Facebook U-Turn Returns Little Power to Users - February 19, 2009 By Colin Barras New Scientist February 19, 2009 "Facebook has been at the centre of a media storm this week after a blog noticed the company's terms and conditions had been altered to let it sell or share the data of users that have closed their accounts. "After outraged use[r and media criticism exploded, and civil liberties campaigners threatened legal action], Facebook ... reinstated the original phrasing. ... But in terms of the power it holds over users' data, Facebook has actually lost very little. [ ... ] "The site's terms and conditions have always granted the company a licence to 'use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute' any user content, 'for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise'. "'Basically they have always grabbed all your data, now it just means you don't "get it back" if you delete your profile,' ... says Lilian Edwards, a specialist in Internet Law at the University of Sheffield. ... 'But that's pretty meaningless as, once your data's got to third parties, it's out there forever.'" To read the full article, click on the Title Line, above.