Facebook has opened voting on changes to its Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which include some proposed modifications by the community as of June 1, largely a result of rallying activity by our-policy.org. In the spirit of democracy, at least 30 percent of Facebook's user base, just over 270 million people, must participate in the vote in order for the changes to be binding in either direction.

Many privacy groups and policy entities, including the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, have called out Facebook over the past couple of years for the broad rights it grants itself with users' data. A group of Austrian students led by Max Schrems began campaigning for the company to change its privacy rules to better comply with European policy and give its customers better control of their data with regard to deletion, usage in advertising on the site, and usage by third-party apps. The group started the website europe-v-facebook.org in 2011 to organize the effort.

In May, Facebook posted proposed revisions to its data use policy and statement of rights and regulations and asked its users to comment openly on the changes. Most of the changes were not actual modifications of policy; in Facebook's explanation of data use policy changes, it states, "the vast majority of the proposed changes represent additional explanations of current practices rather than substantive changes in how we use your data." Actual policy additions included small changes, like specifically addressing the use of data in Facebook's mobile apps.

Schrems and the other activists seized this opportunity to push for material changes, such as more robust "delete" capabilities, full access for each user to all raw data Facebook has on them, and requiring third-party applications to delete user data when they delete the app, rather than requiring a write-in request. In response to the comment request, the group formed our-policy.org with a full list of requested changes on the front page and the goal of pushing the changes to a user vote.

According to Facebook's data use policy, any policy change that generates more than 7,000 comments on a similar topic will be put to a vote. Our-policy.org encouraged users to post the comment "I oppose the changes and want a vote about the demands on www.our-policy.org" on the relevant status update; the English and German statuses now total over 47,000 comments between them.

By Facebook's own rules, the data use policy changes must be put to a vote, but with a new stipulation: at least 30 percent of its user base must participate in the vote in order for the results to be binding (any less, and the vote will be "advisory," Facebook says). If the 30 percent threshold is reached and the nays outweigh the ayes, Facebook will be forced back to revisions until it can come up with policies that please both European and Irish authorities and its users (though the vote page notes that "some of the proposed changes to the SRR and Data Use Policy were made for legal or administrative reasons and may be included in the governing documents regardless of the outcome of the vote").

The concept of a vote in Facebook Nation is fascinating from a political management standpoint: the participation of 270 million people seems like an insurmountable number. On the other hand, if the percentage requirement were much lower, a small minority of users would be dictating how the majority of people use Facebook. Visions of representative democracy dance in our heads—and since it takes 10 minutes to read both documents, the collective timesink of familiarizing a large-enough voting base for a binding decision is over five thousand years.

While the vote is explained in plain terms on its page, Facebook doesn't appear to be drawing attention to it since it opened at 9am PDT on June 1. E-mails have not yet gone out, and users' News Feeds are devoid of alerts to the voting opportunity.

The vote will remain open for one week, until June 8 at 9am PDT, and the company will tabulate the results and announce them the following day. Facebook did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the voting process or structure.

Update:Facebook has issued the following statement about the vote: