Week 4 - Tutorial Task

Greetings!

I agree to the Terms and Conditions. This is perhaps the biggest lie when it comes to any website. It’s very rare that you will find someone who actually takes the time to read any website’s terms and conditions. And that’s where they get you. Not all websites are trying to screw you over, mostly it’s inconsequential things that are hidden in the walls of text that is the terms and conditions.

A site, for example, such as Facebook has terms and conditions that could, perhaps, shock some of its members. As most people refuse to bother reading the information, it would come as a surprise that the website states that it has complete ownership over all content posted. For example were someone to post an image on Facebook, that belonged to another person, that image would become property of Facebook.

Recently Facebook has been accused of being unethical as it sells user’s information to advertising companies. But Facebook is very clear about its policies. It is all stated on the website, if someone took the time to read it, how Facebook uses user information, under the heading of their Policy guide: 5. How We Use Your Information. By ticking the little box beside I agree to the Terms and Conditions, you are implying you understand all this information. So really Facebook isn’t at fault.

Of course it is up to the user to analyse the degree of privacy invasion there is on Facebook. Yes they have the ownership of all posts, but they give users every opportunity to control how much information they take. There is quite a lot under Privacy Settings that deals with this. There is also just the notion of not posting personal information on Facebook. If a user only posts information they are comfortable with others seeing then really it should be no big deal. 


 Facebook Terms and Conditions, http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/terms.php