Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:10, 19 May 2010

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (January 2010)

Facebook's growth as an Internet social networking site has met criticism on a range of issues, especially the privacy of their users, child safety, the use of advertising scripts, data mining, and the inability to terminate accounts without first manually deleting all the content. Many companies removed their adverts from the site in 2008 because they were being displayed on the pages of controversial individuals and groups. The actual content of user's pages, groups and forums has been criticised for promoting controversial topics such as pro-anorexia and holocaust denial. There have been several issues with censorship, both on and off the site. The changes made by Facebook have been criticised, in particular the new format launched in 2008 and the changes in Facebook's Terms of Use which removed the clause detailing automatic expiry of deleted content. Facebook has also been successfully sued several times for violation of intellectual property rights.

Privacy concerns

Issues during 2007

In August 2007, the code used to dynamically generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public, according to leading internet news sites. A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook. Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:

A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.

In November 2007, Facebook launched Beacon, a system where third-party websites can include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played are published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appears on the third party site and gives the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user can also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon. However, there is still no option to prevent Facebook from storing and using information sent by Beacon.

On Dec. 1, 2007 Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that the New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression. A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed that Facebook is collecting data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opts out and even when not logged into the Facebook site, a contradiction of Facebook public claims and email correspondence.

News Feed and Mini-Feed

On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of the member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page. Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.

Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members. However, according to recent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.

In September 2008, the news feed and "Wall" were retroactively combined, reigniting privacy concerns over the "news feed" feature by publicly posting previously hidden actions.

In December 2009, Facebook removed the privacy controls for the News Feed and Mini Feed. This change made it impossible for users to control what activities are published on their walls (and consequently the public news feed). Since users can post anything they want, this allowed people to post things that could target certain groups of people or abuse other users through other means.

Complaint from CIPPIC

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook on May 31, 2008, based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda). University of Ottawa law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. Facebook's Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users." Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009. In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. Facebook agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations. Specifically, the Assistant Commissioner found that Facebook did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to ensure unauthorized access by third party developers to personal information.

Data mining

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. According to the policy, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped, even though the clause still remains in the policy as of November 26, 2008. The possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, as evidenced by the fact that two MIT students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.

A second clause that warranted criticism from some users reserved the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to." Facebook eventually removed this clause from their privacy policy when it was updated on November 26, 2008.

Third party applications have access to almost all user information and "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information."

In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.

In September 2007, Facebook drew a fresh round of criticism after it began allowing non-members to search for users, with the intent of opening limited "public profiles" up to search engines such as Google in the following months. Facebook's privacy settings, however, allow users to block their profiles from search engines.

Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft. However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends - if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is a name, profile picture, list of networks, and a list of friends.

In addition, a New York Times article in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and thus raises the concern that private user data will remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.

Inability to voluntarily terminate accounts

Facebook has historically allowed users to deactivate their accounts but not actually remove account content from its servers. A Facebook representative explained to a student from the University of British Columbia that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends, and groups. A New York Times article noted the issue, and also raised a concern that emails and other private user data remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers. Facebook subsequently began permanently deleting accounts on special request. Usually it takes 14 days to delete them.

Memorials

A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools. Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died, preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".

Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups not only to remember a deceased friend or individual but also as a source of support in response to an occurrence such as the September 11, 2001 attacks or the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.

Such memorial groups have also raised legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act which prohibits publishing the names of under-age criminals. While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted that it was difficult to effectively police the individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information.

Customization and security

Facebook is often compared to MySpace but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and CSS while Facebook allows only plain text. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace profiles.

On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video and a flash game from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.

On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.

In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery. However, in July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. This hole took Facebook two and a half weeks to fix.

New Facebook

September 2008 upgrade

In September 2008, Facebook permanently moved its users to what they termed the "New Facebook" or Facebook 3.0. This version contained several different features and a complete layout redesign. Between July and September, users had been given the option to use the new Facebook in place of the original design, or to return to the old design.

Facebook's decision to migrate their users was met with some controversy in their community. Several groups were started opposing the decision, some with over a million users.

October 2009

In October 2009, Facebook redesigned the news feed so that the user could view all types of things that their friends were involved with. In a statement, they said,

Stories your applications generate can show up in both views. The best way for your stories to appear in the News Feed filter is to create stories that are highly engaging, as high quality, interesting stories are most likely to garner likes and comments by the user's friends.

This redesign was explained as:

News Feed will focus on popular content, determined by an algorithm based on interest in that story, including the number of times an item is liked or commented on. Live Feed will display all recent stories from a large number of a user's friends.

Immediately, the redesign was met with criticism with users, many who did not like the amount of information that was coming at them. This was also compounded by the fact that people couldn't select what they saw. Immediately, groups formed, one getting over 1,600,000 within the first two weeks of the update. The change was also mentioned on an episode of Hungry Beast that aired that month.

