> You can certainly question whether it is fair to expect users signing up for a service like Facebook's to read and understand user agreements containing dozens of pages of dense legalese, and which includes a clause consenting to the kind of research under discussion.<p>This apparently needs a correction: Facebook flat-out did not obtain anything resembling informed consent from their subjects. They added the 'research' blurb <i>four months</i> after they experimented on their users.[1]<p>No amount of reading the ToS would've informed you that you were a research subject.<p>The thing everyone seems to be missing is a discussion about what Facebook believes it can do within the parameters of its ToS. I'd love to hear someone from Facebook explain what they believe they <i>can</i> do, ethically and legally, and what would be crossing a bright red line.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/30/facebook-only-got-permission-to-do-research-on-users-after-emotion-manipulation-study/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/30/facebook-...</a>