November 23rd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 4)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 23, 2009 @ 10:51 AM

Categories: Antitrust, Blogs, Censorship, China, Commerce, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Cyberwar, Defense, Disaster recovery, E-government, Elections, European Parliament, European Union, FCC, FTC, Government 2.0, Government technology, Green Dam, Homeland security, Intellectual Property, Intelligence, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Open government, Regulations, Security, Senate, Social networks, Spam, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, United Kingdom, United Nations, Web, politics

Tags: Law, Court, Counter Point, Internet, Government, Doug Hanchard

Justice systems around the world had their entire world turned upside down over the past several years because of the Internet. The basic sets of laws, often founded on a nation’s constitution are being used in ways that many forefathers never anticipated or envisioned. Republic, Dominion and Socialist government institutions around the world are all facing the same issues - often without any clear path of legal precedent.

One of the challenges facing courts is jurisdiction. Because of the very nature of the Internet, legal systems are now faced with new roadblocks that did not exist 10 years ago. Traditional methods of law enforcement and legal treaties do work and continue to be the basis of process and dealing with prosecution and trials. Interpretation of existing laws and applying them to Internet-related cases has not been a significant challenge in many cases. But there are some new aspects of what is admitted into court.

Evidence

What has shocked the system is how Internet-based materials are now used in the courts as evidence. Everything from ISP logs, website blogs, and social media sites (among others) are now being used in ways that prosecutors and jurists have never had to deal with in the past. It is also becoming a battle ground for several areas of law, particularly the integrity of evidence. This has many in the legal world concerned. It’s becoming clear that this will be an area of significant debate and will have far-reaching consequences. Internet evidence does not have look and feel of traditional evidence and, in many cases, has yet to be challenged as to its validity. Prosecutors are faced with a dilemma that impacts how and what they prosecute. This in turn has created a new source of political initiatives that are not only questionable, but in some parts of the world viewed as extreme.

Don’t have a Law yet? We’ll make one

The evolution of law and how it is created has traditionally been a slow and low priority part of the political system. No longer is that the case. Government ministers and cabinet officials appear to be fast-tracking new laws, specifically because of the Internet at a rapid pace of late. Politicians are practically tripping over themselves drafting new bills that claim that they know how to fix the problems of cybercrime and abuse. These ideas are moving at such a rapid pace that often few people actually have read the fine print. What concerns many is the advice politicians are getting on how Internet law should be created. Governments all over the world will have significant impact on such issues as free speech, Net neutrality, news, crime and governance of institutions.

Prosecution

There is not much sympathy for the courts in many parts of the world. That may soon change as news travels across the multimedia world of the Internet. Attorneys general throughout the United States are political and create their own priorities and thus control what is heard before the courts. This may have significant consequences as to the timing of how the Internet evolves and impact the economics of the service that potentially influences it’s usage for decades. In the United Kingdom, the courts will have to take into account European treaties and the European Parliament. Canada’s magistrates may strike down or uphold newly created laws that may wind up creating in-balance that could take years to reverse.

Rules await the Internet

Regulators such as the CRTC, FCC, OfCom are charting new territory in communication rules and regulations. Lawmakers are beginning to micro-manage this process. No one yet knows what the impact these new elements will have on the judicial system. It will take years before this is known and goes through several rigorous tests of the court system. Case law may take a decade or more before any true outcomes are known. By that time, a nation will have changed political administration and have new agendas that reset the cycle before some true outcomes are known. Net Neutrality will be debated and wind up before the courts in jurisdictions around the world. The results will vary like your bandwidth speed and access to content.

Global perspective

Laws of a nation are now being combined in many parts of the world. The very essence of a sovereign nation set of laws is slowly being merged into a single set by which it will adhere to. This is particularly true in Europe where the European Parliament is attempting to create laws specifically surrounding the Internet. This has the potential to create political and legal challenges for courts in how they make decisions. The consequences have significant long term impacts on how courts operate and what order of Appeals and jurisdiction as they enter cyber space with profound outcomes yet to be decided.

The Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions have not had an impact on the Internet - but likely will. Major court decisions at local, state, and provincial levels are being appealed and many will eventually be argued before the Supreme Court. That draws concern because of how many governments nominate and select jurists to be a part of the Supreme Court framework. In general terms, the institution is politically driven and has the potential to create decisions that may in fact be contrary to the very principles that many of us take for granted. It also works in the other direction. Many a government has had policies and laws overturned by the courts. Key segments will be privacy, Internet access and tracking - along with content management tangled with identity security. It could be argued that elected government officials are not a threat to the Internet, the courts are. The counter point is that will force parliamentarians to change the law, a task far easier said than done. Compounding the problem is that the highest courts around the world have (almost) unlimited tenure until death.  Jurists that will have profound impacts on the stance of governments surrounding Internet issues are in China, Pakistan, India, Russia, and the Middle East. China is unique in that it will have to eventually deal with treaties in which it is a signatory to, but no one has yet to appeal any government policies. It may soon have to. If WTO treaties are before their court system, the Internet could be next.

The court system in most democratic nations has dynamics rarely resulting in quick decisions. It may take years before government’s leaders and the lawmakers truly understand what they are dealing with. Some will fail in creating new laws that are considered extreme by many; others may actually pass the litmus test of a Supreme Court decision. History awaits the outcome.

Epilogue - it will never have an ending

So here we are; some of the files are out in the open, more need further decryption, understanding and updating. The pace of the discussion is increasing and appears to be moving along with few delays. 2010 promises to be the start of a new decade that has a few fundamental issues to resolve. The debate has begun and could be a pivotal point in how society uses and government manages the Internet.

Go back to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 3)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:32 PM

Categories: Censorship, Congress, Courts, E-government, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Regulations, Senate, Social networks, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: U.S., Safety Agency, Government, Internet, Vertical Industries, Doug Hanchard

Part III

From 1959 to 1975, the era of demonstration (Vietnam War) was to protest on the lawns and parks of universities and public venues. The Kent State shootings by National Guard troops in May of 1970 was not the first demonstration against government, but it certainly was the event that ignited further demonstrations at universities all over the United States. Demonstrators had no defense against armed troops and the toll was significant both in political values and individual trust in government. News organizations covered every demonstration nationally from that event onwards until the end of 1975.

There are more Internet Packets than there are bullets

Almost 40 years later, some government officials and elected official are pushing agendas that have long term consequences to its people that have similar overtones of big brother control.  Today the landscape is very different.  If people don’t like what they see potentially becoming Law, they have a new tools without fear of an M-16 being pointed at them. At one extreme end of protest, several protests went directly onto the offensive and have launched cyber war attacks against government institutions such as Estonia. It has been alleged that a U.S. Congressman suggested cyber attacks should be ordered against North Korea. I investigated this claim and could not find a single article verifying its authenticity, but it’s been reported all over the internet. A request for an interview was declined by the Congressman’s office.

It doesn’t stop there; non government groups are also launching political cyber attack campaigns against (VANK vs. Japan) each other. Emailing an elected official was the first step. Media tools which are now at the disposal of anyone, is an arsenal that has far more power than any individual or group in government can defeat. Instead of thousands of journalists covering a story, there is potentially billions of people reporting bits of news that are crisscrossing the globe that nobody can stop - for now. There is the potential for citizens to protest by using the internet to attack their own government, particularly in the United States and the U.K. and may believe it is their right to do so. This is not the kind of digital divide that government knows how to deal with either.  The days of the Boston Tea party are long gone and we know what happened two years later and that is not a scenario that will unfold or be repeated.

Governments have seen this potential and are developing applications and systems that can defend and attack any Internet event, foreign or domestic. This is not (just) about firewalls and creating offensive capabilities, but also about proposing new laws, which many believe are the beginning of a new era of government knows best.

Information is power

Many fear this could behold a future that dictates who holds control over the Internet. Early indications are that this view has some validity. Several nations (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia) are already monitoring and archiving significant information about their constituents.  There’s nothing new in knowledge that databases exist containing information about its citizens. Here’s what is new: the scale and ultimate purpose. Public safety agencies are encouraged to share multiple databases of information. That has created a new culture in police enforcement and created a new breed of police officer that simply has far more information than they need or should have available to them upon which to make an appraisal or use with valid merit. We have witnessed new variants of stereotype and investigation methods police officers use which are wrong in its outcome. England’s decision to maintain DNA records of individuals, even if found innocent has already caught several police officers making snap decisions that a suspect must be guilty of ’something’ - is a classic example that happens routinely.

