1. OSP’S & OWNERSHIP OF USER-
CREATED CONTENT
The Facebook T.O.S. Scandal
Lara M. Ali
MBAA 609, Spring 2009

2. FACEBOOK
Online Service Provider (OSP)

 Social Networking Site that enables users to create
personal profiles and publish various types of
content
Public profiles viewable by everyone

 Private profiles viewable by restricted audience, which
user selects
175 million users

 Similar sites: Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter

3. FACEBOOK’S NEW TOS
February 4th, 2009 – Facebook changed its Terms

of Service.
It excluded previous language about the perpetuity

of user created content on its site.

4. FACEBOOK TOS - BACKLASH
Online blog “The Consumerist” noticed the quiet

change and launched a massive, Internet-wide
uproar against the new Terms
Next morning, EPIC filed a formal 25-page complaint

with the Federal Trade Commission
 Facebook Group was created the same day – “People
Against The New Terms of Service” – and was 90,000
members strong within hours
Two days later, Facebook reverted back to old TOS

in response to the uproar
 So, what was everyone complaining about?

5. FACEBOOK TOS – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
New TOS no longer promised that the use of

member content would “expire” once the user
deleted his/her account.
 Online community interpreted this to mean that
Facebook owns user’s personal information –
photos, music, emails- and can use it without
permission, for its own gain, forever.
 This causes two specific ethical problems:
Invasion of Privacy

 Copyright Infringement

6. ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDERS – ETHICAL
ISSUES
PRIVACY COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
Emails Intellectual Property is not
 
very well protected Online
Photographs

Publishers of creative content

Blogs

can be harmed b/c OSP can
Status updates

profit from use of their
Music
 music/writing/art/etc.
Videos
 “Non-exclusive” licensing


7. CURRENT OSP LANDSCAPE – COPYRIGHT
ISSUES
Most OSP’s Terms of Service focus heavily on

copyright concerns.
 “Non-exclusive” licenses
OSP does not have “exclusive” ownership of user

content
 But can still re-use it or keep it in public distribution
But these licenses limit the scope of the OSP’s use

of content – only things in connection with the
normal services it provides

8. CURRENT OSP LANDSCAPE – PERPETUAL
LICENSES
Most service providers claim perpetual use of

content
Google & Yahoo! Have perpetual licenses to non-

pictorial content
Claim they need perpetual use of content like

emails, photographs and videos because of
Copyright Law
Ex.) Email - Without a non-exclusive perpetual license,

after a user has deleted account, Facebook would have
to go into other users’ inboxes to delete every email that
user has sent – time consuming, impossible.

9. WEB 3.0 – ETHICAL DANGERS
Web 2.0 is successful because sites like Facebook

allow users to create their own custom service for
FREE.
Others like Google, Craigslist, Twitter, LinkedIn & Picasa

have this same model
Web 3.0 is where ethical missteps can happen.

MONETIZING millions of users who have grown

accustomed to free online experiences
 The reason for the Facebook TOS change is so that FB
could PROFIT from users by using their content.
 Other OSP’s will continue to find ways to do this that
may be underhanded.

10. CONCLUSION
OSP’s user base continues to grow and their need

to profit from these users will trump ethical
obligations
 Terms of Service are written with the ultimate goal
of protecting the OSP, but there are many grey
areas that will cause legal/ethical dilemmas
 Today’s legal environment does not clearly
delineate the rules of the game for IP on the Web
 FB scandal will happen again and again until laws
preclude them in the future