Most of us belong to one or more social networks (Facebook, MySpace etc.) or Web 2.0 site (Flickr, Blogger etc.). We’ll sign up, hand over our details, and then use the sites without much care for what is being done with our content or information. Which may be a big mistake, especially if the sites concerned fail to remove user content even after it has been deleted.

Many Web sites rely on user information and content to even exist. Social networks are a prime example as they would quite literally be nothing were it not for the vast amount of users doing what they do every day. But how many of us actually take the time to think about what is being done with our data, or read the terms of service to see what our rights are regarding content and the retainment of personal details?

This issue is what caused the whole rigmarole with Facebook and its new terms of service earlier this year. Facebook decided to change the wording of its terms without informing users directly, and the new wording made it clear that the company basically owned each and every thing you did on the site. Each word of wisdom, each nugget of information, each photo, video, or song became the property of Facebook until the end of your days and beyond.

This also applied to photographs which were uploaded to the site, of which there are about 40 billion. And Facebook isn’t alone in offering users the chance to upload photos, and there’s no guarantee any of the sites will remove them when you decide you want to delete them.

Security researchers at the University of Cambridge decided to put 16 of the best-known Web 2.0 sites to the test on this point. As summarized on their Light Blue Touchpaper blog, they uploaded a particular photo to the sites, noted their individual URL, then deleted the picture and sat back to see which sites would comply with the request and which wouldn’t.

Seven of the 16 sites, Bebo, Facebook, hi5, LiveJournal, MySpace, SkyRock, and Xanga didn’t delete the photos at all in the 30 days the experiment last for. Only Flickr, Photobucket, Orkut, and Windows Live Space deleted the picture immediately, while the remainder took a number of hours or days to do so.

At best this shows a lackadaisical attitude to complying with users wishes and at worst this could actually be illegal – keeping “personally-identifiable data for longer than necessary.” This experiment will hopefully have a positive impact on the issue, both in forcing the sites involved to change their practices and in making users take better care of their personal details and content.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 10:46 pm under Internet, Legal, Opinion, Social Media.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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