Facebook got a facelift in February, and the new site layout elicited many a group in its opposition. Though less visible, changes in the site’s governing documents also generated controversy. The new language in Facebook’s Terms of Service implied that the site owned all content, even after profiles were deleted. Site officials recently put the change to a vote, inviting all 200 million members to decide between the existing governing documents and the controversial proposed ones. The week-long voting period ended last Thursday. Participation was low, with only 600,000 ballots cast, but the old terms were reinstated with 75-percent approval.

Facebook found itself at the center of another massively publicized controversy last week, when it announced a change to its terms of service (ToS) that would give the social networking service the right to retain material posted by its users in perpetuity. The change was actually slipped in several weeks prior, but the blogosphere picked up on it the weekend of Valentine’s Day, and once again we were off to the races. Blog articles led to angry Facebook groups, which led to articles in the mainstream media. In fact, the furor built to such a point that Facebook was forced to roll back to its former ToS last Wednesday.