On 15 February, 2009, The Consumerist, a consumer affairs blog, brought to public attention a change in the terms of use for the popular social networking website, Facebook, made on 4 February, 2009. The site, which has over 175 million active users worldwide, had changed the section of its terms of use regarding rights to uploaded and posted content, making their rights to such content perpetual, including after termination of accounts or removal of content.

Facebook has since reverted to the former terms of use in light of the resulting outrage; but while this event caused a furore among consumer advocates and users of the site, the change did not represent a significant break from the rights the social networking site already has to uploaded or posted user content.

According to the "old" terms of service—updated in September, 2008—Facebook has the "irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicence) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute’ any content users upload or post on the site."

The change earlier this month altered the rights Facebook holds on termination of a user’s account. The current terms of use explain that if a user removes content or terminates their account, the aforementioned rights would expire. The altered terms removed the clause that indicated that those rights would expire, thus granting Facebook ownership of any user content forever.

However, Facebook already retains all information uploaded. According to the current terms of use, "the Company may retain archived copies of your user content." They do not, however, hold the right to reproduce that content publicly.

Facebook has been involved in a number of scandals regarding its terms of use beyond this recent change. Notably, they refused to remove the profile of deceased journalist Bill Bemister at the request of his sister, Stephanie. This stems from their policy of only "deactivating" accounts, with deletion requiring a special request.

While the social networking site has reverted to its September, 2008 terms of use, it continues to seek a change from those terms. They are not legally obliged to inform users of any changes they make to the terms of use, and by continuing use all users automatically agree to those changes.