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Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

snopes.com

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Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#71

Post by tantalor »

edanm wrote: post #60
ck2 wrote: post #8

That little thing (sometimes huge thing) people put at the end of their emails that "this is confidential" is also pointless as you cannot enter into a confidentiality agreement that way.

You're wrong. (IANAL). Let's say I'm a freelancer, and I enter into an NDA with company X. As part of the NDA, there is a definition of what exactly is the information that I need to keep confidential. Now, my lawyers will push for a definition which is very specific and very explicit . How? They'll want Company X to mark every piece of confidential information with some kind of "confidential" mark. This way, I know…

This point still stands,

> you cannot enter into a confidentiality agreement that way

In your example, the confidentiality agreement (NDA) exists prior to the email.

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#72

Post by daenz »

neotek wrote: post #69
daenz wrote: post #61

Random thought: When presented with a TOS to signup, if you could edit that TOS before clicking submit, is this similar to editing a contract before signing it?

If someone sent you a contract to sign, do you think you could scribble your own terms all over it and sign it and have that hold any weight? You can't unilaterally modify the terms of a contract, both parties have to sign and agree.

Right, which is why I'm asking what kind of limbo a modified TOS would place you in. Do they have to contact you directly agreeing to your modified version, and until then you're not allowed to use the service, even though you've been signed up?

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#73

Post by vavb »

rickmb wrote: post #38

As a citizen of the EU and a country with strong privacy protection, my privacy rights are protected by law, and neither Facebook's terms nor the fact that any other entity can collect certain information from Facebook negates that right. The claims by Snopes are equally false: whatever Facebook terms a user may have accepted whenever, they are trumped by the law. You can't give up your civil rights with single click…

There are two things that worry me about this post:

- that people think that they can change a contract just by saying something that the other party most likely never even read, which to me is like thinking that McDonalds will pay you $1000/hr to flip burgers just because you told your friends you'd like that wage

- that there seems to be no distinction between what is legal and what is enforceable. It doesn't really matter if what Facebook does in relation to user rights is legal or not, whether or not there is a pragmatically enforceable breach does. If Facebook did use their data in some way that the message forbids, how do these people think they're going to stop them? By showing them a wall post? At best it's going to be weeks of stress and/or thousands of dollars.

It's the same as if a bootstrapped startup has tried to defend their product with a patent. Sure you have a legal right, but how the hell are you going to enforce it if Google decide they want in?

Also: preventing citizens from contracting out of their legal rights would actually be a huge violation of the citizens rights and runs against the underlying principle of contract law in most jurisdictions - that two parties who've made an agreement freely should be bound be that agreement.

There is an assumption that you've read the terms and conditions when you signed up for Facebook and they don't really hide the fact that everything you do is more or less theirs. I don't really think you could say that you're induced into anything on it. You might get lucky in the right court with the right advocate, you might not.

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#74

Post by vavb »

aneth4 wrote: post #55
objclxt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't give up your civil rights with single click. Of course you can. Contracts can and do override a right enshrined in law. I can sign an agreement that gags me from talking about something, in which case I've given up my right to free speech (if you're in a country where such a right exists). You seem to be referring to the EU's Data Protection and privacy policies - there are explicit exemptions under the E…

EULAs are "contracts of adhesion": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contract... While they are not worthless, they are not nearly as binding or enforceable as your normal commercial contract. Standards vary and the jurisprudence is not clear, but indeed you "can't give up your civil rights with single click."

Not sure where you're from aneth, but in Commonwealth jurisdictions they definitely are binding. Any ambiguity is construed against the party that wrote the contract (which is the same in normal commercial contracts) and any unfairness is generally not allowed (same as normal consumer contracts).

The case law in Australia will enforce standard form contracts where the weaker party misunderstood terms that are not ambiguous. Facebook doesn't really have any ambiguity with their EULA. Failing to read the EULA probably isn't enough.

On a side note, nearly all insurance contracts are contracts of adhesion. It's usually a breach of utmost good faith (which doesn't come into play in normal consumer contracts) which will determine enforceability. Facebook only have to act with good faith, which they more or less do.

Edit: i'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, i've just picked up bits and pieces as I've gone :-)

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#75

Post by im3w1l »

dfxm12 wrote: post #2

The fact is that I'm not sure that people totally believe what they are doing will hold up in a court of law. The thought that it might and it is so easy to do, coupled with the herd mentality (all of their friends are doing it), make posting something like this seem to have no downside, but only upside. After all, wouldn't you hate to be the one rube whose privacy is invaded because you didn't simply post something…

[x]Only show important updates from this person.

This has solved all my problems with annoying updates

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#76

Post by aneth4 »

aneth4 wrote: post #55
objclxt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't give up your civil rights with single click. Of course you can. Contracts can and do override a right enshrined in law. I can sign an agreement that gags me from talking about something, in which case I've given up my right to free speech (if you're in a country where such a right exists). You seem to be referring to the EU's Data Protection and privacy policies - there are explicit exemptions under the E…

EULAs are "contracts of adhesion": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contract... While they are not worthless, they are not nearly as binding or enforceable as your normal commercial contract. Standards vary and the jurisprudence is not clear, but indeed you "can't give up your civil rights with single click."

vavb: you appear to be hellbanned

I am from the US, and that is certainly not the case here. Contracts of adhesion are relatively weak here.

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#77

Post by res0nat0r »

Directly from newsroom.fb.com:

Copyright Meme Spreading on Facebook:

There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users' information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.

http://newsroom.fb.com/Fact-Check

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#78

Post by code_duck »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #39
code_duck wrote: post #24

This is the third wave I've seen of this on facebook... at least it's better worded this time. This pretty much proves what many of us knew: the average person has absolutely no idea about copyright or TOS agreements, and what rights they have or are signing away.

I think it proves that people will post any copy pasted message you ask them to. Its like those chain emails from back in the day except even more pointless.

True, I suppose people pasting the ridiculous chain letter style 'post this to 9 statuses tonight or u will hae bad luck for 10 weeks' posts don't necessarily believe they are averting poor fortune.

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#79

Post by quinndupont »

rmc wrote: post #32
pixelcort wrote: post #9

This reminds me of the "No copyright intended" quote people would put on YouTube videos.

That phenomenon is actual quite interesting. It shows that lots of people have one view of what is right & wrong, and think that copyright is what they think is right. People think there is nothing wrong with uploading a video of them dancing in a funny way to a popular song if you don't claim the song is yours and youre not making money off it. Thus they think its not against copyright to do that. The law has a diff…

"The fact that lots of people have a different interpretation of what counts as unethical use might mean the law will change" -- we can dream, can't we?

But, you're right, in a perfect world, ethics and law would correspond. But, not in this world.

Re: Posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not protect your privacy rights

#80

Post by [deleted] »

aneth4 wrote: post #76
aneth4 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EULAs are "contracts of adhesion": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contract... While they are not worthless, they are not nearly as binding or enforceable as your normal commercial contract. Standards vary and the jurisprudence is not clear, but indeed you "can't give up your civil rights with single click."

vavb: you appear to be hellbanned I am from the US, and that is certainly not the case here. Contracts of adhesion are relatively weak here.

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