Face-Off: Voting Starts On Facebook's Terms Of Service
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Facebook has kicked off its plan to give members a bit more control over details (like the way it will use and store their data) with its first official vote: users can vote to keep the current Terms of Service plan or choose the new, crowd-sourced guidelines, dubbed Facebook Principals and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SSR). Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the vote on the company blog.
If users end up choosing the new Principals and SRR agreements (which were drawn up through town hall-style discussions on the site), then all future changes will go through the same community-style vetting process, with possible votes if proposed changes spark enough member comments. At least 30 percent of active Facebook users (meaning someone that has logged onto the site in the past 30 days) will need to participate for the results to be binding; voting runs through April 23 and will be tallied by an independent auditor. It's just the latest twist in Facebook's very public struggle to keep its members happy, while trying to make those members (and their data) more appealing for advertisers at the same time.
Photo Credit: whiteafrican
By Tameka Kee