November/December 2009

In November 2009, Facebook issued a proposed new privacy policy, and adopted it unaltered in December 2009. They combined this with a rollout of new privacy settings. This new policy declared certain information, including "lists of friends", to be "publicly available", with no privacy settings; it was previously possible to keep access to this information restricted. Due to this change, the users who had set their "list of friends" as private were forced to make it public without even being informed, and the option to make it private again was removed. This was protested by many people and privacy organizations such as the EFF, and caused Iranian dissidents to start deleting their accounts so that their contacts could not be tracked by the government.

The change was described by Gawker as Facebook's Great Betrayal, forcing user profile photos and friends lists to be visible in users' public listing, even for users who had explicitly chosen to hide this information previously, and making photos and personal information public unless users were proactive about limiting access. For example, a user whose "Family and Relationships" information was set to be viewable by "Friends Only" would default to being viewable by "Everyone" (publicly viewable). That is, information such as the gender of partner you are interested in, relationship status, and family relations became viewable to those even without a facebook account. Facebook was heavily criticized for both reducing its users' privacy and pushing users to remove privacy protections. Groups criticizing the changes include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, had hundreds of personal photos and his events calendar exposed in the transition. Facebook has since re-included an option to hide friends lists from being viewable; however, this preference is no longer listed with other privacy settings, and the former ability to hide the friends list from selected people among one's own friends is no longer possible. Journalist Dan Gillmor deleted his Facebook account over the changes, stating he "can’t entirely trust Facebook" and Heidi Moore at Slate's Big Money temporarily deactivated her account as a "conscientious objection". Other journalists have been similarly disappointed and outraged by the changes. Defending the changes, founder Mark Zuckerberg said "we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it". The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada launched another investigation into Facebook's privacy policies after complaints following the change.

May 2010

In May 2010 Facebook quietly implemented several changes, including a feature available before December 2009 to allow users to limit the visibility of friends lists. The changes included an option not available before to make the friends list visible to the user only ("Only me" as a "Custom" setting, although before December 2009 it had been possible to achieve the same aim by customising the settings to exclude all individual friends from seeing the list). In practice, the functionality restored, combined with the "lists" feature, can force friends to view only the "mutual friends" of the list in which a particular friend is included. As of May 5, 2010 the Privacy Policy still indicated that the last revision was implemented on April 22, 2010.

Inappropriate content controversies

Mohammed Caricature groups

On May 18 2010, Pakistani court on ordered a temporary block of Facebook following the creation of a group encouraging members to submit drawings of the prophet Mohammed, which is deemed blasphemous by some Muslims

Anorexia and bulimia

Facebook has received criticism from users and from people outside the Facebook community about hosting pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia information. British eating disorder charity B-EAT called on all social networking sites to curb "pro-ana" (anorexia) and "pro-mia" (bulimia) pages and groups, naming MySpace and Facebook specifically.

Advertiser concerns

On August 3, 2007, British companies including First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, The Automobile Association, Halifax and the Prudential removed their advertisements from Facebook. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said "We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect our brand". The companies found that their services were being advertised on pages of the British National Party, a far-right political party in the UK. New Media Age magazine was first to alert the companies that their ads were coming up on BNP's Facebook page. The AA also pulled its advertising from YouTube when a BBC documentary showed that videos of school children fighting were available on that site.

Holocaust denial

In 2009, Facebook received criticism for including Holocaust denial groups. Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said, "We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed." While Facebook's terms of use include the warning that users may "be banned if they post 'any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable,'" Schnitt said, "We can't guarantee that there isn't any content that violates our policies."

Cyberbullying and stalking

Many critics, including Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, have criticised Facebook as a possible tool for cyberbullying, with the possibilities of anonymous profiles and the creation of groups allowing bullies to target individuals online. In 2009, an Oceanside teenager sued Facebook, as well as four of her former classmates for $3 million after the individuals created a password-protected Facebook group that was allegedly "calculated to hold the plaintiff up to public hatred, ridicule and disgrace". A Facebook spokesperson stated "we see no merit to this suit and we will fight it vigorously". On 21 August 2009, Keeley Houghton, 18, of Malvern, Worcestershire, was sentenced to three months in a young offenders' institution after being found guilty of bullying one of her classmates on Facebook, making her the first person in Britain to be jailed for bullying on a social networking site.

Facebook's privacy settings, combined with the sheer volume of personal information individuals put on their profiles, have also led to claims that Facebook could encourage cyberstalking.

One particular aspect of cyberstalking that is of concern to insurance companies is the use of Facebook as a research tool for burglars. A report published in 2009 by Legal & General called "The Digital Criminal" revealed that 38% of social network users post status updates with details of their holiday plans, which can be an "open invitation to burglars" as many users also posted their home address on their profile. In August 2009, a burglar in Hove accessed his victim's Facebook profile to taunt her over the theft of her laptop by posting comments on her profile. A spokesperson for Sussex Police said: "Being burgled is traumatic enough for any family but for the culprit to apparently use their stolen possessions to publicly gloat over the crime is a sinister twist."

In November 2009, Facebook was accused of promoting Gingerism after a 'Kick a Ginger' group, which aimed to establish a "National Kick a Ginger Day" on November 20, received almost 5,000 members. A 14-year-old boy from Vancouver who ran the Facebook group was subjected to an investigation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for possible hate crimes.