What’s good for catching the bad guy maybe worse for the upstanding citizen

People realize that information is kept and archived about them. How it is used or manipulated however, is a completely different discussion. Privacy and protection from abuse of such information has now become a priority concern for everyone and currently there is a widespread worry that government simply does not have the trust of people to ensure its safeguarding. Memories of May 4, 1970 may come back to haunt many.

Governments are proposing laws allowing the tracking and archiving where users are on the Internet. These laws have their foundation in protection against illegal downloading of copyright materials and while valid, have far more reaching consequences than that purpose, and most recognize it as such - except many politicians. How much more information is the government going to track - this blog perhaps? I know that the 754^th ELSG - Electronic System Group (part of the 554^th ESW Wing) of the U.S. Air Force out of Hanscom Air Force Base has visited the blog, as has the Central Intelligence Agency. That doesn’t mean they are monitoring or tracking this blog, but what’s to stop them for doing so (hi guys! *wave*) and creating a file? - Good thing I know they’re the good guys…..
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 4 in this series

November 22nd, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around? (Part 2)

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 22, 2009 @ 3:30 PM

Categories: Blogs, Censorship, Congress, Courts, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, Homeland security, Journalism, Justice, Multi-media, Obama, Open government, Senate, Social networks, Spam, State & Local Govt, Web, politics

Tags: News, Internet New, Spin Bad New, Internet, Portals, RSS, Government, Blogging, Doug Hanchard

Part II

It’s been suggested in many articles that President Obama won the U.S. election in 2008 because his campaign used Twitter, Facebook and other social media effectively over the course of the campaign that spanned two years.  But this new instant social media clearly it works both ways: Bad news travels much faster, and with significantly more power, than good news ever does. Face it: People love dirt and passing on bad news more often, with negative results which tend to stick in a voters mind for a longer period of time than good news does.

The snowball effect

There’s more to it than just a story being uploaded and published on a blog or RSS feed. It goes a lot farther, much much farther. Internet news is now available in every language, where anybody who has access to a computer or smart phone is now a potential audience for ‘news’. That has politicians nervous because just how many of these stories are published with incomplete information along with confirmation that the material they are publishing is true. Harder still, once it’s published, how much effort do you put into getting a retraction if the story is inaccurate? And if the politician pushes too far, it may be perceived that there is in fact truth to the article, compounding the problem.  Twitter spreads news like a virus and it’s unstoppable and often it doesn’t, if ever, post retractions or corrections at the same velocity. We thought we understood the 7/24 news cycle when the era of 200 television stations became a reality… uh no…not even close were we in understanding what this cycle means - until now.

The Spin

Bad news is also how the opposition takes aim at its targets. Once a story is in the wild, you can bet your opposite is firing out their take on a story, sometimes with twice the venom and quadruple the amount of information that can literately engulf the target.  If you thought spam was a problem, political drama is going to crush it in the years to come.  One question it raises is: Can we absorb it all? The politician may have an escape route after all. But there’s an old saying: If enough junk is thrown at the wall, some of it is going to stick…

The story

News is also about agendas that elected leaders want to you to vote for. Out go the press releases, RSS alerts, Twitter, blogs and social portal postings. You become engulfed in it. You can’t surf anywhere without it coming at you. Well, you can, but don’t worry; they’ll find you anyway and make sure you listen. As opposing sides pitch you why each respective side is right and the other is wrong, you wonder if they even remember what they represent you for in the first place. This onslaught of political news is ignored, absorbed and debated and the arguments and dilution of substance begins. Often it can be ugly at one extreme to complete blandness at the other.  Politicians rarely remember which side of the bed they woke up on, why should it be any different trying to get a bill passed on the floor of the legislature?

