Facebook: Uh, Never Mind That Last Update

Privacy protests result in a swift U-turn on terms of service
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 18, 2009 6:04 AM CST
Facebook: Uh, Never Mind That Last Update
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg participates in a plenary session at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 30, 2009.    (AP Photo/KEYSTONE/Peter Klaunzer)

Facebook has done an about-face and withdrawn its new terms of service following a public outcry, CNET reports. The fine-print update appeared to give the site perpetual rights to users' content, prompting threats of a federal complaint from a major privacy watchdog and mass desertion from tens of thousands of users.

"We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post yesterday. Zuckerberg said the company was busy drafting an updated, clearly written terms of service agreement that would sync with the "principles and values" of Facebook users, and he promised that they would be given plenty of input. (More Facebook stories.)

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