Facebook users' vote ending way short of threshold

NEW YORK: Facebook invited the 200 million people who regularly use the site to vote on its governing documents. But it's unclear how much of a difference it will make.

Facebook launched the vote after concerns erupted about who controls users' personal information. The site gave its members until Thursday afternoon to choose either the current terms of use, or a revised set of documents that reflect input from users over the past 30 days.

However, Facebook said the vote would be binding only if 30 per cent of the site's active users voted. That would be 60 million people.

On Thursday morning, a vote on the site revealed that about 609,000 people had cast ballots. Spokesman Barry Schnitt says Facebook plans to announce the results and ``next steps'' Friday.