What some leaders are starting to realize is that if they are not careful, their constituents will tune out. So far that’s not holding true, with the majority of western world eligible voters having access to the internet and having an email address or a cell phone with a data plan. Most troubling for elected officials are secondary news sources that create perception beyond their editorial control. These secondary sources are your friends that pass on the news, as a tweet, email, blog or text message which are condensed and revised pieces of news. This audience tends to get engaged BECAUSE it came from a source they associate with. The future might hold that people create firewall or filter rules that prevent political messages getting to them, but rarely will they reject these secondary sources of news.

Reaction to government has moved from the lawns of universities and parks to the Internet.

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Part 1
Part 3
Part 4 in this series

November 20th, 2009

Internet: A threat to government or the other way around?

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 20, 2009 @ 6:58 AM

Categories: Blogs, Courts, Cyberwar, Elections, Government technology, Journalism, Multi-media, Net neutrality, Open government, Privacy, Regulations, Social networks, State & Local Govt, Telecom, Twitter, Web, Winter Olympic Games, politics

Tags: President, Internet, Government, Vertical Industries, Doug Hanchard

Could the Internet pose a threat to government as an institution and create significant problems that shape how governing in the future occurs around the globe?  Or are government a danger to users of the Internet — and vice versa?

The answer is maybe both.  The internet has plunged government institutions into a very steep learning curve; creating new frontiers that many bureaucrats believe help how they run the country. For many departments, it’s been a windfall in financial savings such as publishing news, services, and many other programs. But for the actual governors of a country, it’s become quicksand or worse: the death knell for an elected official. The power brokers have found that making deals that used to be done in secret are now just about impossible to do. Getting a deal done, negotiating give and take on a bill is now leaked before the ink has even dried, because a draft is already out on the internet on some blog or news forum - like this one.  Senators, Congressmen/women, parliamentarians around the world no longer worry about one single person; suddenly, anyone around them can be the next Deep Throat tell-all informer, straight from their BlackBerry to Twitter, and their career could be over.

It could be argued that the internet is the great equalizer to government and its institutions, preventing them from becoming too powerful. For other agencies, it’s an entirely new battlefront - one which they now must confront - and use.

• The Internet is the great creator and destroyer of current and next generation politicians.
• A journalist does his homework and steadfastly enshrines ethical methods.

These two statements are about to collide in a head-on crash of extraordinary proportions. When U.S. President Nixon resigned from office, it wasn’t a news story covering a week in the life of a President’s downfall. It started in June of 1971 and finally ended when he left office in August of 1974. Newspaper reporters had to maintain constant pressure on information leaking out of the White House and Defense Department for three years.  Watergate was covered by some of the most respected journalists in the world and ensured that the facts pertaining to the story followed strict guidelines before publication. Those standards were what ultimately brought down a President.

Standards 2009… I don’t have time for that!

Today, a single story with enough information that is both accurate AND false can wipe out a politician in the amount of time it takes to log into a BlackBerry, type out 140 characters onto Twitter.com and you’re done like tweet….

The amount of retractions and corrections that news organizations have published has skyrocketed over the past several years. I myself have had to correct a story’s accuracy of facts. The speed of the internet has also created a conundrum that existed already in newspapers: Deadlines, which have now accelerated from several hours to ‘hit the press’ to seconds to get it online before the person across the street on his cell phone blogs it. Competition isn’t what it used to be. A single event can have devastating effects that spread and collects unwitting victims that are also elected, thus ending that official’s colleague career.

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Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 in this series

November 10th, 2009

U.K. minister wants enhanced monitoring of Internet usage

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 10, 2009 @ 7:06 AM

Categories: Commerce, Courts, Cyber Security, Cybercrime, Databases, E-government, Government technology, Home Office, IT Management, Intelligence, International, Law enforcement, NSA, Network security, Networking, Open government, RIAA, Regulations, Security, Servers, Social networks, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, UK, VoIP, piracy

Tags: Internet Usage, Agency, British Broadcasting Corp., Monitoring, Internet Service Provider, Service Provider, U.K., Web Portal, U.K. Home Office Minister David Hanson, Minister Hanson

U.K. Home Office Minister David Hanson is pushing for further data archiving of information by Communications Service Providers, including such web portals as Facebook. In a BBC published article, the Minister responsible for Privacy, Christopher Graham, (along with several other un-named ministers) has some serious concerns  with the proposal.

