Facebook Asks for Feedback on New User Terms

Written by Nicole Ferraro

Thursday, February 26. 2009 at 05:35 PM EST Post a comment

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On a call today with reporters, in light of the recent hullaballoo over changes to its terms of service, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed two new documents for governing Facebook -- and tried to patch up any existing wounds by using the word "transparency" a few dozen times.

"The purpose of Facebook is to make the world more open and transparent by giving people the power to share information," said Zuckerberg. "As the service grows, openness and transparency aren't just [about] the end state of people sharing information and more information being available. It's also the process and way of getting there."

In the spirit of said transparency, Facebook has proposed two new documents: Facebook Principles and a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, both available on its About page and, in a shift away from standard practice, open to comments by users. Further, said Zuckerberg, should there be much dialogue or disagreement surrounding these and any document changes going forward, such changes will be put up for a vote.

"If we're trying to move the world toward being more open and transparent, then having an open process around this is the only way to do that," said Zuckerberg.

"The new documents do a lot more than address confusion. We try to be as clear as possible that we do not own user data, they own their data. We never really intended to give that impression, and we feel very bad that we did."

Uh. Yeah. Whoops, as they say...

While still somewhat apologetic for his site's sins, Zuckerberg firmly acknowledged that it isn't standard practice for any site to invite its users to comment or vote on its TOS, but that, considering its "relationship with its users," Facebook sees this as an opportunity for dialogue.

And so far it looks as if he's getting what he asked for...

To read on, see the full story on InternetEvolution.com.