Pro-mafia groups' case

In Italy, the discovery of pro-mafia groups caused an alert in the country and brought the government, after a short debate, to rapidly issue a law which will force ISPs to deny access to entire sites in case of refused removal of illegal contents; the removal can be requested by a prosecutor in any case in which there is a suspicion that criminal speech (a defence of or incitement to crime) is published on a website. The amendment was passed by the Italian Senate on February 5, 2008, and now needs to be passed unchanged by the Chamber of Deputies to become immediately effective.

Facebook and other websites, Google included, criticized the amendment emphasizing the eventual effects on the freedom of speech of those users who do not violate any law.

Censorship controversies

Search function

Facebook's search function has been accused of preventing users from searching for certain terms. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has written about Facebook's possible censorship of "Ron Paul" as a search term. MoveOn.org's Facebook group for organizing protests against privacy violations could for a time not be found by searching. The very word privacy was also restricted. Facebook claimed that the problem was a bug.

Disabling of sexual orientation search

As of spring 2009, it is no longer possible to search a network based on sexual orientation. As a result, searchers are no longer able to find gays, lesbians, or heterosexuals on Facebook, even within their own network.

Breastfeeding photos

Facebook has been criticized for removing photos uploaded by mothers of themselves breastfeeding their babies and also canceling their Facebook accounts. Although photos that show an exposed breast violate Facebook's decency code, even when the baby covered the nipple, Facebook took several days to respond to calls to deactivate a paid advertisement for a dating service that used a photo of a topless model.

The breastfeeding photos controversy continued following public protests and the growth in the online membership in the Facebook group titled "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)."

Censorship of editorial content

On September 6, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an editorial article entitled, "Obama speaks to children; right wing shows its crazy side" (). By September 7, attempts to link the article to Facebook were met with a block indicating that the article was reported by users as abusive.

On February 4, 2010, a number of Facebook groups against the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) were removed without any reason given. () The DAB is one of the largest pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong. The affected groups have since been restored.

Third-party responses to Facebook

Government censorship

Because of the open nature of Facebook, several countries have banned access to it including Syria, China, Iran, and Vietnam.

Africa and Middle East

The Syrian government cited the ban was on the premise that the website promoted attacks on authorities. The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook. Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable by imprisonment.

On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.

During the 2009 election in Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website. Access has since been reinstated.

Far East

In China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots. Huanqi.com had asserted that "Xinjiang Independence" activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network.

In Vietnam, an unauthenticated document supposedly issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security dating August 27, 2009 instructing ISPs to block Facebook sparked shutdown fears. Access to Facebook became intermittent in mid-November and major ISPs were swamped by complaints. Some technicians confirmed being ordered by the government to block access to Facebook while government officials denied it.

Organizations blocking access

Ontario government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007. When the employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees try to access YouTube, MySpace, gambling or pornographic websites. However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.

A number of local governments including those in the UK and Finland imposed restrictions on the use of Facebook in the workplace due to the technical strain incurred. Other government-related agencies, such as the US Marine Corps have imposed similar restrictions .

A number of hospitals in Finland have also restricted Facebook use citing privacy concerns .

Schools blocking access

The University of New Mexico (UNM) in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook. After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.

The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University's athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts. On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.

Since it violates many school boards' terms of use for the internet along with local and state laws, many school boards in North America, Europe and Oceania that run elementary through high schools have blocked access to Facebook. The Calgary Board of Education, a public school district in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, blocks Facebook using Internet filters.

Closed social networks

Several web sites concerned with social networking have criticized the lack of information that users get when they share data.

Advanced users can limit the amount of information anyone can access in their profiles, but Facebook promotes the sharing of personal information for marketing purposes, leading to the promotion of the service using personal data from users who are not fully aware of this. Furthermore, Facebook exposes personal data, without supporting open standards for data interchange.

According to several communities and authors closed social networking, on the other hand, promotes data retrieval from other people while not exposing one's personal information.

Class action lawsuit

On November 17, 2009, Rebecca Swift, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, filed a class action lawsuit against Zynga Game Network Inc. and Facebook, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for violation of the Unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and for unjust enrichment.

Student-related issues

Student privacy concerns

Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their universities, including expulsion. While others posting libelous content relating to faculty have also faced disciplinary action .

Integration of high school users

Following the February 27, 2006, integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision. Users from the two branches could fully interact only if they were friends and some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from others. However, some college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience. Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since university addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the bad publicity seen by MySpace.

Adding to the controversy around opening Facebook to younger students, four high school students at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario were arrested in a Facebook-related protest on March 23, 2007. Earlier that week, five students had been suspended for posting criticisms about a vice-principal of their school. About a dozen friends of the suspendees had decided to protest in front of the school, but that handful soon grew to over 100 students protesting for free speech. Local law enforcement authorities were called, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in the arrest of four students. Users under eighteen years old have been banned from Facebook for not being in a high school group. This discourages homeschoolers from using Facebook.Facebook does not actively enforce the age limit, resulting in children under the age of 13 using it. This has raised concerns in regard to the safety of children.

