Give a TOS

Facebook has altered its Terms of Service (TOS), and now states that merely by using Facebook you now assent to their trademark of the word “book.”

The “book” addition to the user agreement isn’t as strong as a registered trademark or copyright, but provides extra protection, says intellectual property attorney Denis Ticak of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP in Cleveland, Ohio. The difference is that instead of extending to anyone who infringes upon the trademark, the user agreement covers only people who actually use Facebook—which, of course, is a substantial percentage of the population of Earth.

It’s typical of dotcoms to make sweeping, not to mention insane, assertions of what they own or control— as for example, when Wired itself claimed to own the word “hardwired.”  This shifts the burden of legal expense to others, who have to prove that they don’t own what they claim to own.

(At least Google made up their damn name.  And no, the word you’re thinking of is “googol.”)

So is Facebook evil?

It’s an omnipresent Internet company!

I mean, duh.