- FTC goes after astroturfing
Last week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Reverb Communications, a firm that describes its business as a:
… full service videogame agency that provides public relations, marketing, and sales services through one integrated campaign to the interactive entertainment and music industry. Using precise messaging and calculated marketing campaigns, we are able to drive consumer and industry demand for our clients’ products, resulting in increased product sales.
According to the FTC’s complaint, some of the “precise messaging” involved the firm putting in fake positive user reviews of various video games on the iTunes store.
I haven’t been able to track down Reverb’s answer to the charges except a statement repeated here, a blog entry that reports some additional details of how the FTC got onto Reverb’s trail. Reverb is said to have said:
During discussions with the FTC, it became apparent that we would never agree on the facts of the situation. Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion because as the FTC states: “The consent agreement is for settlement purposes only and does not constitute admission by the respondents of a law violation.”
That sounds like a non-denial denial, and the FTC appears to be doing good work here. In the fall of ’09 it announced that paid commercial endorsements had to be disclosed — even on Twitter, Facebook, and in blogs. There was some handwringing over this — would the government be going after any blogger who says something good about something and might have a financial interest in it? It is not particularly easy to predict, especially since the FTC, unlike other Federal agencies, does not do formal rulemakings — it can only announce guidelines and then bring one enforcement action at a time under its general charter to combat unfair or deceptive trade practices.
The Reverb case provides a good example of how the FTC is thinking about applying its limited staff power: to professional organizations working to subvert ratings schemes. That’s a good place to start; if nascent ratings schemes are to work, it’s helpful to know what the boundaries are — especially to PR and marketing firms that don’t want to have to race to the bottom. Now they can tell their clients that they’re just not able to help out with fake reviews. (In the meantime, the Reverb main home page is showing a generic parked message — odd.)
I remain curious how effective sites like subvertandprofit.com are. S&P says it:
… runs social media campaigns across a variety of social media sites, via our 25,000 users who earn money by viewing, voting, fanning, rating, or posting assigned tasks. Since 2007, our user actions have effectively promoted our advertisers’ web content to popularity at significant cost savings. In 2010, Subvert and Profit merged with Crowdsource Corp. to extend the power of crowdsourcing to a variety of social and business applications.
More directly, S&P tells advertisers that they can:
Buy votes on social media sites.
- Sign up.
- Add funds to your account.
- Buy votes.
- Get visitors to your site for cheap.
- Repeat.
And in turn, social media users can “get paid just for clicking buttons.”
Perhaps they or other intermediaries that help to launder ratings could find themselves answering some questions from the FTC. I see the domain for subvertandprofit is registered in Massachusetts, so I’ve sent an email to its owner — I’ll update this post if I hear anything.
- Fried Androids?
In March, a panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed a Texas district court ruling requiring EchoStar to remotely disable the DVRs of innocent customers as part of its damages for infringing on TiVo’s DVR patents. At the time, Elisabeth and JZ predicted that we would see an increasing number of similar cases as companies — and governments — figured out how to take advantage of additional control points that exist in tethered appliances. Their Delphian suggestion came to pass in the mobile arena recently when Oracle filed suit against Google for patent and copyright infringement. The lawsuit claims that Google’s Android OS (along with its software development kit and custom virtual machine) infringes Oracle’s IP rights in the Java programming language.
Much of the online discussion has focused on the merits of the suit. Oracle officially acquired Sun Microsystems early this year. Sun originally developed Java and, over time, released most of the platform into the open source ecosystem. Patents that were filed may have been a defense against litigation or even a joke. And Google has licenses for those patents. So the question here revolves around whether, by strict or loose interpretation, Google violated its licenses, but the vagueness and generality of Oracle’s complaint [pdf] (and press release) renders most of this analysis speculative pending additional clarification. (More discussion on the open source backdrop is available here and here, and counterpoint here.)
