Mr. Schrage (facebook.com)

Following its botched IPO and site downtime, Facebook is making an effort to redeem itself with another global site governance vote, this time on changes to its statement of rights and responsibilities and data usage policies. The site solicited user feedback to the proposed changes back in March, and is now putting the changes up to a Facebook-wide vote.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook's VP of communications wrote:

We proposed changes to these documents to, among other things, improve them by adding examples and detailed explanations to help you better understand our policies and practices, comply with the law, incorporate feedback from regulators and individuals like you and reflect the addition of new products and services like Facebook Timeline....Today we are posting the proposed revised versions of both documents and asking you to join our second global site governance vote.

The vote is an effort by Facebook to be "a more transparent, accountable and responsive service provider for our users," which is very commendable. If only all Facebook changes could be open to a democratic vote! Our bet is that few users will vote and most will still complain about the changes, but such is the way of the Internet.

Voting opened this morning and will end on June 8th at 9am PDT.