If you’re interested in protesting on Facebook, by the way, there’s a group of over 50,000 FB members discussing their problems with the changes.

Even more interesting, though, is that EPIC is filing a complaint with the FTC over all this–so my little concerns have joined with a lot of little concerns and I feel a little justified now. As J.R. Raphael over at PC World put it,

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has attempted to calm the concerns, posting a blog entry stating that “people own their information” and that Facebook “wouldn’t share [it] in a way you wouldn’t want.” As an example of why the controversial clause is needed in its updated form, Zuckerberg explains that even if you were to delete your account, any messages you had sent to a friend would still remain in his inbox–so Facebook requires the expanded rights to make sure that could happen.

Isn’t that a far cry, though, from anything that’d warrant retaining a “perpetual” license to “use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, [and] adapt” any content you’ve ever uploaded, including the option to “use your name, likeness and image for any purpose”?

In my opinion, a far cry indeed.