The Fine Print – Do You Know the Terms You (Or Your Child) Agreed To?
When it comes to your privacy and ownership of your content, not all Web sites are created equal. Though few people enjoy reading the fine print, you may be surprised at how various services -- even within the same category of services -- do or do not respect your rights to your own content.
If you haven't read the fine print when signing up for services, take a look at these first two samples of Terms of Use associated with social networking companies and guess who they represent.
Who is Company 1?
Who is Company 2?
Company 1
If you guessed Facebook, you'd be correct. Facebook's Terms of Use give the company the right to take, reuse, and resell any of your content at any time -- even if you've deleted the content from its site. Seeing their terms shock most users who, when asked, frequently guess these are the terms behind MySpace when in fact the Terms of Use of MySpace are far more respectful of your information.
Company 2
If you guessed Terms of Service from Stickam you'd be correct. (If you aren't familiar with Stickam, it is social networking site based on a Web cam. Though this site can be used for entirely responsible purposes, a great deal of the activity consists of users soliciting others to expose themselves. Of particular concern is that Stickam's parent company, AVC, is a huge player in the Web cam pornography industry. In spite of this, it's somewhat humorous that Stickam claims not only worldwide rights to your content, but rights to use the content "throughout the universe."
MySpace
Though MySpace has the worst reputation of the three sites in most circles, their Terms of Use Agreement is far more respectful of consumer privacy than either Facebook or Stickam.
The sharp differences among these sites are not just a social networking phenomenon. You only have to check out the Terms of Use for a few gaming, dating, or even e-mail services to find equally dissimilar terms.
It may be boring to read this legalese, but it's worth your while to understand the terms that govern your use -- and your children's use – of these services.
Linda
13 Dec 2007
6/20/2008 LOOKBOTHWAYS LLC © All Rights Reserved 2008 1
Filed under General
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