Facebook won't sell your photos

Washington, Feb 18: Social-networking giant Facebook has attempted to clear the hysteria created after it made changes to its user Terms of Service (TOS).

A cry spread amongst the users after one blog's commentary claimed that the free-access website now held a perpetual license to use its members' uploaded content to promote itself or create or sell advertisements, even after their accounts had been deleted.

Consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist had dubbed the popular website's rephrased policy as "We Can Do Whatever We Want With Your Content. Forever."

However, a statement from Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt explained what the revision really meant.

"We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload," CBS quoted Barry as saying in a statement as saying.

"The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, 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)," he added.

It was further indicated that the site would respect the user's selected privacy settings, for example, if a member chose his uploaded content to be viewed only by people on his/her friends list, then Facebook was not allowed the right to show those photos to anyone outside the list.

ANI