Facebook offers meaningful privacy rights disclosures, data access/portability/deletion tools, and many consumers can sue locally rather than arbitrate. But these benefits are outweighed by extensive tracking and ad profiling, broad sharing with partners and Meta companies, a sweeping content license, long deletion windows, and strong liability limitations.
Facebook is a free, ad-funded social platform with extensive data collection across Meta products, partner sites, devices and public sources. The terms preserve some user rights, like local-court access for many consumer disputes and access/deletion/portability rights, but they also grant Meta a broad content license, permit use of your identity in ads, allow broad sharing with partners, and retain deletion backups for months.
Points of interest
Meta collects a very broad range of data, including activity, device details, contacts, location, cookies, and partner data, even in some cases without an account. In practice, using Facebook can involve tracking across devices, services, and third-party sites.
"Meta collects information you provide, your activity, device details, contacts, location data, cookies, and data from partners or public sources."
Your personal data is used to target and measure ads on and off Meta products. This means your behavior and inferred interests help shape advertising across Facebook's ecosystem.
"we can show you personalised ads and other commercial and sponsored content... We use your personal data... to show you personalised ads"
You keep ownership of your posts, photos, and videos, but grant Meta a worldwide, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to use and modify them for service operation. This is a broad permission that continues until content is fully deleted.
"you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free and worldwide licence to host, use, distribute, modify... your content"
Meta can use your name, profile photo, and ad-related actions next to sponsored content without paying you. Your social activity may therefore be used to endorse ads to others who can view that activity.
"You give us permission to use your name and profile picture and information about actions that you have taken on Facebook next to... ads"
Public posts and profile information can be copied, reshared, downloaded, or indexed off-platform, including by search engines and third parties. Once something is public, practical control over it can be hard to regain.
"When content is public, it can be seen by anyone... on or across our Products and in some cases, off our Products"
Facebook is provided 'as is' and Meta disclaims warranties while limiting liability for indirect and consequential damages as far as law allows. If the service causes losses or disruptions, user remedies may be narrow.
"Our Products... are provided "As is,"... we also DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES... under no circumstance will we be liable to you for... consequential"
The policy expressly provides rights to access, correct, download, port, erase, object, and complain to a regulator. These are meaningful user protections, especially in regions covered by data protection law.
"You have the following rights... Access and correct information Withdraw consent Port your information Download your information Erase information Object"
Consumer disputes are generally governed by the law of your home country and can be brought in competent local courts. This is more user-friendly than mandatory arbitration or exclusive foreign forum clauses for consumers.
"If you are a consumer... the laws of the country in which you reside will apply... and you may resolve your claim in any competent court in that country"
Deleting content or an account is not immediate: primary deletion may take up to 90 days, with up to another 90 days for backups, and some data may be kept longer for legal or safety reasons. Users should not expect instant erasure.
"it may take up to 90 days to delete your information... After the information is deleted, it may take us up to another 90 days to remove it from backups"
Meta says it does not sell your personal data to advertisers or share direct identifiers like your name or email without specific permission. That reduces one common privacy risk, though substantial ad profiling and reporting still occur.
"We don't sell your personal data to advertisers, and we don't share information that directly identifies you... unless you give us specific permission."
Meta says it will usually give at least 30 days' notice before material terms changes take effect. That gives users some time to review changes and decide whether to keep using the service.
"We will notify you... at least 30 days before we make changes to these Terms and give you an opportunity to review them"
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Documents
Terms of Service
source ↗- •You must use your real name, provide accurate information, keep one personal account, and not share your password or transfer your account.
- •You cannot use Facebook if you are under 13, a convicted sex offender, previously banned, or barred by law.
- •You may not post unlawful, misleading, discriminatory, fraudulent, infringing, or unauthorized content, or use spam, malware, scraping, or bypass access controls.
- •You keep ownership of your content, but you give Meta a worldwide, transferable, sublicensable license to host, use, modify, and share it for service operation.
- •Meta may use your name, profile picture, and activity next to ads and sponsored content, and you can control some ad settings in your account.
- •Meta collects and uses personal data for personalized ads, service improvement, safety, research, and cross-product experiences, and data may be stored globally.
- •You can delete content or your account, but deletion may take up to 90 days, with some data kept longer for backups, legal, or safety reasons.
- •Meta may suspend, disable, or delete accounts for serious or repeated policy violations, inactivity, suspected compromise, or legal reasons, with limited review rights.
- •The service is provided as is, with no warranties, and Meta disclaims liability for most indirect, incidental, or consequential damages to the fullest extent allowed.
- •Consumer disputes are usually governed by your local law and courts, while other disputes generally go to California courts under California law.
Privacy Policy
source ↗- •Meta collects information you provide, your activity, device details, contacts, location data, cookies, and data from partners or public sources.
- •Meta uses your information to run, personalize, improve, secure, and measure its products, and to show and measure ads if enabled.
- •Some information is shared with people you communicate with, the public, integrated partners, advertisers, service providers, and other Meta companies.
- •Public posts, profile details, comments, and some activity can be seen, copied, searched, or reshared by anyone, including off Meta products.
- •Integrated partner apps and websites may access non-public information through Facebook Login or related tools, and may keep data you already shared.
- •Meta processes data under contract, consent, legitimate interests, legal obligations, vital interests, and public-interest grounds, depending on the purpose.
- •You have rights to access, correct, download, port, delete, object to certain processing, withdraw consent, and complain to a regulator.
- •Meta may keep information while needed for service, legal, safety, or litigation purposes, and deletion can take up to 180 days including backups.
- •Meta may transfer information internationally and uses safeguards such as encryption and other transfer mechanisms to protect data in transit.
