Facing Pressure Facebook Retracts Changes to Terms of Use

Facebook announced late last night that it would retract its recent changes to the Terms of Use for their users after gaining very public attention. Although the original announcement to make the changes came weeks ago, it was in the past few days that brought on a slew of complaints. Once again proving that consumers are very sensitive to how their data is being handled.

Sure enough, when I logged in this morning here’s the message being posted.



The big controversy surrounded wording that would grant the social-networking site the ability to own information collected forever, which would include users that cancel their accounts. Power to the people, public outcry still works to cause change. Some would say Facebook should have learned its lesson by now after what happened with its ‘Beacon’ fiasco at the end of 2007. The system designed to help users stay in touch with their friend’s interests turned into an online broadcasting system, sending transaction and browsing information from some 40 merchants that were included in the system.

Facebook has approximately 175 million users worldwide. Perhaps they should consider a more collaborative approach involving them in future changes if they want to keep them.