First Facebook had to back down when mothers protested over the company's ban on photos showing them breastfeeding. Now the social networking company is finding out that people do not take too kindly to having their personal information being appropriated for unknown uses.

The concerns arose when Facebook recently changed its terms and conditions, slipping in a phrase that essentially gave the company licence to use anything published by its members on the site.

The error is one other Internet entrepreneurs out there would be wise to learn from, both for the blind reasoning behind the original change, and the tack the company is now taking in regaining the trust it lost.

Facebook has since removed these extraordinarily invasive terms, but only after an uproar from the crowd. If the terms had applied, it would have meant that Facebook would store everything you ever put on there forever. Then 20 years later, you might end up seeing some silly photo you put on the site turning up in a book or even an ad.

Sites such as MySpace, Yahoo, Google and Twitter explicitly backed away from claiming ownership over uploaded content.

Last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the site's reversion back to the previous terms and conditions, but still left the possibility open that these could still be amended.

"Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues people have raised," he says about the effects of the uprising.

While Zuckerberg in a previous blog post had given a rather suspicious justification for the changes, this time he attempted to be straight with people. In a previous post he tried to say that Facebook needed the rights over the material to allow the user to share personal information with their friends.

He must have thought people would swallow that false justification without a thought. Perhaps he is guilty of thinking Facebook users are stupider than most? Didn't he learn from the breastfeeding mums?

It was obvious to anyone that Facebook saw a potential money stream and was attempting to appropriate personal content. Facebook currently has 175 million users and made about $300 million in sales last year. Meanwhile MySpace, which is explicitly commercial, has 130 million users and made almost $1 billion in revenues.

Facebook is playing catch-up in terms of revenues, but, as one commentator rightly pointed out, began business by selling itself as an intimate personal space.

MySpace was explicit commercially from the start, and sells loads of advertising without the need for apology, since its terms were clear.

Zuckerberg has had to change his tune to the one Facebook users want to hear. But he is still stuck with coming up with a viable revenue growth model to capitalise on all those very private people.

"Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now," he says about the terms and conditions. "It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we'll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms."

This promise of input will be his next test. He cannot fail, or people like me will soon start leaving for other places — and I am only an occasional user.

Facebook has set up a group called "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" to let users have their say. For now make sure that you have the right privacy settings on your Facebook account, or you may find yourself giving away more than you wanted.

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All hail the UK's Lord Carter, who in releasing his interim Digital Britain report, called for a 2Mbps baseline speed for UK broadband. This is the minimum service he wants Internet Service Provides to establish by 2012.

He reasons that not only was it "not an option" to leave people out of the digital era, but also that 2Mbps was the minimum needed for government to roll out online services.

The UK already has an impressive amount of government services online, and has plans to put more on in a big way. Once the 2Mbps target is reached Lord Carter says the UK will be ready for the "digital switch-over of government services".

With the high Internet penetration rates in Bermuda, perhaps Government should be thinking (again) of reviving the push to e-government services. All it takes is someone with a bold vision. Any takers?

Send any comments to elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.