This does not mean that the margin of action of Internet service providers is absolute. All Internet operators that direct their services specifically to Spanish territory – including social networks – are subject to the provisions of Spanish legislation, so a series of minimum principles must be complied with in any case. That is, at least, what Article 4 of the LSSI provides. A different issue is the degree of regulatory compliance that the authorities require of foreign operators, but that is another debate.
And as conscious and free decisions – among them, to choose the social network ( s to which we want to belong – can only be taken from knowledge, there is a little information about the treatment that the main social networks that operate in Spain make of our data, mainly photographs and contents, as advertised on their own terms and conditions.
Let's start with Facebook. In its terms of use, the Palo Alto-based network informs you that you "own all the content and information you post on Facebook." This would imply that the user is at all times the owner of its contents, but this is not the case. The network itself clarifies later in its terms of use, with respect to those contents subject to intellectual property such as photographs and videos, that "you grant us a license (...) to use any IP content you post on Facebook." This license ends "when you delete your IP content or account, unless the content has been shared with third parties and has not been removed by them." That is, your content is yours, but also Facebook's, and all other users if you have allowed it.
The microblogging network Twitter expresses itself, for its part, in similar terms. Its conditions of use establish that "the user reserves the rights to any content sent, published or presented through the services". But, by posting such content, the user "grants Twitter the right to make the content available to other companies, organizations or individuals associated with Twitter for the syndication, dissemination, distribution or publication of such content in other media and services." I mean, more of the same, or even more.
Tuenti, the Spanish social network with the most users, establishes an important nuance in the license that the user grants to the network. And, say its terms of use, "when publishing content on your profile (...) you retain all your rights to them and grant TUENTI a limited license to reproduce and publicly communicate them." So far everything is the same, but this authorization, continue its terms, "is with the sole and exclusive purpose that TUENTI can provide you with the service". In addition , "the previous license will be resolved once you delete your content from the Service or unsubscribe your profile." That is, by sharing content on Tuenti, the user grants the social network a license to provide the service, without Tuenti being able, in general, to transfer those contents to third parties.
Youtube takes a step further than the rest of social networks, possibly invited by its very nature. And it is that when sharing a video on YouTube, the user grants in favor of it a license similar to those already exposed, but it is also that it grants the same license in favor of the rest of the users "to use, reproduce, distribute, make derivative works of, show and execute said content to the extent allowed by the functionality of the service" . As a curious fact, note that both licenses are canceled when the user deletes or deletes their videos, but not the comments, whose assignment has "perpetual and irrevocable character".
LinkedIn, the social network intended to share professional contacts, acknowledges that "you are the owner of the information you provide to LinkedIn and you can request its deletion at any time unless you have shared information or content with others and they have not deleted it or it has been copied or stored by other users." Little novelty in this regard, but the user grants a license to LinkedIn to "market through all the modalities of exploitation currently known or discovered in the future any information that you provide to LinkedIn".
Wikipedia, if it can be considered a social network, provides the following. The user, by sharing a content, "agrees to license it under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 (Unported). For compatibility reasons, you will also need to license it under the GNU Free Documentation License. (...) Reusers can choose the license(s) they want." In short, the user who shares content on Wikipedia loses control of it, although it forces those who intend to reuse it to share it in the same way.
That said, neither better nor worse. Each social network has its own peculiarities, not only in terms of the benefits offered to its users but also in terms of the treatment it confers on the contents shared by them. Only with information is the choice valid.
Source: La Información