Effect on higher education

On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School at Iowa State University, entitled "Facing the Facebook". Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom," quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organisations such as the National Association for Campus Activities, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".

The most recent research on Facebook in higher education shows that there are educational benefits to student Facebook use, including improving engagement which is related to student retention. Furthermore, using technologies such as Facebook to connect with others can help college students be less depressed and cope with feelings of loneliness and homesickness. According to a case study, students surveyed had on average lower grades if they used Facebook than students who did not use Facebook.

Intellectual property rights

ConnectU.com lawsuit

Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss, owners of the social networking website HarvardConnection (UniBook), changed its name to ConnectU in September 2004 and filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had broken an oral contract for them to build the Facebook site, copied their idea, and illegally used source code intended for the website they asked him to build for them. The parties reached a confidential settlement agreement in February, 2008.

ConnectU filed another lawsuit on March 11, 2008, attempting to rescind the settlement, claiming that Facebook in settlement negotiations had overstated the value of stock it was granting the ConnectU founders as part of the settlement. ConnectU argued that Facebook represented itself as being worth $15 billion, the post-money valuation arising from Microsoft's purchase in 2007 of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for US $246 million. Facebook announced that valuation in a press release. However, Facebook subsequently performed an internal valuation that estimated a company value of $3.75 billion. Further, the website's 0.02%-0.04% ad click-through rate has led some analysts to believe that the site does not have a viable long-term business model. ConnectU fired the law firm that had represented it in settlement discussions, and the firm in turn filed a lien against the settlement proceeds. In June, 2008, an appeals court upheld the earlier settlement, rejecting ConnectU's new challenge. In February 2009, it was reported that a settlement was reached between Facebook and the ConnectU litigants. Facebook will pay USD $65 million to the plaintiffs, most of it in Facebook stock, and $20M in cash. ConnectU's law firm, Quinn, has asked for $13 million in legal fees.

Aaron Greenspan and houseSYSTEM

As the President of the Harvard College Student Entrepreneurship Council (a now-defunct student group) and the CEO of Think Computer Corporation, Aaron Greenspan created a web portal as a Harvard undergraduate called houseSYSTEM that launched on August 1, 2003. Designed to centralize student life in a more user-friendly manner than Harvard's official student portal, my.harvard, houseSYSTEM had a variety of features, including an event calendar with digital RSVP, a photo album, user-uploadable "posters," a teaching feedback system called CriticalMass, an on-line trading post called Student Exchange, and as of September 19, 2003, a "Universal Face Book," which was also referred to at times as "the facebook." Greenspan began communicating with fellow classmate Mark Zuckerberg via e-mail later in the fall of 2003 after reading a profile of Zuckerberg in The Harvard Crimson's news magazine, and they met in person in early January, 2004, at which point Zuckerberg (and the other co-founders of Facebook, Inc.) were already houseSYSTEM members. Though the two entrepreneurs decided to work on their respective projects independently, they frequently discussed technological aspects of houseSYSTEM related to the Face Book, as well as Zuckerberg's latest project, about which he was secretive. On January 11, 2004, shortly after using the Universal Face Book on houseSYSTEM, Zuckerberg registered the domain name "thefacebook.com" independently. On February 4, 2004, when thefacebook.com launched, Greenspan recognized aspects of his own work in the site, and later came to believe that Zuckerberg was copying his work one feature at a time—a claim that Zuckerberg denied. Social networking functionality was added to houseSYSTEM in March, 2004, and the name "FaceNet" replaced the "Universal Face Book."

Four years later, when Greenspan published a book entitled Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era describing his side of the story of Facebook's birth as well as events leading up to it (including aggressive actions on behalf of the Harvard University administration), he was prohibited from advertising the book using Google AdWords because of the inclusion of the word "Facebook" in the book's subtitle, and Facebook, Inc.'s registered trademark on the term "Facebook." The trademark had come into existence two years before in 2006, partially as a defensive measure during a battle over the "facebook.com" domain name in the ConnectU lawsuit. Consequently, Greenspan's company filed a Petition to Cancel the "Facebook" trademark, which included claims of prior use, genericness, and fraud by Facebook, Inc. against the USPTO. Greenspan is representing himself and the proceedings are still pending, but as of late October 2008, the USPTO has refused to grant Facebook's request to dismiss the fraud claims.

"Terms of Use" controversy

While Facebook originally made changes to its terms of use or, terms of service, on February 4, 2009, the changes went unnoticed until Chris Walters, a blogger for the consumer-oriented blog, The Consumerist, noticed the change on February 15, 2009. Walters complained the change gave Facebook the right to "Do anything they want with your content. Forever." The section under the most controversy is the "User Content Posted on the Site" clause. Before the changes, the clause read, "You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content." The "license granted" refers to the license that Facebook has to your "name, likeness, and image" to use in promotions and external advertising. The new terms of use deleted the phrase that states the license would "automatically expire" if a user chose to remove content. By omitting this line, Facebook license extends to adopt users' content perpetually and irrevocably years after the content has been deleted.