Home Office Ministry - United Kingdom

Not only does Minister Hanson suggest that records be accessible at the source, but also tracked by internet service providers. Such a system would require immense capital and infrastructure. Based on what the Minister desires, it would appear that he wants investigative agencies to have broader mandates in observing people and creating dossiers on anyone in the world. This suggests that the British are gearing up to have a significant electronic intelligence community, similar to the U.S. variant, the National Security Agency. While most G-8 nations have extensive archives and records, it has never been required by local internet service providers or other telecommunications companies to maintain the records to the extent the Home office is suggesting. Such systems have never been within the budget of local police agencies. Minister Hanson is possibly suggesting that these costs should be passed on to the user of the internet services through cost sharing mechanisms of the communications provider and the government through direct subsidy, using tax dollars to implement the initial construction of the platforms required. Read the rest of this entry »

November 2nd, 2009

Net Neutrality: You own the Internet - make sure it becomes Law

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 2, 2009 @ 6:23 AM

Categories: Censorship, Congress, Copyright, Courts, Cybercrime, E-government, FCC, International, Journalism, Justice, Law enforcement, Net neutrality, Privacy, Regulations, Security, Social networks, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, Web services

Tags: Regulation, Net Neutrality, Law, News Organization, Changes, Internet, Doug Hanchard

Last week I wrote about how Net Neutrality could be blown to pieces in satire and followed up with another piece suggesting that the Internet is not free from government monopolies and corporate service providers. An advocate of an open system that has choice and no boundaries barring access needs some ammunition to fight back with. It has plenty if used appropriately.

For the first time in the world, there’s a service that has a unique platform, allowing all free people to interact, demonstrate, express and bind together to resolve issues. The internet is the vehicle which has and will continue to drive change, innovation, and create an entirely new political landscape that does not have limitations. Could turn out to be a bad or good thing. But internet users will be decision makers on this point, not corporations. Read the rest of this entry »

October 22nd, 2009

Net Neutrality: Why the Internet will never be free. For anything. So get used to it

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 22, 2009 @ 10:10 AM

Categories: Antitrust, Canada, Censorship, Commerce, Congress, Copyright, Courts, E-government, FCC, FTC, Google, Government technology, Green Dam, ICANN, Intellectual Property, International, Journalism, Justice, Microsoft, Net neutrality, Open government, Privacy, Regulations, Social networks, Standards, State & Local Govt, Telecom, VoIP, Web browsers, Web services

Tags: Provider, Google Inc., Network, Law, Net Neutrality, Yorkton, Market Pie, Internet, Networking, Doug Hanchard

Call it Net Neutrality if you want, but it doesn’t exist, nor is it required when you already have antitrust, regulatory and other local and state, and international law in place. Choice, innovation and open access are the principles in a free enterprise competitive market, not the halls of government.

Before I start, I wish to make clear that ’Law’ is what makes our society what it is today. Without, we would have anarchy and society as we know it today would not exist. Also this is not your typical blog story, what follows is an medium depth look at the problems and challenges Net Neutrality would have on providers, users and government policy if implemented. It doesn’t ask all the questions or give solutions to every aspect in fine detail but does give the reader a general knowledge and sense of issues.

Overview - Net Neutrality - a philosophy or set of regulations?

Your government will ensure Net neutrality with whatever they believe it is. You may not like it, but it is coming. I just don’t know if the lawmakers know what they are getting themselves into. The world believes the Internet is open to everyone. Some are arguing and even demanding we need Law and the RIGHT to eliminate censorship and have choice in all its forms.  The Internet is the People’s network and everyone owns it. Thus Net Neutrality would enable and ensure innovation, freedom, choice and access. Read the rest of this entry »

October 20th, 2009

Electronic voting: Changing the world faster than a Windows upgrade

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 20, 2009 @ 10:07 AM

Categories: Blogs, Canada, E-government, Elections, Government 2.0, Government technology, International, Microsoft, Open government, Social networks, Twitter, Web services, White House

Tags: Microsoft Windows, Web Site, Whitehouse, Government, Internet, Web Site Development, Web Technology, Vertical Industries, Portals, E-voting

The world changes every day and often our lives get impacted every second by outcomes out of our domain or control.  Government institutions and the leaders we elected change political behaviors at a slower pace. Lawmakers react along party lines and tout change as the promised path to improvements. They have four years, sometimes longer, in office to create change.  It can take decades for policies and laws to actually happen in many parts of the world. The Internet world is pushing to shorten those time lines.

