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Thus far I am inclined to agree with J.F. Quackenbush’s thoughtful argument that this contretemps is somewhat overblown; all Facebook has really done is extend rights they have already claimed beyond the point which you delete your account. That’s somewhat unusual compared to other social networking sites, but Facebook’s TOS have always been unusually aggressive. I enjoy any story that brings weird TOSs to light, and if this pushes Facebook to adopt Creative Commons copyright options like Flickr, I’m all for it (Flickr’s use of CC has been a great boon to public understanding of the CC movement, and Facebook adopting such a transparent use of the system would only help). But right now I’m a little bit confused as to why this blow-up is occurring now. The news works in mysterious ways.
Update: Oh, nice catch at Mashable via a Consumerist commenter, theorizing that the change in TOS has to do with the new Facebook Connect: “the basic idea is that things you upload may end up residing on servers outside of Facebook’s direct control. These broad rights make it so that you can’t sue Facebook for some cached content on some other server….” Which is ironic, given that Facebook Connect is a step towards a more open Facebook.