Many users of Facebook voiced opinions against the changes to the Facebook Terms of Use, leading to an Internet-wide debate over the ownership of content. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) prepared a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Many individuals were frustrated with the removal of the controversial clause. Facebook users, numbering more than 38,000, joined a user group against the changes, and a number of blogs and news sites have written about this issue.

After the change was brought to light in Walters's blog entry, in his blog on February 16, 2009, Mark Zuckerberg addressed the issues concerning the recently made changes to Facebook’s terms of use. Zuckerberg wrote “Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with.” In addition to this statement Zuckerberg explained the paradox created when people want to share their information (phone number, pictures, email address, etc.) with the public, but at the same time desire to remain in complete control of who has access to this info.

In order to calm criticism, Facebook returned to its original terms of use. However, on February 17, 2009, Zuckerberg wrote in his blog, that although Facebook reverted back to its original terms of use, it is in the process of developing new terms in order to address the paradox. Zuckerberg stated that these new terms will allow Facebook users to “share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand.” Zuckerberg invited users to join a group entitled “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to give their input and help shape the new terms.

On February 26, 2009, Zuckerberg posted a blog, updating users on the progress of the new Terms of Use. He wrote, “We decided we needed to do things differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way.” Zuckerberg introduces the two new additions to Facebook: the Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities Both additions allow users to vote on changes to the terms of use before they are officially released. Because “Facebook is still in the business of introducing new and therefore potentially disruptive technologies,” Zuckerberg explains, users need to adjust and familiarize themselves with the products before they can adequately show their support.

This new voting system was initially applauded as Facebook’s step to a more democratized social network system. However, the new terms were harshly criticized in a report by computer scientists from the University of Cambridge, who stated that the democratic process surrounding the new terms is disingenuous and significant problems remain in the new terms. Their report was endorsed by the Open Rights Group.

Interoperability and data portability

Facebook has been criticized for failing to offer users a feature to export their friends' information, such as contact information, for use with other services or software. The inability of users to export their social graph in an open standard format contributes to vendor lock-in and contravenes the principles of data portability. Automated collection of user information without Facebook's consent violates its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and third-party attempts to do so (e.g., Web scraping) have resulted in suspension of accounts, cease and desist letters, and litigation with one of the third parties, Power.com.

Facebook Connect has been criticized for its lack of interoperability with OpenID.

Better Business Bureau review

As of May 2010, the Better Business Bureau gave Facebook a D rating, stating "We have enough concerns about this company (for example, their offer, customer complaints, advertising, etc.) that we recommend caution in doing business with it."

As of March 2010, the 36-month running count of complaints about Facebook logged with the Better Business Bureau is 620, including 4 with a response of Making a full refund, as the consumer requested, 62 with a response of "Agreeing to perform according to their contract", 10 with a response of "Refuse to adjust, relying on terms of agreement", 18 with a response of "Unassigned", 523 with a response of "Unanswered", and 3 with a response of "Refusing to make an adjustment".