Computers, smart phones, and applications are now a part of the social fabric that we all use. It seems we are a very vocal bunch. No longer is it about having your own website or voice on a newsgroup posting — that’s old stuff. Today, it’s being a part of a social network both as an individual and a group or business. You join different clubs and organizations, sign virtual petitions and speak out on issues and still talk to your lost long family, friends and make new ones.

Who would have ever thought that 300 million users would be on Facebook in such a short time? Language translation of a web page now takes place in a nanosecond. Nobody should to be left out if they are connected to the Internet. The world access to the Internet is now approximately 1.6 billion people — roughly 25% of the population.

The recent global financial crisis was predictable by computer modeling, some argue — if the regulators around the world had integrated laws and data sharing. That’s unlikely, given the reality of how much risk people were simply willing to take and given the lax rules that existed.  It’s true, some blogs and information about the crisis that occurred exploded on the internet and published on many of the social websites we visit every day. Publishing articles about the disaster are global since it impacted so many people’s lives. Governments have reacted, this time quickly. Financial reforms and bailouts are happening around the world at lightning speed compared to normal government day-to-day ramblings. Government is listening, making fundamental changes in how they govern when they link to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and many others and update almost daily. The White House is linked to all of them!

Are the changes in direction about faces to implementation of such web portals? Is this truly going to change governments and how they create law? As technology, security solutions and applications improve and become trusted, I would not be surprised to see certified referendums, municipal and federal government level voting on specific issues be made available and counted on web sites or portals, a reality within a year in some parts of the world. Some countries are already doing limited online voting (U.K., Canada, Switzerland) for elections. In the U.S., it has been used for primaries. Read the rest of this entry »

June 17th, 2009

Clinton defends State-Twitter connection, even as she pleads ignorance

Posted by Richard Koman @ June 17, 2009 @ 5:00 PM

Categories: International, Social networks

Tags: Protest, Hillary Clinton, Clinton, Leadership, Management, Richard Koman

In his wonderful book The Invention of Air, about the English scientist Charles Priestley, Steven Johnson talks about how Mike Huckabee was asked a question about global warming (as I recall) and his answer was, “It’s funny you would ask that. I’m running for President not high school science teacher.”

Johnson’s point was that science is actually quite central to the concerns of political leaders and what’s really funny is that a major candidate would take the position that science is purely the domain of lab-coated eggheads.

The point is no less true for technology, and the Obama Administration is supposed to be this geekocracy, with the nation’s first CTO and CIO. Enter Hillary Clinton, either playing dumb or failing to realize that technology and policy are truly intertwined.

Defending the State Department’s entreaty to Twitter not to shut down for maintenance while the Iranian protests are in full swing (biggest protest yet scheduled for tomorrow), Clinton said:

“I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter, but apparently, it is very important.”

For God’s sake, when are politicians going to stop acting like ignorance is some sign of gravitas?

Clinton said she considered it important to keep “that line of communication open and enabling people to share information, particularly at a time when there [were] not many other sources of information. . . . It is a fundamental right for people to be able to communicate.”

Whatever this Web thing is.

February 18th, 2009

Facebook rolls back TOS

Posted by Richard Koman @ February 18, 2009 @ 8:32 AM

Categories: Social networks

Tags: Facebook, Term, Blogging, Internet, Richard Koman

Faster than I thought, Facebook has given up on its new perpetual license to everything. Zuckerman blogs:

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Many of us at Facebook spent most of today discussing how best to move forward. One approach would have been to quickly amend the new terms with new language to clarify our positions further. Another approach was simply to revert to our old terms while we begin working on our next version. As we thought through this, we reached out to respected organizations to get their input.

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms, you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created—Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.