However, the remedy Oracle wants couldn’t be more clear. It asks for monetary damages to compensate it for its financial losses and punitive damages because it alleges Google “knowingly,” i.e. intentionally, violated its IP rights. In addition, Oracle requests “[a]n order permanently enjoining Google, its officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys and affiliated companies, its assigns and successors in interest, and those persons in active concert or participation with it, from continued acts of infringement of the patents and copyrights at issue in this litigation” and “[a]n order that all copies made or used in violation of Oracle America’s copyrights, and all means by which such copies may be reproduced, be impounded and destroyed or otherwise reasonably disposed of.” The last one is the kicker: just like TiVo’s demand of EchoStar, Oracle wants the court to tell Google to reach into Android owners’ handsets and rip out the offending material, leaving innocent consumers with a gutted shell — and the remainder of their two-year service contract.
The destruction remedy applies only to the copyright claim. If the case goes to trial a jury could conceivably find Google liable for patent infringement but not copyright violation. And even if it did, the district judge has discretion over what relief to grant. Plus, the appeals process could hack back overbearing damages.
But as long as it is on the table, the availability of such a remedy is a very big stick. Even if Google believes it should win the suit, betting on that outcome doesn’t make sense if it means risking having to destroy consumers’ phones or fighting a long and uncertain legal battle after the destruction provision is awarded, instead of paying conventional monetary damages.
Google has seen how a similar fight has played out for EchoStar. EchoStar attempted to comply with the court order by sending DVR boxes an update that replaced the infringing technology with noninfringing parts, leaving intact the DVRs’ functionality. The Federal Circuit said “no dice,” the remedy was disablement of the DVRs, and that alone would suffice. EchoStar continues to refuse to disable its customers’ DVRs and has been held in contempt and fined $200 million.
The Federal Circuit has agreed to rehear EchoStar’s case en banc. And in the interim, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has invalidated the very patents TiVo claimed EchoStar infringed. (TiVo is appealing the ruling; until its appeal is exhausted, the patents remain in force.) And the FTC has stepped in to give the circuit court some guidance, filing an amicus brief urging it to consider how specific sanctions will impact innovation across the technology industry.
The availability of destruction as a remedy smothers innovation. If Oracle can’t strong-arm Google into settling but wins at trial and is awarded the destruction provision (and it survives appeal and Google eventually capitulates instead of balking and riding a series of contempt proceedings into a draconian post-litigation settlement or bankruptcy), (1) consumers would have their phones replaced with bricks and think twice before buying new tech again; (2) Android developers would see their platform and all their apps evaporate; and (3) in the future, companies would likely waste time reinventing the wheel to avoid Google’s court-ordered fate rather than developing new technologies. There is a storm brewing, brought on by the rise of tethered appliances and the thicket of software patent regulation.
—By Jennifer Halbleib
- The Google/Verizon framework
I’ve been trying to figure out what the Google/Verizon announcement means. It’s not easy to do, in large part because the announcement doesn’t precisely announce anything. It’s titled a “legislative framework proposal.” That is, on its own terms it’s not an agreement between two companies — neither is bound to do anything by it, which I guess is how they could deny last week’s New York Times report about a “deal on web pay tiers” — but it does represent a meeting of the minds between them about what ought to happen in the world, in particular what American (and presumably others’) law should become here.
That kind of mental-but-not-legal agreement can get away with being far more vague than a typical contract. It’s amenable to what Cass Sunstein calls “incompletely theorized agreements.” Cass’s work points out that parties who disagree on basic things — such as a would-be polity that wants to produce a constitution for the first time — risk coming away empty handed if they insist on their own views. But they don’t want to compromise, either. So what they do is strategically punt: they come up with texts that are intentionally vague, leaving it for another day to figure out what they mean in practice, so they can move on with a joint endeavor of some kind. There are lots of vague statements of that sort in the proposal, some of which are drawn from another likely-intentionally vague set of FCC principles about the Net. So, for example, under the proposal, carriers can’t engage in undue discrimination. They can do reasonable network management. There’s to be transparency, but not neutrality, for wireless at this time. These definitions would have to be much more fleshed out to understand what the agreement means, and lawyers use terms like these so that the parties’ different ideas of “undue,” “reasonable,” and “now” can be parked in peace under the same roof.
