Facebook Can Use Your Pictures For Ads, No Permission Required

In the past couple days a handful of my Facebook friends have been posting in my news feed a warning about how my posted photos can now be used by Facebook without my permission. The actual message states "Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission." It continues to explain how you can protect your photos by changing your privacy settings. This article that I found was just as perplexed by these warning messages as I was. I was baffled by how they could do this being that it seems like a classic legal case of misappropriation. The article states that Facebook admits in its terms of service that all Intellectual Property content, like photos and videos, belong to you, the user. But the fine print essentially allows Facebook to do what it pleases with such content, with some limitations. Facebook had not stepped forward yet and made any comments clearing up this matter but some Facebook administrators say that their policy has not changed regarding photos being used in third-party advertisements. Still, the Facebook blog says the site can use your photo for something that you have expressed interest in without your permission. Facebook needs to come forward and publically announce what their policy decision really is. It will be interesting to see what they decide and how clearly they communicate it to the public. It will then be interesting to see the publics reaction to the decision.