, you know by now that Facebook has said that they are not claiming ownership of uploaded user content: “We certainly did not—and did not intend—to create any new right or interest for Facebook in users’ data by issuing the new Terms.” But blogger Amanda French decided to actually compare the fine print for several social networking sites—MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Picasa—and she concludes that “Facebook’s claims to your content are extraordinarily grabby and arrogant.” Read her side-by-side comparison here.

Another blogger, Kent Davidson, posted a rebuttal to Mark Zuckerberg’s post that went up yesterday afternoon. Davidson writes, “As a co-founder of my own startup in the 90s (unfortunately, never anything close to the scale of the 500-lb gorilla that is Facebook), [Zuckerberg’s] post is simply damage control.” He then goes through Zuckerber’s statement and makes several strong counterpoints.

Also, in case you haven’t seen the Facebook group that formed to protest the new TOS, they’ve been asked by a Facebook representative to put together a list of questions they have over the new terms. They’ve done just that, and posted them publicly on their group page.

“Facebook terms of service compared with MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter” [AmandaFrench.net]
“Facebook: “We have never claimed ownership” of members’ content” [The Industry Standard]
“Technical rebuttal of Mark Zuckerberg’s rebuttal to Facebook TOS change” [Razzed]
“People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)” [Facebook]
(Silhouette image: Hotshoe!)

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