Here’s my own take so far — I figured it might be useful to share my own process in working this through rather than writing (yet) a firm advocacy piece for one view over another. Read more »
- FOI Topics and Links of the Week
Game on. A featureless update released recently by TI blocks a hack that allowed owners to write their own programs for the company’s Nspire calculator. It’s not immediately obvious what rationale TI used to justify the block. It isn’t under pressure to protect the commercial interests of a partner service provider. And worst case, a buggy calculator isn’t exactly as calamitous as a compromised cell phone. In any event, the competition illustrates what may become an increasingly common arms race between hardware companies trying to lock down their products and consumers who want to load the software of their choice on a device they own.
Disintegrating Droids. The Droid X comes pre-loaded with eFuse technology, which prevents it from booting with unapproved software. Motorola points out that triggering eFuse doesn’t permanently disable the phone — it can re-boot once approved software is reinstalled. Much better.
Neighborhood watch for software vulnerabilities. At the Black Hat security conference last week, Microsoft advocated for cooperation between software companies, researchers, and security vendors to share information on flaws and patches in order to keep users safe. Perhaps cross-pollination at the meeting will spread the idea of mutual aid to website owners as well.
Researcher remotely hacks ATMs. Also at Black Hat, a security researcher demonstrated that he could remotely order stand-alone ATMs to spew cash. While causing a remote ATM to dispense money at will is less appealing to the average thief than cracking open a proximate machine, an accomplice with a laptop in a van nearby could make it a profitable endeavor.
Apple rejects iPad magazine subscription app. Apple has nixed an app from Time, Inc. that would have allowed iPad owners to purchase a digital subscription to Sports Illustrated. Peter Kafka of Media Memo hypothesizes that Apple doesn’t want to give magazine publishers the access to personal user information they would have with an app. But publishers are likely salivating over the targeted advertising potential of mining that data. Plus, single-issue sales through iTunes are cumbersome and inefficient. There may be a confrontation brewing, unless publishers are willing to be satisfied with whatever options Apple grants them.
FBI challenges Wikipedia over logo. This week, the FBI accused Wikipedia of illegally displaying the agency’s official seal. Wikipedia has refused to remove the image from its FBI page.
Wikipedians have a
history of standing firm on controversial articles. It’s unclear whether a specific incident triggered agency action. The BBC
notes that since the seal is published elsewhere on the Web, the FBI’s selective targeting of Wikipedia is also mysterious. And many reports on the story
now include . . . images of the seal.
Zombie cookie revenge. A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that several prominent websites used Flash or “zombie” cookies to surreptitiously collect personal user information. Flash cookies can re-create browser cookies deleted by users. They function as extra storage for websites and maintain user preferences, but can also be exploited to track users online.
—By Jennifer Halbleib
- What matters in net neutrality
It’s hard to know what to make of the Google/Verizon deal since until earlier today both companies have denied that there is one. And it’s hard to argue about net neutrality because it means so many different things to different people. I’ve got lots of reading to do to catch up on the newly released set of principles from the companies, but in the meantime here are a few thoughts on the topic.
The core question is this: when Internet Service Providers turn out to have captive audiences of subscribers — either because their customers have few if any alternatives for broadband, or because switching is complicated and cumbersome, or because ISP practices are obscure and thus hard for customers to adapt to — how far should they be allowed to leverage that captivity?
That question arises in the midst of a very confused economy for the movement of bits over the Internet. With telephones the baseline rule was simple: sender pays. On the Internet, it’s more complicated: both sender and receiver pay their respective Internet Service Providers to move their data traffic. Now, suppose these are large ISPs who are considering connecting to each other directly. The ISP who hosts a sender of traffic like YouTube might say to the ISP with lots of individual users who watch YouTube videos: “We seem to have a lot of stuff that your users want, and they’re paying you to get it to them. What will you pay us to pass this stuff efficiently over to you?” The ISP with the individual users might reply with a different point of view: “You’ve got a lot of stuff you want to send to our users, and your corporate customer is making money through advertising or subscription fees when our users access it. What will you and your corporate subscriber pay us to be able to reach our captive audience?” It’s an odd puzzle: both sides benefit from the transaction, so who should pay for it, given that there’s no baseline rule like “sender pays”?
