Are you voting in 2012?

Not *that* vote…you’re just a bit late for that one…

You know that paragraph all your friends have been copying and pasting on their walls, stating that they retain all their rights to the content they put on Facebook, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah?  Facebook has proposed several site changes that sparked that flurry of idiocy and they’re letting the users vote on the changes.

In essence, the service is proposing several changes to their SSR (Statement of Rights and Responsibilities) and Data Use Policy (you know, those things that you never read when you sign up for something, but then have to hit “Agree” to continue? )  While the guidelines for site usage are fairly straightforward and user-friendly, they are proposing some significant changes.

The largest is a major update for how the social network makes site changes of any kind.   Under the current system, Facebook notifies users of any change on their Site Governance Page.  If over 7,000 users post a “substantive comment” on the proposed change, Facebook puts the change to a vote of users.  If more than 30% of all active users on the site vote, then the outcome of the vote will be binding.  In contrast, the proposed new rules state that they will give users “an opportunity to comment” on changes to the policy.

Additional changes include clarifying that they share your information with their affiliates (DUH!) and updating how you control messages on the service, among others.  Clearly they are interested in receiving customer feedback, since they emailed all current users of the site informing them of the vote and asking them to check out the proposed changes.  Voting has already begun, and runs until 12pm PST on December 10, 2012.   Click here to vote.