References

1. Hoffman, Harrison (2007-08-12). "Facebook's source code goes public". CNET News.com.
2. Richards, Jonathan (2007-08-14). "Facebook Source Code Leaked Onto Internet". FOX.
3. "Facebook's PHP leak SNAFU". Computer World. 2007-08-14.
4. Cubrilovic, Nik (2007-08-11). "Facebook Source Code Leaked". TechCrunch.
5. Breaking: Facebook Updates Beacon - The Unofficial Facebook Blog
6. NYT: Facebook's Zuckerberg Misled Us; Coke: Ditto - Silicon Alley Insider
7. Stefan Berteau (2007-11-29). "Facebook's Misrepresentation of Beacon's Threat to Privacy: Tracking users who opt out or are not logged in". CA Security Advisor Research Blog. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
8. Rosmarin, Rachel (2006). "Facebook's Makeover". Forbes. Retrieved 2006-09-05.
9. "Facebook CEO: 'We Really Messed This One Up'". NBC11.com. 2006-09-08. Retrieved 2007-02-21. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
10. Jesdanun, Anick (2006). "Facebook offers new privacy options". Associated Press. Retrieved 2006-09-08.
11. http://startupmeme.com/facebook-what-hast-thou-done-with-news-feed-settings/
12. "FaceBook vs. YOUR Privacy - AKA Note: Your Friend List is always visible to you and your friends". Retrieved 2010-03-09.
13. ap.google.com, Canada launches privacy probe into Facebook
14. ^ "Privacy Commissioner's Findings in the case of CIPPIC against Facebook" (PDF). Retrieved 15 January 2010.
15. ^ "Facebook Privacy Policy". 2007-08-12. Retrieved 2007-08-12.
16. Jones, Harvey, & José Hiram Soltren (2005). "Facebook: Threats to Privacy" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (PDF)
17. Peterson, Chris (2006-02-13). "Who's Reading Your Facebook?". The Virginia Informer.
18. Buckley, Christine (2007-08-30). "Get a life and allow your staff to use Facebook, TUC tells bosses". London: The Times. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
19. "Facebook Opens Profiles to Public". BBC Online. 2007-09-07.
20. "Facebook security". BBC. 2007-10-24. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
21. Aspan, Maria (2008-02-11). "How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
22. Aspan, Maria (2008-02-11). "How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
23. http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=419
24. "Net generation grieves with Facebook postings". News Observer. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
25. Stelter, Brian (2006-11-16). "On Facebook, life after death". The Towerlight. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
26. "Team Coverage: Suspect In Tiffany Souers Murder Case Captured In Tennessee". ksdk. 2006-06-06. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
27. Prott, Dylan (2006-11-14). "Son, friend remembered as 'free spirit'". College Heights Herald. Retrieved 2006-12-14.
28. Iorg, Emily (2005-12-05). "Student Colby McLain remembered". University News. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
29. Batista, Sarah (2005-11-21). "UVA Student Remembered". Charlottesville Newsplex. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
30. Negrin, Matt (2005-11-21). "University responds to SMG junior's death". Daily Free Press. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
31. Gardner-Quinn, Michelle (2006-10-15). "UVM Memorializes Slain Student". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
32. Bernhard, Stephanie (2006-01-25). "Community mourns death of Pagan '06". Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
33. "Ohio State U.: Facebook used as a memorial to remember Ohio State U. student".
34. Kelleher, Kristina (2007-02-22). "Facebook profiles become makeshift memorials". The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
35. Hortobagyi, Monica (2007-05-08). "USAToday article". USAToday. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
36. Drudi, Cassandra (2008-01-05). "Facebook proves problematic for police". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
37. "Angry Facebook Users Illegally Leaked the Names of Accused Underage Murderers". Digital Journal. 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
38. Laverdet, Marcel (2006-02-26). "Why XSS is my favorite type of vulnerability". Archived from the original on 2008-01-17. Retrieved 2006-10-15.
39. Romero, John. "The Super Facebook Saga". Retrieved 2006-11-27.
40. "Facelifting the Facebook". 2006-03-26. Retrieved 2006-11-27.
41. "Defacing Facebook". 1007-07-27. Retrieved 2007-08-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
42. "Defacing Facebook". 1007-08-16. Retrieved 2007-08-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
43. The Facebook Blog - Moving to the new Facebook
44. The Facebook Blog - Check out the new Facebook
45. Petition against Facebook redesign fails as old version disabled
46. ^ Haugen, Austin (October 23, 2009). "facebook DEVELOPERS". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-10-25. Cite error: The named reference "Facebook" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
47. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21225988060
48. Rom Cartridge - What is Facebook?
49. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly
50. ^ Gawker.com
51. ^ "Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly | Electronic Frontier Foundation". Eff.org. 2009-12-09. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
52. "What Does Facebook's Privacy Transition Mean for You? | ACLUNC dotRights". Dotrights.org. 2009-12-04. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
53. "Facebook faces criticism on privacy change". BBC News. 2008-12-10. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
54. ACLU.org
55. "Facebook CEO's Private Photos Exposed by the New 'Open' Facebook". Gawker.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
56. "Facebook Backs Off as Founder's Pictures Go Public - Yahoo! News". News.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
57. McCarthy, Caroline. "Facebook backtracks on public friend lists | The Social - CNET News". News.cnet.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
58. Mediactive.com
59. TheBigMoney.com
60. ReadWriteWeb.com
61. SFgate.com
62. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/pakistan-court-orders-facebook-ban-14812452.html
63. "University moves to hush Facebook criticism". 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
64. "Pro-anorexia site clampdown urged". BBC News. 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
65. "Firms withdraw BNP Facebook ads". BBC News. 2007-08-03. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
66. "Facebook won't ban Holocaust denial groups." JTA. 10 May 2009. 11 May 2009.
67. ^ Moore, Victoria, "The fake world of Facebook and Bebo: How suicide and cyber bullying lurk behind the facade of 'harmless fun'", The Daily Mail, accessed 18/08/2009
