As time goes on, Twitter learns more about how people are using the notification service. And as Twitter learns more about how people use their service, their terms of service, by necessity, must change accordingly.
Yesterday, Twitter announced an update to their Terms of Service to be more reflective of the way the service is currently be used. Below are some highights of the main updates:
Advertising—In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising. We’d like to keep our options open as we’ve said before.
Ownership—Twitter is allowed to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” your tweets because that’s what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you.
APIs—The apps that have grown around the Twitter platform are flourishing and adding value to the ecosystem. You authorize us to make content available via our APIs. We’re also working on guidelines for use of the API.
SPAM—Abusive behavior and spam is also outlined in these terms according to the rules we’ve been operating under for some time.
I’m sure as Twitter continues to evolve, their terms of service will evolve as well. One thing that Twitter more than likely has their eye on is Facebook. As Facebook sees the value of the broadcast messaging power of Twitter, they are increasingly trying to match the basics of Twitter with their own Facebook platform.
And in my opinion, as Facebook evolves and matches the features that Twitter offers, they will increasingly steal market share fromTwitter.