Facebook has been hitting the headlines recently as users are enraged, frustrated and disappointed by the ways in which the company handle the users’ data. Well — according to Facebook’s Terms of Use the data doesn’t really belong to the user but Facebook Inc., the company behind the site. Go and have a quick read through them if you don’t believe me; you may be surprised at what you find…

Let’s start with the basics. Facebook’s Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don’t keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook’s interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you’ll see, there’s no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.

(Source: Gizmodo.)

Since the privacy settings were overhauled last year (and the year before, probably the one before that too), the Terms of Use have been altered slightly, step-by-step, with more and more control over the user and their data. The virtual-social hub of millions of teenagers, twenty-somethings and even the Silver Surfer has arguably turned from networking-do-gooder to personal-all-knower.

Sound harsh? Step back a little: your data on Facebook is your name, photos, friends, what school/college/university you attended, when you were there, what you send via message or post to your friends, what the say back… everything on the publicly-available website. I think this video says it best.

I’ve started using a free alternative, Fossunet. It is much the same comparison to Facebook as identi.ca (Status.net) is to Twitter in the micro-blogging world; the former being an open platform providing the same, if not more, functionality. Okay, Fossunet isn’t as developed as Facebook quite yet, but it shows a lot of promise. One could argue that only third-party application developers is what is needed to make identi.ca really steal Twitter’s thunder.

The real difference between corporate entities and the more open alternative is this: your data should be your own. We have this freedom in the real world; for example, when we introduce ourselves to a fellow dog owner in the park, we don’t expect to take our photograph and staple it to every lamp-post in town. That may sound silly but if you put information on Facebook for your friends’ benefit, Facebook can do exactly that. Not very respectful unless you happen to be running in an election.

By using free and open alternatives to the ‘because everyone else is’ mainstream, we can each ensure we are treated on our own terms. If you don’t like how they treat you, fork off. (Forking is the term used when a free product is duplicated by another person/company and run alongside, on their own.) We are even free to license our own content and data as we see fit, with the option of reproducing the whole site for ourselves if they don’t agree. The two sites here are licensed under slightly differing Creative Commons licences, like many on-line projects and creative media. This entitles you to have a look at how they work, fiddle with them on your own should you so wish, and even launch one of your own. I implore everyone to take a critical look at the services they use and consider: is there a better alternative? (Maybe not just in ethics and freedom, but perhaps features or even price!)