Facebook opens Ts & Cs to users

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 27 Feb 2009 at 09:02

Facebook will allow its users to participate in deciding the site's policies, as it looks to defuse recent criticism of its terms and conditions.

"The conventional business practices around a Terms of Use document are just too restrictive... We decided we needed to do things differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way," says Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook blog.

In an effort to accomplish this Zuckerberg says the company will be publishing two documents: "The first is the Facebook Principles, which defines your rights and will serve as the guiding framework behind any policy we'll consider, or the reason we won't consider others. The second document is the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which will replace the existing Terms of Use."

Zuckerberg claims both documents have been drafted in plain English and will be posted on the site so that users can review, comment and vote for them over the next 30 days. The documents will then be amended accordingly.

"As people share more information on services like Facebook, a new relationship is created between internet companies and the people they serve," says Zuckerberg.

"The past week reminded us that users feel a real sense of ownership over Facebook itself, not just the information they share."