“We think that Facebook should go back to its original terms of service,” says EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.

EPIC expects to have its complaint submitted to the FTC by the end of Tuesday.

Wide-Reaching Reaction

The wave of reaction, of course, is hardly limited to official organizations. More than 38,000 Facebook users have joined a user group protesting the change, and countless blogs and news sites have written extensively about their concerns. The issue comes down to a couple of alterations within the companys terms of use that, it would seem, give Facebook eternal ownership of your personal content–even if you decide to delete your account.

The changes were actually made in early February but not widely noticed until Sunday, when The Consumerists Chris Walters stumbled upon the subtly shifted language. The section in question explains how Facebook has an “irrevocable, perpetual” license to use your “name, likeness, and image” in essentially any way, including within promotions or external advertising.

That clause, Walters noted, wasnt new. What had changed was that a sentence at the end of the paragraph was now mysteriously missing. The deleted line stated that the license would “automatically expire” if you removed your content. With that line omitted, Facebooks license to use your content is simply “perpetual” and “irrevocable,” even decades after you delete your stuff.

via Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint – PC World.