Facebook forced to revert to old terms of service

Facebook has reversed its decision about the retention of people’s personal data once they deactivate their account; for now.

The U-turn was forced on the social networking site after a flood of complaints as users rebelled against the recently revised terms of service.

Originally, when a user deactivated their account, Facebook allowed them to delete all of their uploaded content; all that was kept were archived copies. That clause disappeared on 4 February.

People feared this revision would allow the social networking site to keep and use people’s messages, photos and other content for marketing and advertising purposes; even if a person had deactivated their Facebook account and profile.

Such was the anger and concern from users, that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder was forced to retrench. He posted an update in the Facebook blog. He said the company was reverting immediately to the old terms of service- for the time being.

“Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised...We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now,” he said.

The company also apologised and said that it realised its terms were too formal, broad, unclear and had caused confusion. It stated that it “won't use the information you share on Facebook for anything you haven't asked us to.”

It said it would now take a new approach to revising the terms and “Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms”.

It has launched a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group on the site to enable users to discuss the terms of use and make suggestions.