All Your Data Belong To Us

Someone's put up a cute and spot on video commentary on the online social networking phenomenon on YouTube. In the video, there was a very pertinent bit about "We own everything you put up. It says so in the terms and conditions."

Lo and behold, I did see at least one condition to that effect made by at least one such online networking service provider:

You do not have to submit anything to us, but if you choose to submit something (including any User generated content, ideas, concepts, techniques and data), you must grant, and you actually grant by concluding this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royaltyfree right to us to copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, and use and commercialize, in any way now known or in the future discovered, anything that you submit to us, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties. By submitting any information to us, you represent and warrant that such submission is accurate, is not confidential, and is not in violation of any contractual restrictions or other third party rights. You further agree to inform LinkedIn in the event that any such information has changed since your registration with LinkedIn and, if appropriate, you agree to make such modifications yourself to your profile.

Perhaps, you as a user, might like to rethink using such services, especially where they reserve the right to change their policies, at their discretion, with or without notice to their users.