68. Epstien, Reid J., Oceanside teen sues Facebook, ex-classmates for $3M, Newsday, accessed 18/08/2009
69. Carter, Helen, Teenage girl is first to be jailed for bullying on Facebook, The Guardian, accessed 22/08/2009
70. Facebook and Social Networking Sites: Cyber-Stalking Paradise 2.0?, Scottish Society for Computers and Law, accessed 18/08/2009
71. Atkinson, Rebecca, "Online chat burglary risk", Yahoo News, accessed 27/08/2009
72. Burglar taunts laptop theft victim via Facebook, MSN News, accessed 18/08/2009
73. "Facebook 'Kick a Ginger' campaign prompts attacks on redheads", The Daily Telegraph, accessed 2009-28-12
74. Some of the pro-mafia groups; one of them claims for Bernardo Provenzano's sainthood.
75. "Anger at pro-Mafia groups on Facebook". 2009-01-09. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
76. "Italian authorities wary of Facebook tributes to Mafia". 2009-01-20. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
77. "Italy Troubled Over Mafia On Facebook". 2009-01-12. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
78. "Italy Debates Law That May Block Access to Facebook". 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
79. Template:It The text approved by the Senate
80. "Google criticizes Italian Internet legislation". 2009-02-13. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
81. Michael Arrington, Is Facebook Really Censoring Search When It Suits Them?, TechCrunch, November 22, 2007
82. This type of search sparked controversies in the past .
83. Facebook ban incurs 'lactivist' wrath - web - Technology - smh.com.au
84. "Protests mount over Facebook ban on breast-feeding photos; bigger turnout online than in Palo Alto". Mercury News. 2008-12-27.
85. ^ Yacoub Oweis, Khaled (2007-11-23). "Syria blocks Facebook in Internet crackdown". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
86. ^ "China's Facebook Status: Blocked". ABC News. July 8, 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
87. ^ "Facebook Faces Censorship in Iran". American Islamic Congress. 2007-08-29. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
88. ^ Vivian Marsh (2009-11-20). "Vietnam government denies blocking networking site". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
89. "Syrian gov't blocks use of Facebook". The Jerusalem Post. 2007-11-24. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
90. "Police arrests fraudster for identity theft of Moroccan prince on Facebook". Maghreb Arab Presse. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
91. "Police arrest man for 'villainous' theft of prince's ID on Facebook". CNN. 2008-02-07. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
92. "Moroccan held for alleged royal ID theft". Yahoo. 2008-02-07. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
93. "Morocco: Man Held in Alleged Royal Identity Theft". New York Times. 2008-02-07. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
94. "Moroccan IT engineer arrested over fake Facebook account". The Register. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
95. "Police Arrest Man for Stealing Prince's Identity on Facebook". Fox News. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
96. "Police detain man for alleged identity theft of Moroccan prince on Facebook". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
97. "80 pct of netizens agree China should punish Facebook". The People's Daily Online. July 10, 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
98. ^ Ben Stocking (2009-11-17). "Vietnam Internet users fear Facebook blackout". Associated Press. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
99. "Organizations blocking facebook". CTV news.
100. Benzie, Robert (2007-05-03). "Facebook banned for Ontario staffers". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
101. "Ontario politicians close the book on Facebook". Blog Campaigning. 2007-05-23. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
102. "Facebook banned for council staff". BBC News. 2009-09-01. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
103. "Tietoturvauhan poistuminen voi avata naamakirjan Kokkolassa (In Finnish)". Retrieved 2010-02-02.
104. "Immediate Ban of Internet Social Networking Sites (SNS) On Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) [[NIPRNET]]". Retrieved 2010-02-02. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
105. "Facebook kiellettiin Keski-Suomen sairaanhoitopiirissä (In Finnish)". Retrieved 2010-02-02.
106. "Sairaanhoitopiirin työntekijöille kielto nettiyhteisöihin (In Finnish)". Retrieved 2010-02-02.
107. Fort, Caleb (2005-10-12). "CIRT blocks access to Facebook.com". Daily Lobo (University of New Mexico). Retrieved 2006-04-03.
108. "Popular web site, Facebook.com, back online at UNM". University of New Mexico. 2006-01-19. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
109. Loew, Ryan (June 22, 2006). "Kent banning athlete Web profiles". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2006-10-06.
110. see Plugtodo.com plugtodo, salesforce salesforce
111. see article
112. see NSTeens NSTeens video about private social networking
113. Lapeira's post (October 16, 2008) Three types of social networking
114. see A good example of a useful Facebook account.
115. Tate, Ryan (November 19, 2009). "Facebook Named in Federal Class-Action Suit over Scammy Zynga Ads". Valleywag. Retrieved 2010-02-21. {{cite web}}: External link in |author= (help)
116. Tate, Ryan (November 19, 2009). "Initial Complaint in Swift vs. Zynga". Valleywag. Retrieved 2010-02-21. {{cite web}}: External link in |author= (help)
117. Fisher College expels student over website entries - The Boston Globe
118. O'Toole, Catie (2010-01-24). "Seventh-grade North Syracuse student suspended, 25 others disciplined for Facebook page about teacher". The Post-Standard. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
119. Bunting, Jillian M (2006-03-02). "New Facebook Feature Could Out Students". The Harvard Crimson.
120. Staff editorial (2006-03-01). "Yeas & Nays". The Daily Barometer (Oregon State University). Retrieved 2006-04-03.
121. Schneider, Adam P (2006-02-08). "How Much About You Is Out There?". The Harvard Crimson.
122. "Toronto high school students scuffle with police". The Globe and Mail (registration required for full text). 2007-03-23. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
123. Facebook Group (13 Reasons your Facebook account will be disabled)
124. BBC NEWS | Technology | Children flock to social networks
125. MSN.com, MySpace, Facebook attract online predators – Nightly News with Brian Williams- msnbc.com. Retrieved 2009-10-14-09.
126. Bugeja, Michael (2006-01-03). "Facing the Facebook". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2006-10-06.
127. Bugeja, Michael J (2007-01-26). "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom". Chronicle Careers. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
