This is a guest post by Ashley over at BossSanders.com.  These are her thoughts on the things going on over at Facebook right now.  Make sure to add her to your follow list on Twitter. @bosssanders

There’s been quite a buzz lately in the blogosphere since Facebook updated their Terms of Service, giving them the right to use your stuff and publish it later:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

What’s more is that even if you remove your personal things now (or at any time), they can still use your information for years to come (as stated in the “Termination” section):

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

Although it’s doubtful that Facebook is indeed on a quest for world domination, and their new TOS is more likely just a fancy bunch of legal wording to help save their hides in the case of a lawsuit, many bloggers have found themselves questioning how secure their content really is on not only social networking sites like Facebook, but on the internet in general.   In fact, many bloggers – uncomfortable with the idea of anyone else “owning” their photographs, blog posts, and anything else – have already began deleting their Facebook profiles, or at least deleting parts of them.

The simple truth is, when you upload any information on the internet you are giving others the opportunity to use your “stuff” – whether you like it or not.  For example, by simply uploading a photograph online you are giving others the opportunity to download that photograph and then send it to anyone they want.  Furthermore, that same photograph could end up passing through thousands of hands and even edited to look completely different, and you have no control over any of it.

Facebook Tries To Clarify The TOS

Facebook, while probably not the most articulate bunch, has gone on to explain further their new TOS, hoping to put users a little more at ease:

Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. When a person shares information on Facebook, they first need to grant Facebook a license to use that information so that we can show it to the other people they’ve asked us to share it with. Without this license, we couldn’t help people share that information.

They go on to say:

In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.

We still have work to do to communicate more clearly about these issues, and our terms are one example of this. Our philosophy that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant. A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you. Over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler.

Still, the interesting thing about this change in our terms is that it highlights the importance of these issues and their complexity. People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them—like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on—to other services and grant those services access to those people’s information. These two positions are at odds with each other. There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with.

So, while it’s highly unlikely that Facebook intends to use your content and posts to re-publish in ways you wouldn’t approve of or to the mass population with no recompense to you, it’s still important to understand that by joining such networks you are giving permission to do just that.  In fact, if you look closely at the TOS on most social networking websites, you’ll realize fairly quickly that the legal jargon Facebook used was pretty standard – someone just happened to notice and people began freaking out.

All in all – I’d say that as long as you use some caution as to what and when you post, you should be fine.  Just understand that the internet as a whole is basically a large database and once your information is put “out there,” you can’t really control where it goes or what’s done with it.  On the flip-side, most folks aren’t really out to steal your stuff, and most social networks aren’t looking to steal your information so they can profit from your demise – But, then again Facebook could be a leather-clad super-villain ready to send you to the pits of despair.  What do I know?  I’m just a blogger.

What are your thoughts on Facebook’s new Terms of Service?