Facebook presses ahead with new Ts and Cs

New York (NY) – Despite failing to reach its own pre-set conditions, Facebook is to adopt its controversial proposed new terms of service.

The social-networking site said it would adopt the new terms of service even though too few users voted to reach the threshold – 30% of users – that it set for the new terms to go into effect. The company said that “more than 600,000” of its 200 million users voted, and that 74.4 percent of those who did vote supported the proposal.

The new terms promise that FaceBook will not use content from its users after they delete the content or terminate their accounts.The proposal followed user outrage after it made changes to its existing terms of service earlier this year, effectively giving it ownership of its users’ data.

The vote took place from April 16-23 and was handled via an application developed by Wildfire. Despite the fact that the vote was promoted on every user’s home page, fewer than one percent actually took part.

Facebook said last month it would follow a notice and comment model, similar to the way federal agencies create regulations, for future proposed TOS changes. After a 30-day public comment period, revisions would only be put to a vote if at least 7,000 people posted comments.