In the past this dilemma between large ISPs has been resolved through peering arrangements that have amounted to simple handshakes: I’ll carry your traffic aimed at my subscribers if you carry mine aimed for yours, and we’ll call it even. Today those deals are more complicated, and their details are typically trade secrets. But we know this much: Verizon, like other broadband providers, already says to its customers: pay us more and we’ll give you faster Internet access. That’s not controversial. So should Verizon also be able to make a similar offer in the other direction, to faraway upstream content providers? Verizon could say to Google: regardless of what you pay your own ISP to get your bits launched on the Internet, pay us more and we’ll make sure your YouTube videos get to our subscribers all the more quickly as they come in for a landing.
Google might well be able to pay — and then leave poorer content providers behind. The next two guys who want to start, say, ShmouTube won’t be able to do it if they’ve got to negotiate business development deals with one ISP after another in order to reach those ISPs’ subscribers. And that’s the real danger: when each ISP can, in effect, speak on behalf of its unwitting subscribers, serving as the troll under the bridge offering up different conditions for access to them, the economics of the Net will start to favor the consolidated, the well-connected, the well-heeled. Verizon and Google each have reason to take the trouble to negotiate with one another to begin with — they’ve both big, and each can offer uniquely desirable benefits to the other. The generative power of the Internet is that it has offered a perch for anyone who wants to plant a flag in the ground. Set up www.mynewamazingwebsite.com, and people the world over can beat a path to it or not as they please. That represented a huge change from the proprietary consumer networks of the 1980s and 90s, where AOL or CompuServe got to say who could have a presence within their gated communities.
It may turn out to be too simple to have a blanket rule against ISPs charging faraway providers for access. There are even some outcomes that make that desirable for consumers — imagine if Internet access were free, with ISPs beating down your door to provide you with broadband, because if you choose them then they’ll get paid by Google et al. for the privilege of sending bits (and ads) to you. That’s a dubious outcome for a number of reasons, but it’s theoretically possible. But much more dangerous is if ISPs get to pick and choose: one deal for Google, another for the New York Times, a third for eBay, and no deal at all for mynewamazingwebsite. In a medium in which so many of the giants were yesterday’s scrappy upstarts — eBay, Google, even the Web itself — it would be a travesty to freeze out the next round of innovation from odd corners by deploying an impenetrable web of contracts and fees. That’s what I take to be at the core of Chairman Genachowski’s comment that “Any outcome, any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable.”
Update: More thoughts here.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:09 pm (#)
Jonathan, sorry, I think this post completely misses the point. The Facebook users were not objecting to the opacity of the modified TOS; they were objecting to the impact. Whether in plain English or in $700/hr NY lawyer English, the modified TOS was clearly an attempt to shift control of user-generated content (the photo, the status updates) from the user to the service provider. The bloggers focused on the removal of the account deletion provision in the original TOS, but more significant was the removal of the sentence at the beginning of the same paragraph that made clear that FB needs the license to enable service delivery, not to claim of the content. The modified TOS stood the original deal on its head. The FB folks figured that out. That — not “the party of the first part” — was the reason for the protest. I also happen to disagree that the “P2P” privacy violations are significant. As I’ve written elsewhere, with FB it’s all in the defaults. Throw a switch and it impacts the rights of millions of users. Cheers, Marc.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:27 pm (#)
No one expects Facebook to be run by anyone other than its management and private owners [...] but if the communities there are truly to flourish, perhaps it’s time to experiment with forms of self-governance.
You’re proposing a solution in search of a problem. According to your post, FB has 175,000,000 registered users. How many of those people actually would have deleted their accounts rather than submit to the new ToS? Sure, FB upset the people who make a living by paying attention to these things, and there were a bunch of people on Digg getting all pissy about it, but so what? I saw a report yesterday that the ToS protest group picked up about 10,000 FB members in the first day. Should FB really be concerned that 0.00057% of their userbase and a bunch of smarty-pants internet policy wonks objected to the new terms?
The value of the site is in its users- but that value inures entirely to the site’s owners. As long as the owners don’t drive away significant portions of their user base, they don’t have anything to worry about… and given the switching cost, where are 175 million people going to go?
February 18th, 2009 at 8:20 pm (#)
[...] For a full discussion of this issue by Jonathan Zittrain, see this post on his blog. [...]
February 18th, 2009 at 9:31 pm (#)
I can only applaud a law professor who openy whishes for more plainspeak. I would personally prefer (CC)-style pictograms — but everybody always neglects the illiterate Facebook users.
