Katherine Lynch.org

cross-posted at my education blog, Drexel LibWebmaster

This past Sunday, an article on Consumerist.com brought to light a new aspect of Facebook's Terms of Use

"Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed 
an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the 
original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore. Now, 
anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way 
they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.  Want to close 
your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do 
whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense 
it if they want." -Chris Walters, Consumerist.com 

This article sparked such concern among Facebook users that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has actually come forward, issuing a statement meant to clarify these new terms of use:

"...if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, 
etc...), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you 
delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend)...Even if 
the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a 
copy of that message.  We think this is the right way for Facebook 
to work, and it is consistent with how other services like e-mail 
work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this 
more clear." - Mark Zuckerberg 

These new TOS seem to be clarifying the fact that, if you deactivate your account, there is no guarantee that all of the information you have put up on Facebook will go away with it. In many cases, things like messages, wall postings, photos, and virtual gifts remain on the site with only your profile no longer linked. Additionally, when a user has Facebook email notifications set, this sends a transcript of a message or wall posting to his/her email, creating another copy of the data. Essentially, Zuckerberg's claim is that nothing has changed about the privacy of your information on Facebook. Earlier Beacon concerns notwithstanding, it seems that Facebook is still not as close to self-awareness as these last few days have made users fear. The full transcript of the clarification can be found at the end of the Consumerist.com article and in this USA Today article.