Week 4- Tutorial Task

  There are over 750 million active users on Facebook, and on any given day 50% of those users log on to the social networking site. (Facebook, 2011) Like any site that one joins, Facebook has terms of policy that every person you signs up for has to obey. My question is how many people actually know what the terms that we have all agreed to actually are? If I had to put a number on it I would say it is in the thousands. That's right, out of 750 million people, only a couple hundred thousand people actually know what they have agreed to when they signed up for the site. Let's be honest here, whenever we install a new computer program or sign up for a new email address very few people actually read the terms. The majority of us just check the little box and click "next"; I know that's what I do. So what are we actually agreeing to when we except these terms? I just recently took a look at Facebook's terms and they are interesting to say the least. For the most part they are all ideas and concepts that you would assume for a site such as Facebook; such as "You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." (Facebook, 2011) However, there are also some terms that I would have never fathomed would be on there. There are actual conditions that say you must keep your information up to date and current. One of the most interesting terms though is that "You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain." (Facebook, 2011) There are numerous occasions when I go on Facebook and my friends statuses are either selling something or promoting there place of employment. Apparently, according the Facebooks terms, this is illegal and you agreed you would not do this when you signed up for your account. These two examples here are only 2 surprising things I came across. Honetly you have to read the terms yourself to get the full effect of what I'm saging. Shortly after starting to read the terms page on Facebook, I began to realize that I really had no, even slight, idea of what I was agreeing to when I checked the box when I signed up. I guess from now on I will take the extra 5 minutes and read before I agree to something, and I would suggest you do the same.