Early this morning The Consumerist set off a flurry of online activity with an expose on Facebook Terms of Service changes.  The changes are best summed up by the post title:  "Facebook's New Terms Of Service:  "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content.  Forever."

MediaStyle.ca sent off a short set of questions to Anne Kathrine Yojana Petterøe creator of the fast-growing Facebook group: "People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)"  Ms. Petterøe, an Adobe SAP specialist, works at Pearl Consulting in Norway.

The Background

• The Consumerist blog post that starts the fury:  "Facebook's New Terms Of Service: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever."
• Amanda French provides a rundown of Facebook "TOS" compared to other online applications.
• Facebook's official response to the growing movement of unhappy users.
• UPDATE:  Facebook has also started a forum topic on this issue here.

The Interview

Question:  The new Facebook Terms of Service were released without much fanfare; as Paige Freeborn tweeted this morning:  "I must've missed the notification from FB advising that the TOS (terms of service) was changing and offering me the opportunity to remove my content #WTF".

When did you notice the terms of service change and how fast did you act?

Anne Kathrine Yojana Petterøe: On the train on my way to work today I saw this tweet from Valdis Krebs. I hadn't read anything about any changes to the TOS up until then and was surprised to see they were changed weeks ago and without anyone apparently noticing.  I did some initial research (reading the old and new TOS for instance) and set up the group on Facebook about an hour later.

Question: On February 5th, Facebook joined the Open ID Foundation board.  "Facebook's financial contribution along with its membership on the board signals the company's enthusiasm to work more closely with the Open ID community," said the post welcoming Facebook's Luke Shepard to the Open ID fold.  Some heralded this move as a new beginning for the company.  A major step forward; now less than two weeks later they seem to have taken two steps backwards.  What could they do to recover from this?

Answer: In my opinion they need to regain some trust with their users.  To the end-user, it doesn't matter much if Facebook is committed to Open ID or not.  What matters to them is what happens to their content, the pictures, links, and everything else they choose to share with their friends.  Facebook keeps stripping their users of the rights to their own content.  My boyfriend, for instance, is a musician and he has stopped sharing his music on Facebook because he has no idea what might happen to his music in a year or two from now.

Question: If Facebook refuses to change the Terms of Service; what are your next steps?  Will you abandon the platform?  Do you believe Facebook may suffer irreparable harm because of maneuvers like this one?

Answer: If they refuse to change the Terms of Service I will continue my crusade next time Facebook screws up.  We all know it will happen again sooner than later.

I will, however, not abandon the platform; I simply have too many friends there with whom I wouldn't have any contact otherwise.  I will, however, think twice before I upload images, share links, etc.  Maneuvers like this one do short-term harm, but I don't think users will abandon Facebook just because of this.  If anything, it just helps us to be more aware of what, how, and with whom we chose to share our content on the web.

Photo credit for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg.