Instagram Announced a Controversial Agreement

On December 17, 2012, Instagram announced a controversial agreement.

It meant that Instagram would be allowed to use their users’ photos for advertising without any notification or compensation to you, and announced the parents of minor unquestionably agree to use their children’s’ images for advertising and entertaining purpose. Their policy changes came three months after Facebook’s acquisition. In other words, Instagram gave its new owner, Facebook, freely access to get their users’ information and photos for commercial use. Many Instagram’ users were angry about the new terms of service. They thought Instagram disregarded and took advantage of their privacy so some of them said that they’d like to delete their accounts.

In order to calm this public outrage, Instagram was quicly to issue an apology and declare that it was misunderstanding. Co-founder Kevin Systrom, of BusinessInsider.com, stated, “Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram. Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear”. Instagram revised some of changes that were returning the controversial term back to its previous 2012 form.

On the other hand, the updated term was actually quite dangerous. The new arbitration clause specified that unless you opt-out, you can't sue Instagram when they take your photo for adverting. Nilay Patel said that Instragm was trying to start making money by giving up their users right to show photos of profiles and other personal information to advertisers (“No, Instagram can't