Fight the Facebook Scam

Vouliagmeni, February 18, 2009 by Yorgo Nestoridis, YORGOO Publishing

Facebook steals your name, your intellectual property, your identity, your bio, your pictures, your private data and exchanges, your relations, your friends and your work.

When Facebook changed quietly its Terms and Conditions a few days ago, my worst nightmare became reality: once more Facebook proves its ambitions to enter history of Modern Gangsterism.

While kids downloading a few protected mp3 files get punished, Facebook takes control and grabs the rights to content created by some 100 Million people, and they think they will get away with it.

I tell you: for as long as I have a voice on the Internet, I will do everything in my power to cross Facebook's drive to abuse of Internet users. Facebook, you are harming the reputation of the Internet all together, you are harming the market place and the reputation of the web!

The Facts

The Privacy Statement of Facebook includes the following:

"You post User Content (as defined in the Facebook Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content."

The Terms of Use state:

"All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved."

And:

"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. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time."

Here you you have it, and worst, not only are you granting all rights to Facebook but also you allow them to sublicense, in other terms sell your content to whom ever it may concern. (By the way, can you see the contradiction between the Terms and the Privacy statement?)

The Effects

 

Basically you are giving up your rights to your content, and even if you close your account with Facebook, your login will be disabled, the content remains … with Facebook and all licenses granted remain in place. The above clauses apply also to users who have closed their accounts before the modifications of the terms! Retro-active changes of terms are illegal in most jurisdictions of the civilized world.

 

Your Problem

For years I have been warning about the dangers inherent to online publishing of private  and other content, namely in connection with Second Live, MySpace and Facebook, Twitter and all the rest of the crowd. These sites have become the most popular hang-out places for large parties of the population of many countries.

Your real reputation is at stake! Human resources managers look you up on Google and Social Networks when you apply for a Job, people judge you on the first impression they get from your online Image or reputation and according to the semantics used by Facebook, you are not anymore in control of your data, image and ultimately your dignity as the case may be.

Facebook's Problem

This is the second major attempt by Facebook to steal your privacy, your Contacts and your relations in 2 years: remember my violent Article when in late 2007 Facebook tried to send in your name and without your consent, advertising to your contacts? A legal case put an end to that fraudulent behavior, however since then Facebook has adopted a sneaky, sly way of catching you anyway: most people trust Facebook and click "Yes" when Facebook offers a new "feature". (Check out the Facebook advertising program.)

However there is a major problem arising for Facebook: Facebook is collecting huge amounts of data (we have been talking about the problem earlier) about you, your preferences (from sexual to commercial), your behavior, your relations and contacts, your habits, surf history and much more.

The collection of such data may be illegal in some countries, unless you authorize Facebook to collect such data. But who actually reads the terms?

Yes, most people are unaware of what the deal really is:

Facebook lets you use their platform for free (there is no free lunch) in exchange for the content you create and the rights associated with such content. By selling the company or or parts of it, they are actually selling your user account, your content and the data stored in their data base. The Share value of Facebook is YOU, just you won't ever get a shine of a dime out of that, nor have you any claim for as long as Facebook has your approval and all the rights as per Terms.

Facebook gets the traffic, the Page Ranking, the share price only because of YOU! And if Facebook does not protect itself by getting the necessary licenses, prporiety rights, they expose them-selves to legal action. Worse for them, investors and shareholders will notice, that Facebook, like other social networks, has actually no own substance, except the one stolen from the users of the platform.

Facebook tries to "legalize" its fraudulent as the case may be and certainly unethical business.

What's in for you?

 

 

Facebook is an attractive idea and website and for most users it's an easy way to profit from the advantages of the Internet at no financial cost. Most consumers are money driven and the word FREE always attracts uncritical consumers. Facebook is a great place to link up with your friends, family members and to build contacts for the exchange of thoughts, pictures other media of common interest.

 

What's the real Price?

Facebooks advantages have their price as you can see above. Is the deal a good one? I am not so sure about that, considering that you give up more than a few bucks a website under your control would cost you, you give up your content, creations, traffic, marketing power and in many cases your dignity.

When a person sells its body for money, we call it prostitution and there is a viable business model behind it. What do you call it when you GIVE AWAY your dignity without getting paid and the person grabbing your dignity and work does not pay you for it? One is the Pimp, we know; what is the other part of the deal called? -  For the purpose of this article let's call that other part "YOU"! And you are in good company with over 100 million other YOUs. I hope this makes you feel better.

What can you do about it?

Deleting your content and closing your account with Facebook won't change a big deal as they keep your content and the rights.

Join Discussion Groups at Facebook and other social networks you may be associated with and post this article  and let people discuss it.

Write your comments about this article to your blog or wall and link back to this article; let's create a heck of a buzz about the issue and help others who feel about this issue as we do.

Do some research in your country and check out how illegal Facebooks terms are when it comes to protecting privacy, retro-active modifications of terms and the fact that you cannot get deleted completely from Facebook even upon your request. Then start writing about it and build pressure against Facebook.

Ask your Government for help: Facebook has grown to a hyper power, having built better data bases than Governments, being thus able to influence large parts of the Population. It may well be of public interest to stop Facebook from expanding and abusing of you and the other 10% - 50% of the population of your country. (Here in Greece over 10% of the population have a Facebook account, in Switzerland, a population of 7,5 million counts about 1 million of accounts, that is about 14% and there are countries where it approaches the 50% level.

When China blocks parts of Google, your Country can block Facebook. It is of public interest in view of the size and power of Facebook to stop the Gangsterism right now.

Take your responsibility and and grow up: there is no free lunch. For $35 per year you can have your own website, blog, server, stream media, write poems and publish content as much as you want without Facebooks restrictions, filters and all the nonsense they associate you with. get in control of your Name online, your Image and your Creations, you don't need an online Pimp!

Yes You Can!

 

 

 

 

Abandon Facebook and the crowd of Social Networks all together and join Serious Places: yes, there are serious platforms out there who give you full credit for your work, your identity and for your name brand or brand name: YORGOO is one of these places where you are in the highlight and where you learn how to build your online name, reputation and how to keep your dignity while staying in control of your activity. Post your online Profile to Cashflowin.com and join online Seminars and free daily calls from YORGOO - Ycademy to learn how the Internet can serve you instead of you serving the Internet and some greedy, power hungry 21st century virtual bandits exercising high-tech Gangsterism.

The light at the end of the tunnel:

Facebook and other Social Networks have grown to multi-billion enterprises, exploiting the unpaid work of their respective communities. Good old Abraham Lincoln must wonder what's happening these days down here on earth. There is a difference however with the earlier forms of slavery: you are free to quit Facebook and so are all users. Facebook is advertising driven and therefore: no users no ads and no cash in the kitty: as fast as they have grown, as fast they can disappear if Consumer mood changes, and it may well change when people become aware that every time a Facebook Share is sold, a part of you is sold and someone (else) is cashing in on it.

It is therefore my hope and expectation, that in the end of the day the users will decide … finally they are not as foolish as Facebook may think and the day will come when Facebook management will grow up and recognize that only ethical business will survive.

Probably it does not matter to Facebook's management to lose a few million of users because of the change of terms; well, they are wrong and believe me, you will see the impact on the share price as well … sooner and heftier than they may have anticipated.

 

Yorgo Nestoridis

YORGOO Publishing

YORGOO and related Sites and Programs are free of Advertising. YORGOO is the largest Independent Networkonline where the Users are in the Center and in Control of developments.