When was the last time you actually read the Terms of Service when agreeing to create an account on a socializing Web site?

Most Web sites do not notify users when they change the terms of service and some of them they changed them so that they are now licensed to use all the content users upload on those social network Web sites. This controversial fact was revealed by the latest scandal related to this issue which involved Facebook.

The free-access social networking website has quickly and silently operated some changes at its terms-of-service agreement after complaints from thousands of its social network members about the Web site’s claims of ownership of all the photos and all the material posted by users on site.

However, the Facebook case is most likely just the tip of the iceberg in this case.

Facebook users realized about a week ago that they could no longer take their content with them when they closed their account on the Web site. The terms of use agreement, before the recent-operated change, gave Facebook the right to own, use and sell all the content posted by its users on the Web site. It was exactly the “right” to sell the user’s material that gets the Web sites in trouble.

"They can take little Susie's pictures on the beach to Playboy, who then has their own license for using it — and you may not even know it. And then what? You're institutionalizing child pornography," said James R. Marsh, a lawyer who writes ChildLaw Blog.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg insisted that this was not the company’s intention and added that the social network Web site will work to revise the policies.

"Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service," he wrote on Facebook's corporate blog.