Thank you even more for pointing out that, once again, Facebook and its bunch of nerdy Californians are not the culprit: if they want anything stalky, they probably know where to find far savvier then my party plans. I have yet to come across an issue with Facebook that isn’t instantly resolved by a little honnesty and integreity towards either a close relative a significant other or your boss — and neither deserve anyless, with or without Internet.
What they *are* about to be guilty of, however, is re-shaping social relations by trying to make explicitely coherent the contradictions that Mark Z. indicated in his post. I can imagine only mostly cumbersome standards and little possible generativity out of there — and I’m afraid that the main thing I’m neglecting is Facebook’s employee ethnocentism.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:41 pm (#)
[...] Jonathan Zittrain has a nice post looking at longer-term implications of this particular storm, now that it has passed. Like me, JZ [...]
February 20th, 2009 at 12:20 am (#)
I just can’t believe they went back on their TOS change. People are dumb if they think they are getting any privacy from Facebook or Myspace. All they are doing is voluntarily supplying valuable info to huge marketing mills. Although there are ways to communicate with privacy: anonymous sites like http://www.anonboard.com
February 20th, 2009 at 6:33 am (#)
It seems fascinating that the “great evil” that is DRM suddenly becomes desirable in this context. The user wants to be able to upload their data and yet retain control over who can copy it, when they can “un-upload” it, and so on. Maybe DRM isn’t so bad after all: it’s just a case of who’s got the rights and who’s doing the management.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:07 am (#)
The post makes several points, the second of which seems most salient and which I almost entirely agree with (see my related post, written in ignorance of this one). I’m not certain that we need to analogize FB or similar things to a country, but governance is clearly the issue.
Marc is right that defaults are key, but that doesn’t mean that P2P privacy problems are (relatively) unimportant. P2P defaults matter, too. This case just didn’t happen to present that question.
February 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm (#)
Should we compare Facebook’s TOS to other similar SNSs to see on how Facebook would have been wider effects?
Shall we compare it to Myspace, Xanga, Bebo, Twitter, Fliker and who else?
- MySpace : users’ ownership but licence to Myspace for distributing etc… unless marked ‘private’ , After will cease distribution as soon as practicable,
“6. Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.
6.1 MySpace does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) that you post on or through the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain any such rights that you may have in your Content, subject to the limited license herein. By displaying or publishing (“posting”) any Content on or through the MySpace Services, you hereby grant to MySpace a limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on or through the MySpace Services, including without limitation distributing part or all of the MySpace Website in any media formats and through any media channels, except Content marked “private” will not be distributed outside the MySpace Website. This limited license does not grant MySpace the right to sell or otherwise distribute your Content outside of the MySpace Services. After you remove your Content from the MySpace Website we will cease distribution as soon as practicable, and at such time when distribution ceases, the license will terminate. If after we have distributed your Content outside the MySpace Website you change the Content’s privacy setting to “private,” we will cease distribution of such “private” Content outside the MySpace Website as soon as practicable after you make the change.
6.2 The license you grant to MySpace is non-exclusive (meaning you are free to license your Content to anyone else in addition to MySpace), fully-paid and royalty-free (meaning that MySpace is not required to pay you for the use on the MySpace Services of the Content that you post), sublicensable (so that MySpace is able to use its affiliates, subcontractors and other partners such as Internet content delivery networks and wireless carriers to provide the MySpace Services), and worldwide (because the Internet and the MySpace Services are global in reach).
………
6.4
…MySpace hereby grants you a limited, revocable, nonsublicensable license to reproduce and display the MySpace Content …”
…
– Xanga : Ownership of the content provider + temporary licence , content license ‘shall expire either immediately or upon termination of any promotional or marketing activities ongoing at the time’
“CONTENT SUBMITTED TO XANGA.COM
(This section refers to Content that you create)
You retain all ownership rights to your Content. Except for its ownership of the collection of all content on Xanga, as described below, Xanga does not claim ownership of any Content you publish in your area of the Website (�Your Xanga Site�).
When you publish your Content on Xanga, you grant Xanga a temporary license to �rebroadcast� it. ….
