Social Mode

Ok privacy and data is mine fanatics – get real!

Changing the TOS does nothing to protect your data or save it from misuse.  You already put it on the Internet.  Should you decide you don’t want your data on Facebook, there would be no possible way for Facebook to remove the data from the site without completely dismantling the service.  Even legally there’s nothing you can do.  When you send an email, who’s data is it?  when you query google, whose data is it? when you use your cell phone and leave a message, whose data is it? Browsing listings on your DirecTV, whose data is it?  If someone posts information about you to one of these services, who’s data is it?

Facebook was RIGHT to update the TOS to be an actual reflection of the reality of using web site.  Users want an older, useless TOS to make them feel better but the reality is no document can supercede the physical and literal reality of what happens with your data once you connect to anything.

Read Google’s TOS again.  Read WebMDs.  Read YouTubes and MySpaces.  You can find similar faults more or less with all of them.  On some level all of them get your data through your use and there’s always a way to wiggle the issues.

So… if you don’t want someone to have your data, don’t connect to the service.  Better yet, don’t interact with anyone at all who might connect to a service.

Sorry, this is the reality of the digital world.