Facebook has withdrawn controversial changes to its terms of service after receiving a storm of complaints from users of the social networking website.

Tens of thousands of posters protested after an unannounced change seemed to grant Facebook the right to control and use the information posted by account holders on the site for ever, even if they had cancelled their accounts.

Users feared that the new terms gave Facebook the right in perpetuity to use their photos, messages and other content for marketing or to sell to advertisers.

Facebook announced last night that it was reverting immediately to the old terms of service, which included the crucial sentence: "You may remove your user content from the site at any time. If you choose to remove your user content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the company may retain archived copies of your user content."

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook , wrote on a blog: "A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use, hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised."

He added: "We think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective."

The terms of use were updated on February 4 but the move was not noticed until a consumer rights blog pointed it out last Sunday.

Objections quickly mounted as it was noted that no other mainstream social network took such a hard line with their terms of use. There are more than 175 million regular users of Facebook.

Mr Zuckerberg added on the blog: "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment."

He said that when someone shared a photo, a message or a status update, they first needed to grant Facebook a licence to pass that information on to authorised friends. Without the licence, Facebook would not be able to help people share information.

Mr Zuckerberg added that the new terms were necessary to reflect the fact that friends may retain a copy of that message or other information once a user shares it with them. "Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message," he added.

Facebook has launched a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group on the site to enable users to discuss the terms of use and make suggestions.

In his latest blog post, Mr Zuckerberg said: "Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand."

The incident is the latest in a series of mishaps where changes made by Facebook have been met with anger by its customers. In late 2007, a tracking tool called Beacon caught users off-guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and activities at other websites. After initially defending the practice, Facebook allowed users to turn Beacon off.

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