I’ve had a lot of posts about Facebook lately, but everyday they are popping up by co-branding with other products or media. This time they are the news. It appears someone at Facebook has violated one of the cardinal rules of social media…be transparent!

A few weeks ago without fanfare, Facebook changed its terms of use policy, claiming ownership of anything you publish on its site forever…even if you discontinue your personal account! As things go in social media, a popular consumer rights advocacy blog, Consumerist.com, posted the information turning a few angry readers on Sunday into tens of thousands of users creating a group on Facebook and condemning the change on Monday. Last night this revolution hit mainstream media and the firestorm was on!

Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced in his blog this morning that “based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.” Facebook now has over 175 million users and if it were a country, it would be the 6th largest in the world.

Now if we could just get our politicians to listen to the people and act on what our real needs are…we might just get real change in Washington not just hope of change. Sorry for the political commentary in the marketing blog. Power to the people!