At first glance, news of the vote colors Facebook benevolent considering how often it has been slammed for infringing upon users' privacy. But in reality, the reason behind the vote is much more simple: Facebook's regulations require the company to hold a vote whenever more than 7,000 users comment on a proposed change.

TechCrunch calls Facebook's proposed changes to its data use policy and statement of rights and responsibilities "relatively benign" and reports that if more than 30 percent of Facebook's active users vote for the changes they'll go into effect; if they vote against them, the changes will be tossed out.

Max Schrems, the Austrian founder of , is responsible for an onslaught of comments that have flooded Facebook's Site Governance page -- about 40,000 in one week, he says.

Schrems, a law student at the University of Vienna, has a contentious history with Facebook. Last year, he retrieved 1222 pages worth of his personal information from the social network and took issue with the fact that among them he found wall posts, messages, email addresses, and friend names that he had previously deleted from his account.

While it's interesting that a 24-year-old and a few of his friends that make up the Europe Vs. Facebook group was able to force the hand of the social network closing in on 1 billion users, it's unlikely that any good will come from the vote -- it only lets people choose between the old privacy policy and the proposed new one. Besides, the changes Schrems wants to see Facebook make really entail transforming the company's product and the way it makes money -- and that's never going to happen.