Protect our privacy.!!!!

It's a nice thought to let people vote, but you kind of have to tell them about it.

We don't think that's entirely unreasonable"

I disagree entirely.

The vote was not publicized by Facebook. Unless you were a member of the group drafting the new TOS, or follow sites such as this one regularly, how is a Facebook User to know that this vote is going on?

Until last night -- when I logged on before bed -- there was nothing on Facebook to tell me there was a vote. Voting closes today, so presumably that means that I am expected to log on to Facebook this evening, thoroughly review the options, and vote accordingly.

What percentage of active users logged on this week?
How many of them were informed of the vote?
How many of them were informed in a manner that was sufficiently timely to allow them to cast an informed vote?

Facebook is trying to make themselves appear to be listening, but doing their best to ensure that the vote is not binding. It's dishonest of them.

But it would be very easy for them to send people an e-mail reminding them to vote.

Thanks for summing it up; I did read the terms, not thoroughly, but well enough to get a better understanding.

@ShadowWylde: I just showed up today for me.

I find it interesting that in the last 24 hours, over 135,000 new votes have been cast compared to it taking 5 days to reach 300,000

Also, the vote doesn't need to reach 30% to be "valid". It needs to be 30% to be binding. Up to that point it is advisory and one of the reasons for us to hold it was to find out what users think and to take that opinion into account, even if we're not required to follow it.

I hope that helps.

RT
www.privacy.pro.tc

That is NOT what is says. It says you information is dumped to backups, but that is not where their license stops. To quote the new TOS:

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account (except to the extent your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it)."

Where does that scope their license to only using your information for backups?

That said, I think they probably could do a better job of nudging people to vote. I think the only notification outside of the Facebook Governance Page was a moderately-sized text notice at the top of the news feed when you logged in about a week or so ago. Sadly, walls of text don't motivate people to vote.

But, if you're reading this, you have no excuse. Go vote! =P

[i634.photobucket.com]

You stay classy, Facebook!

@SherardMioli:

Ditto!

I looked and couldn't figure out where to vote. I was, however, able to take a quiz to find out "Which Douche Scent Are You?" SO I feel like it wasn't a completely wasted effort.

BTW - I am Creamed Herring.

OK, poor-taste jokes aside, prosecutors go WAY overboard with the charge, as noted above. They're also wildly homophobic about it (comparing m/f & m/m and f/f PDAs).

So yeah, I'm leery too.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, Facebook policy is on the low end of the priority spectrum for most people, but I think that there would be more than 327,000 votes if they'd, maybe, like, told people. Maybe I'm stupid and missed the gigantic VOTE NOW banner ad, but whatever they did clearly wasn't sufficient.

I did vote for the new TOS though. Thanks for the heads up Consumerist.

I would go so far to argue that the best way to "vote with your feet" is to create more accounts at Facebook rather than leaving them per se. Let them deal with the added expenses.

The fun begins!!!

* Being bullied into pleading no contest for downloading and not looking at porn.
* Chastising a child for running into the middle of the street while their mother is talking on their cell phone.
* Urinating outside at a college party.
* Being a high-school student and playing a prank involving nudity or sending naked pictures of yourself ("sexting")

There are so many ways to become a sex offender now that it's ruining normal people's lives and losing it's stigma. In a few years it will be a rite of passage.

Still, I have voted. They're up to ~325k now.

I just stick to LJ (which is no angel), and Twitter.

I also changed my status to reference it and posted a note explaining why the vote was important.

Maybe this will work: [www.new.facebook.com]

@ShadowWylde: That's certainly not there on my page, and I ussually read those notices because it knocks the normal layout down a bit.

Since I check facebook at least once a day, I think I would have remembered seeing it. Facebook really hasn't been making this vote very public. I wouldn't have known about it at all if I hadn't seen it here.

Be interesting to see if the next thing to come up is massive backlash about lack of letting users know about this vote.

What planet do you live on skippy? The TOS is a contract and they have an obligation to inform you of changes, especially changes that affect your IP rights.

Probably because they don't want people to vote.

@OrlenaDawli:
The TOS does away with Mandatory Binding Arbitration which is right there a win, although I have to wonder if there isn't some sort of gotcha, as the venue required for suing them was moved...perhaps the new venue always makes plaintiffs go through arbitration before letting them go to court?

I voted for the old version.

The new version, while better formatted, contained too many cruel or unusual restrictions, such as:

"3.6 You will not post content that is [...] pornographic, or that contains nudity [...]."

I do not understand why they ban nudity, especially after banning pornography. The unclothed body is a natural work of art that is found throughout human culture.

Also: "Contains nudity" is fairly open to interpretation. If I post a picture of myself wearing only a loincloth, is that "nudity"?

"4.1 You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook [...]"

Suddenly, we go from the "no impersonation" standard to the "no false information" standard. The "false personal information" standard is a fairly broad term that could mean anything from impersonating another user to using an expired email account to saying that you like "golf" when you really hate the sport. Using Facebook should not be the equivalent of testifying under oath.

"4.4 You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender."