By publishing Content on Your Xanga Site you grant Xanga a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, distribute, transmit, publicly perform and publicly display the Content (as well as permit others – including without limitation Xanga�s co-brand, content and syndication partners – to do the same) solely for the following purposes:
* Displaying, distributing and promoting Your Xanga Site
* Promoting and marketing Xanga�s products and services and general operation of the Xanga Service
* Promoting and marketing the products and services of Xanga�s partners and affiliates
* Promoting and marketing products and services related to your Content.
This license exists only for as long as the Content remains published on Your Xanga Site and only for as long you remain a Xanga member, except that you grant Xanga a continuing perpetual license and right to maintain a copy of your Xanga Site and Content for archival purposes. This archival copy is not posted publicly on the Xanga system; it is maintained solely so that Xanga may recover content and restore accounts (in case of errors or system failure) or cooperate with law enforcement in order to make the Xanga service safer. Except for this license for archival use, in the event that you remove the Content from Your Xanga Site or in the event that your membership is terminated, this license shall expire either immediately or upon termination of any promotional or marketing activities ongoing at the time.
COPYRIGHT
Content created by Xanga or its suppliers
All content created by Xanga, its partners, or its suppliers and included on Xanga, such as text, logos, graphics, images, javascript code, HTML code, and other software, is the property of Xanga, Inc. (or its partners or suppliers) and protected by U.S. and international copyright and other intellectual property laws.
Compilations of Content
Notwithstanding the provisions outlined in �Content submitted to Xanga.com� above*, the collection of all Content on this site is a collective work under the U.S. copyright laws and is the exclusive property of Xanga and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. The Content and software on Xanga may be used as a homepage creation or web-surfing resource. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, display, or performance, of the Content on Xanga is strictly prohibited.
*Individual Contributors retain all ownership rights to their Content. Xanga does not claim ownership of any Content you publish on Your Xanga Site.”
……..
- BEBO : no ownership claimed + limited license clearly defines the after contract termination
“Proprietary Rights
Bebo does not claim any ownership rights in any Materials that you submit, post, or display on or through the Bebo Service. ……
you hereby grant to Bebo and its agents and assigns a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Materials solely in connection with the Bebo Service or the promotion thereof.
…
This license will terminate at the time you remove your Materials from the Bebo Service, except that you agree that the license will continue solely with respect to other Members’ continued use of your Materials that are not music or videos (i.e. photos or skins); provided, however if you remove any of the Materials from the Bebo Service, Bebo reserves the right to remove all of your Materials from other Member’s pages. The license does not grant Bebo the right to sell your Materials You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Materials posted by you on or through the Bebo Service or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) the posting of your Materials on or through the Bebo Service does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of any Materials posted by you to or through the Bebo Service. The hosting of certain items that you post, such as video, may require your agreement to a separate license agreement or terms of use.
Bebo, Inc. and its affiliates and licensors own and retain all rights in the Bebo Web site and Bebo Service, which contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws, …..
We take your privacy very seriously and collection and use of personal information is governed by our Privacy Policy. Click here to review the Bebo Privacy Policy.
Information collected in connection with your use of the Bebo Service may be processed and stored in the United States, or other countries where Bebo or its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries or service providers maintain facilities. If you live outside the United States and use Bebo, you expressly consent to the transfer to the United States of the personal information you provide Bebo, or such other countries as we may disclose from time to time. Additionally, you agree that we may use your Bebo user name to authenticate you on any service provided by Bebo or its affiliates.”
- TWITTER no ownership claimed + promise that all removed after at anytime
“Copyright (What’s Yours is Yours)
1. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any text and images you have stored in the system.
2. We encourage users to contribute their creations to the public domain or consider progressive licensing terms.
3…….”
All these examples shows how a free service accept little liability, the service take no any liability to maintain and could disappear or be swallow at any time.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:42 pm (#)
I think the switch by Facebook is just an extension of the current governmental information grab. Sure, they changed their policy back, but for how long and will they announce it the next time. They still have the clause about changing without notification.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:33 am (#)
[...] Facebook’s privacy storm :: The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 6:42 am (#)
[...] founder, Mark Zuckerberg, responded quickly – in plainspeak rather than legalese – and I credit his view that the changes in terms of service really weren’t meant to be a stealthy way of doing [...]