Facebook Privacy – Just a Hoax? You may have come across a particularly legal looking block of text that is doing the rounds on Facebook recently with regards to users’ privacy. It claims that users should post a note to their pages stating that their content is private and that this will protect it from being used by Facebook and their business partners. This ‘meme’ has gone viral, reflecting Facebook users’ concerns that Facebook may use their photos, status updates, location and other personal data against their wishes. [1] It is the ‘meme’ legally binding or just a hoax? Whilst the terminology used in the viral meme may seem legal and ‘correct’, it is more akin to a chain letter than a formal legal notice. We examine why below. The Legal Authorities The meme refers to three authorities: the UCC, the Berne Convention and the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute is a treaty related to the International Criminal Court and apart from the fact that the United States did not sign the treaty and Facebook is based in the US, it is not relevant to the commercial sphere, and therefore not at all relevant to your Facebook posts. Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) The UCC’s purpose is to simplify laws relating to international commercial agreements. The meme mentions UCC s1-308, which states that you do not give up rights you have already kept for yourself just because you have accepted a contract. Facebook’s Terms & Conditions are a contract that you agree to simply by signing up and using the service. However, in this contract, Facebook users have not explicitly reserved any rights and cannot retroactively invoke them. Section 1-308 of the UCC only applies when someone has explicitly reserved a particular right. The Berne Convention The Berne Convention is the name of an international agreement that seeks to streamline Copyright/Intellectual Property laws across jurisdictions. It seeks to protect artists and generators of original content from having to compete with copies of their work in the marketplace. It does not, therefore, protect the privacy of your personal data on social media such as Facebook as licensing your content to Facebook is contractual. So, despite the fact that the laws mentioned in the meme are not relevant, does the rest of the text do anything to prevent Facebook from using your content? To find out we must look at the nature of your relationship with Facebook and those dreaded Terms & Conditions. Facebook as a contract? When you sign up to Facebook and begin to use the platform, you are agreeing to a set of terms and conditions, which form an agreement between yourself and Facebook. Included in these are two important clauses: (a) You remain the owner of all your content; and (b) You agree to give Facebook permission to use your content and personal data. Don’t panic! Whilst you are allowing Facebook to use your content and data as they wish, the wording of the clause is important. Facebook clearly states that it can use your content ‘subject to your privacy and application settings’. What this means is that if you limit your privacy settings this in turn place limits on Facebook’s ability to use your data. It is only when your content and data is set to ‘Public’ that Facebook has a much wider license to use your content. To reiterate, you retain ownership of your content due to Facebook’s Terms & Conditions, even though, depending on your privacy settings, you give Facebook license to use your content and data. A licence is the permission to use your information and content for a period of time, in this case, until you delete your account. Further, Facebook have recently taken the step of fact checking the meme and released the following statement: There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been. So, what can Facebook do with your data? In theory, Facebook can take photos, notes, status updates and films that you have uploaded and shared as ‘public’. They can take your personal details and keep them until you delete your account, and they can use these details to locate you, send you advertising relevant to your location and interests, and to share with their business partners (once your name or other personally identifying information has been removed). What does this mean for personal information of Facebook users? If you use Facebook, you have agreed to these terms and conditions and to the data use policy. Facebook can alter this agreement but they must notify you of any changes. You cannot retrospectively alter your agreement with Facebook by posting a contrary notice on your page. Snopes suggest four possible options if you do not agree with Facebook’s policies: 1. Decline to sign up to Facebook (anyone out there without an account??); 2. Bilaterally negotiate a modified policy with Facebook (realistically, Facebook are unlikely to begin negotiating a contract separately with each one of the estimated 8 million users); 3. Lobby for Facebook to amend their policies through Facebook’s Facebook Site Governance section; or 4. Cancel your Facebook account (bearing in mind that your content may still be available if it was shared to ‘Public’ which Facebook define as ‘Everyone’). What can you do? What you can do is to be prudent about what you post and who can see it. If you keep your privacy controls tight, post only to friends and networks, use secure browsing and never post to the ‘Public’, Facebook will have to view the information as ‘not public’ and this places some limitation on its use. [1] For those who are unaware, a meme is “an element of a culture or behaviour that may be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation, or, an image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another.” © 2012, Studio Legal, Entertainment, Intellectual Property and Commercial Lawyers. This entry was posted in Top Legal Tips and tagged entertainment law, entertainment lawyers, Facebook, Facebook copyright scam, IP lawyers, legal advice, legal advice music industry, music industry lawyers, music law, music lawyers australia, music lawyers melbourne, privacy. by Jennifer. Bookmark the permalink.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:13:05 +0000