Once again, we assume that every sex offender must be a sex predator. However, this rule bans people convicted of non predatory offenses such as public urination.

"12.4 We can make changes for legal or administrative reasons upon notice without opportunity to comment."

They can still change this agreement at Facebook's sole discretion. Business as usual.

Not to mention the instances of 18 year olds getting arrested for having sex with their 16-17 year old boy/girlfriends.

Don't use, don't care.

Pecan, I was referring SPECIFICALLY to what Kaster's second paragraph mentioned, in my usual caustic sarcastic tone. Yeah, there are the child molesters etc. ad nauseam, then there are the He's 18 She's 16 or the teenagers sending themselves naked pictures who wind up on the exact same registry with the exact same fallout as your molester or rapist. I definitely am in the camp to fix those laws.

I guess it would be easier to delineate between case a and case b if Facebook was still for schoolgoers only, but w/e.

I voted, but if they're looking for 30%, they aren't going to get it if someone like me who is on there several times daily hadn't noticed it.

[digg.com]

That's the message I got.

Vote on Facebook's Governing Documents
We've revised the two new documents we proposed to govern the site, the Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, based on your feedback. Now, we want you to vote for the system of governance you think is best. Voting will close on April 23 at 11:59am PDT. Visit the Facebook Site Governance application to learn more, read the documents, and vote.

I did, however, have a problem when I tried to vote. I got an error message that said they were still trying to fix the bugs or something. I tried again today and it worked fine.

The number that Facebook publishes (200 million active users) is the number of users active in the last 30 days. So they want 30% of 200 million.

If anyone "votes with their feet," it will be such an insignificant number of users that won't have any real effect.

"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

The new one at least mentions users being able to control their content with privacy settings. Another thing in the old TOS, but not in the new one is mandatory binding arbitration. While I don't think I would ever be in a position to be really damaged by Facebook, it's nice to know I can take them to court.... in California. The only thing that bothers me about the new TOS is:

"10.3 You understand that we may not always identify paid services and communications as such."

Overall the new TOS seems less restrictive to the user (with an added bonus of reduced legalese), despite the loopholes and section 10.3.

I think the *real* vote will be with people's feet - away from Facebook if they screw up again. They need only put themselves in the user's shoes and give their TOS the smell test. This fad of sites changing their TOS "contracts" like taking a daily dump should be reexamined. I don't want to play lawyer and peruse multiple contracts daily to discover and interpret the fine print, and I doubt few others do either.

Hey, maybe this is why the turn out is so low.

But since they do have tens of millions of e-mail addresses, why didn't they send people a notification to come out and vote?

I be disenfranchised.

How ever it goes the vote will NOT be close because if it was it could be open to debate and discussion. This would of course force Facebook to open its 'books', revealing the actual number of members, visits, views, etc.

Facebook's out of this world valuation(s) would melt away in the warm sunlight of documented fact.

Um, yes, yes it is. When you have a facebook account, you have entered into a contract with the company that owns the site agree to do and not do certain things and in return they will do and not do certain things as well. Now, Facebook is free to put whatever they so choose in those terms and change them whenever they get the notion BUT IT IS THEIR LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY to inform everyone with an account or that contract isn't valid.

If it were a mortgage or a loan, would you be OK with them just asking for a signature and not giving you the opportunity to read the document because "it isn't their job to inform [you] of all the normal legal stuff"?

Granted, informing the users and actually making them read and comprehend it is a whole different ballgame, of course. I what you say about the voting is more often than not true.

@ZekeSulastin: In many cases, it would violate their parole/terms of release/etc.

This is just a dog and pony show so they can say "hey, we gave you the chance to vote but no one did, so obviously they didn't care about the TOS."

There are more important issues out there. That said, I think this just goes to show you that most folks on the internet would rather complain than actually do something. Or that all the Facebook TOS hoopla was blown way out of proportion.

Personally, this is the first I'd heard about it.

@RB_Bhoy: Considering I've seen users with hundreds of friends with completely random, gibberish names, yeah. I'm going to have to call bullshit on the "active in last month" metric.

Now, if you want to discuss changing the sex offender laws insofar as they are unfair to first-time, mild offenders (he's 18, she's 16, whoops!), I'm totally with you. :)

This is why companies dont ask for users opionions a lot of the time. It is becasue most users are too uninformed and uneducated to make an educated vote, so they end up voting for whatever they think is popular. And no, it is not the websites job to inform users of all the normal legal stuff they include in the TOS.

How can Facebook users vote if Facebook isn't informing their users about the vote.

What a load of crap!!!

this is not going to pass becasue everyone only gave a crap while it was cool to give a crap. very few people actually care about this.

Right, because being a registered sex offender means you are a horrible perverted boil upon society assuredly using the service only to further your corruptive desires.

I'm abstaining from this vote.

i put a guitar, car, and a half dozen schoolbooks up there at different times and would get like 10+ messages a day from some shithead trying to scam me into sending them my item for free or giving them all my personal info. it was always the same message, same typos, same grammar...just different names from all over the US and canada.