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Facebook gets support for its latest TOS changes

Facebook, which allowed users to vote in favor or against the new terms of service (TOS) agreement on the site, will adopt the new changes even though the vote count wasn't very high.

Of the 200 million regular users on Facebook, around 666,000 users voted over the past seven days, with 75 percent of voters supporting the TOS modifications.  Facebook originally wanted 60 million total votes, but realized that wouldn't be feasible.

Even though the overall turnout was rather low, it's a step in the right direction -- Facebook and other online services could greatly benefit, and reduce controversy, when they open up public votes like this one.

"We are hopeful that there will be greater participation in future votes," Facebook legal chief Ted Ullyot said in a statement.

Before the new TOS is implemented, however, an outside auditor is verifying the vote results.  It's likely the new TOS will be adopted in the coming weeks, once the auditor has confirmed the vote results for Facebook.

Facebook first started altering the site's TOS in February, and the changes caused outrage among many users.  Learning from its critical mistake, Facebook executives promised to have a public vote the next time it decided to change TOS.

The February TOS change was worded so all content -- even if an account is deleted -- belongs to Facebook, but that has been changed in this most recent TOS agreement.  Users own their own posted content, but Facebook has the right to share the content through Facebook.

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When did we get to vote?
By Xerstead on 4/26/2009 4:57:06 PM , Rating: 5
I visit the Facebook site daily and have not seen any indication that they were planning on changing the ToS.
If they had made it clearer then more people may have voted. No message in my mailbox, no pop-up on the home page etc. No wonder they didn't get many votes.




RE: When did we get to vote?
By dflynchimp on 4/26/2009 5:03:16 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah, I didn't get any such notification, or if I did it was obscure enough that I just glazed right over it.

Maybe Facebook should impliment a site news-feed sort of system in addition to the user's personal news feeds and post the latest site updates/polls there.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By CheesePoofs on 4/26/2009 5:01:59 PM , Rating: 2
I had a giant pop-up thing on my homepage.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By murphyslabrat on 4/27/2009 1:27:07 AM , Rating: 2
what browser were you using? I was using Firefox, and never was notified at all.

My thought is that it could have been a pop-up that would have been blocked by a browser's protection, or it could have been specific to a single browser.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By DEMO24 on 4/27/2009 11:15:38 AM , Rating: 2
It was not a 'pop-up' that showed up. It was a yellow notification box above where you can put in "Whats on your mind". So no browser would have blocked that. It's more likely related to when you logged in, and perhaps how often you refreshed that page. Facebook tends to take awhile to get notifications like that rolled out. They really should have left it up longer. I got mine, but wasn't interested in reading it. Most people probably closed the box without really reading what it said.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By afkrotch on 4/27/2009 12:23:06 PM , Rating: 2
I use IE8 and it was part of the page itself, not a seperate popup. Right below the menu was the notification. I had to go further into Facebook to turn that off, after I voted.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By futrtrubl on 4/26/2009 5:23:03 PM , Rating: 3
I didn't get any notification either. Could it be they chose who to notify to vote?
I know I was vocal in my opposition to the old new TOS and voted via their app against the new layout. Perhaps a bit paranoid. While not illegal, they didn't have to ask us to begin with, it would be unethical.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By InternetGeek on 4/26/2009 6:52:06 PM , Rating: 2
They did put a note in the Profile/Home page... for just one day. Even though there's 200million users they managed to filter the voting base to the 'regulars who cared to vote'. IMO they should have had the note displayed for at least a week. Quite weird they are in such a rush to change the TOS.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By afkrotch on 4/27/2009 12:25:50 PM , Rating: 2
I don't even remember the new TOS, but I voted to keep the older one. It seemed to protect user content on their pages more, at least that's what I got out of it. It was in legal speak.


RE: When did we get to vote?
By stromgald30 on 4/27/2009 2:32:01 PM , Rating: 2
I remember seeing it. It was in a blue box at the top of the home page news feed. I didn't look into it because I didn't have the time to read the whole TOS at the time.

I'm surprised they did it so quickly. What they should've done is have it as a large pop-up that you had to close before using the site. That would be really annoying for a week, maybe two, but it would guarantee that more people would read it, or remember to read it after dismissing it the first time, which I didn't do.


Notification
By BusterBluth on 4/27/2009 12:18:37 AM , Rating: 2
As a facebook user who voted on the new TOS, I can definitely confirm that facebook put a notification about the vote on the homepage for at least several days. I saw it there even after I voted. There was a lot of reading involved though, which probably dissuaded most people who weren't incredibly bored at the time they saw it like I was...




RE: Notification
By hughlle on 4/27/2009 9:07:59 AM , Rating: 4
as a facebook user who logs in at least once a day, i can definately confirm that facebook didn't put a notification about the vote on my homepage..


.
By jay401 on 4/26/2009 5:35:36 PM , Rating: 3
I got the pop-up to vote, but I, like 99% of the other folks who got it, just closed it or ignored it, especially after a quick check to see how lengthy and dry was the content we were supposed to review.




RE: .
By BruceLeet on 4/26/2009 10:06:50 PM , Rating: 2
Short attention span FTW.


Link?
By MScrip on 4/26/2009 7:13:48 PM , Rating: 2
Is there a link to the new ToS?

All I can find are blogs talking about the new terms... I wanna see them!




Where is the new TOS?
By Etern205 on 4/26/2009 11:47:28 PM , Rating: 2
Even though I don't use Facebook (seriously), there are many I know who does and somehow on Facebook's site their TOS says its last revision was on September 23, 2008.




Beware the evil
By ggordonliddy on 4/27/2009 11:44:08 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
around 666 ,000 users voted


This is proof of the demon spawn we are dealing with. Bend your plowshares into swords my friends.

WHY THE HELL DOES THIS D@MN EDITOR FORCE A SPACE TO APPEAR AFTER ANY FORMATTING CHANGE?!!!




"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates











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