128. National Association of Campus Activities (2006-07-12). "Facing the Facebook". Retrieved 2006-10-06.
129. Association for Education in Journalism and Communication (2006). "Facing the Facebook: Administrative Issues Involving Social Networks". Retrieved 2006-10-06.
130. EDUCAUSE Learning Institute (2006). "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook". Retrieved 2006-10-06.
131. Heiberger, Greg and Harper, Ruth (2008). Have you Facebooked Astin lately? In Reynol Junco and Dianne M. Timm (Eds). Using Emerging Technologies to Enhance Student Engagement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
132. Cotten, Shelia R. (2008). Students' technology use and the impacts on well-being. In Reynol Junco and Dianne M. Timm (Eds). Using Emerging Technologies to Enhance Student Engagement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
133. Karpinski (2009). "STUDY FINDS LINK BETWEEN FACEBOOK USE, LOWER GRADES IN COLLEGE".
134. Michael Levenson (2008-06-27). "Facebook, ConnectU settle dispute:Case an intellectual property kerfuffle". Boston Globe.
135. Malcom A. Glenn, "For Now, Facebook Foes Continue Fight Against Site", The Harvard Crimson, July 27, 2007
136. O'Brien, Luke (November/December 2007). "Poking Facebook". 02138. p. 66. Retrieved 2008-06-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
137. McGinn, Timothy J. (2004-09-13). "Lawsuit Threatens To Close Facebook". Harvard Crimson. Archived from the original on 2004-09-13. Retrieved 2008-03-08. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2007-08-15 suggested (help)
138. Maugeri, Alexander (2004-09-20). "TheFacebook.com faces lawsuit". The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
139. Tryhorn, Chris (2007-07-25). "Facebook in court over ownership". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
140. ^ Brad Stone (2008-06-28). "Judge Ends Facebook's Feud With ConnectU". New York Times.
141. Jagadeesh, Namitha (2008-03-11). "Getting the start-up documentation right". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
142. "Facebook Got Its $15 Billion Valuation — Now What?". Retrieved 2008-07-07.
143. "Internal Facebook valuation points to strategic merit - Valuation is far below the $15 billion cited at time of Microsoft investment". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
144. "Advertisers disappointed with Facebook's CTR". Retrieved 2008-07-07.
145. Dan Slater (June 27, 2008). "Facebook Wins ConnectU Appeal, Blames Fee Dispute". Wall Street Journal.
146. Arthur, Charles (2009-02-12). "Facebook paid up to $65m to founder Mark Zuckerberg's ex-classmates". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
147. Think Computer Corporation - People
148. "A Critical Mass of Criticism". The Harvard Crimson. 2003-01-10. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
149. Interbook - Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era
150. Combined houseSYSTEM Server Log Excerpts
151. Markoff, John (2007-09-01). "Who Founded Facebook? A New Claim Emerges". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
152. Krug, Laura (2003-08-08). "Student Site Stirs Controversy". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
153. Letzing, John (2008-07-12). "Facebook haunted by mild-mannered specter". Dow Jones Marketwatch. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
154. "Consolidated Petition to Make Special, USPTO Trademark Serial No. 78574730". 2005-05-02.
155. USPTO TTABVUE Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System Cancellation No. 92049206
156. "Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint". PC World. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
157. "Facebook's New Terms Of Service: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever."". Consumerist. Consumer Media LLC. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
158. ^ http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
159. "Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint". PC World. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
160. "Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint". PC World. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
161. "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
162. "Facebook Town Hall: Proposed Facebook Principles". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
163. "Facebook Town Hall: Proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
164. "Governing the Facebook Service in an Open and Transparent Way". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
165. "Rewriting Facebook's Terms of Service". PC World. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
166. "Democracy Theatre on Facebook". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
167. "Democracy Theatre: Comments on Facebook's Proposed Governance Scheme" (PDF). University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
168. "Facebook's theatrical rights and wrongs". Open Rights Group. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
169. Winer, Dave (2007-10-13). "Why Facebook sucks". Scripting News. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
170. O'Neill, Nick (2008-09-24). "Facebook: Let Me Export My Contacts!". AllFacebook. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
171. "Let Me Export/Sync My Facebook Contacts - Petition". Retrieved 2009-06-29.
172. "I want to leave Facebook and take my friends with me". Retrieved 2009-06-29.
173. Baker, Gavin (2008-05-27). "Free software vs. software-as-a-service: Is the GPL too weak for the Web?". Free Software Magazine. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
174. "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities". Facebook. 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
175. Scoble, Robert (2008-01-03). "Facebook disabled my account". Scobleizer. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
176. Agarwal, Amit (2007-10-15). "To Download Contacts from Facebook To Outlook Address Book". Digital Inspiration. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
177. Calore, Michael (2008-12-01). "As Facebook Connect Expands, OpenID's Challenges Grow". Wired. Retrieved 2009-06-29. Facebook Connect was developed independently using proprietary code, so Facebook's system and OpenID are not interoperable. ... This is a clear threat to the vision of the Open Web, a future when data is freely shared between social websites using open source technologies.
178. ^ "BBB Review of Facebook". Retrieved 29 March 2010.
179. "TrustLink Review of Facebook". Retrieved 5 May 2010.

{{Facebook}} template missing ID and not present in Wikidata.

• Criticisms of companies
• Facebook
• Internet privacy
• Internet censorship
• Criticisms of software and websites