Well I am sure everyone by now knows what Facebook is. Facebook was launched several years ago about the same time when I started drafting ideas for Zaplife.I firmly believe in protecting people's private data and don't believe in making money of personal information as the majority of websites do today. This is one of Zaplife´s main philosophies and Facebook is the only site that has come close to my values.I have for a long time been studying the Facebook success story and it is amazing how the website has grown over the last year. One factor to its success is the fact that members feel that their privacy is protected and free from the horrors of the internet. There are however a few warnings to be made before you start entering your full name, employment details and dating history. There are a few controversial clauses in the Facebook privacy agreement that has got me wondering if they have a hidden agenda. One is "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." but this has now disappeared from the privacy agreement.Another one is "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience."One for all new international users "By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States." Ever heard of the Patriot Act? I had a run in with the patriot act opening a bank account and it wasn't a fun experience. Watch out all of you evildoers out there.Today when I logged on Facebook I was met by a dialog saying that soon all of my data will be accessible to search engines unless I change my settings which totally contradicts this sentence: "Unlike most sites on the Web, Facebook limits access to site information by third party search engine "crawlers" (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). Facebook takes action to block access by these engines to personal information beyond your name, profile picture, and limited aggregated data about your profile (e.g. number of wall postings)."Recently serious privacy concerns have been raised over the security of 3rd party applications that users may install on Facebook (for example vampires, super poke etc). Third party applications have access to almost all user information and "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information."In the terms you will find "By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."In plain English, this means you’re giving up copyright control of your material. If you upload a photo to Facebook, they can sell copies of it without paying you a cent. If you write lengthy notes (or import your blog posts!), Facebook can turn them into a book, sell a million copies, and pay you nothing. This deserves careful consideration!Finally if you want to remove your Facebook account you can't! In the settings I have only been able to find "Deactivate" account. Weather this means if your account will forever be in their database or for a limited period is not clear. In the privacy agreement its says "Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook." but on the "My account" page it says "You can reactivate your account at any time by logging in with your email and password." which contradicts "a reasonable period of time".I do think Facebook has done a great job on taking social networking to a new level but before we all get too excited we should be aware of the fine print and what market forces can do with our personal information. Please feel free to read Zaplife's terms and privacy policy.