Remember that highly regrettable photo of you from that epic tailgate that you somehow that was a good idea to upload to Facebook? Well, I hope you don’t mind that following you around for the rest of your life. Yes, I said the rest of your life. A new terms of service on Facebook pretty much assures that the social networking dictator has rights to your content forever. Cue that kid from Sandlot who so eerily says “FOR…EV…ER.”

You see, Facebook’s always claimed the right to own your content (and thus do whatever they want with it), but it wasn’t always for such an infinite amount of time, as the Consumerist so kindly points out. Now, even the most unfortunate photos and comments, never die. 

In case you never bothered reading that silly little TOS, you can check it out here: 

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

That's the same in the old and new TOS. But there’s one little addition to the new TOS. Perhaps addition is not so much the right phrase, as is deletion. An important couple of lines have been removed from the new agreement and those are:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

Basically even if you close your account, Facebook has dibs on your content. That’s clarified in the new “Termination” section of the statement:

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

Thanks Facebook for scaring the bejeezus out of us. Be careful what you post, the ghosts of social networking profiles past could haunt you well into the future.