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Instagram Posts Update: "To Be Clear: It Is Not Our Intention To Sell Your Photos"
Update: in what may be a death knell for Instagram, National Geographic just announced it would stop posting images to Instagram.
A day after an epic backlash to what many understood was a change in Instagram's TOS, which would see users vacate property and ownership rights over their photos shared on the popular social network - a concept clearly spelled out - and hand these over to Facebook (which recently acquired the Photoshop filters at the backbone of Instagram's business model for an ungodly amount), leading to a furious and perfectly expected exodus of users closing their Instagram accounts, here is the company's panicked response, in which it explains it did not mean what it meant. To wit:"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." What about selling photos accidentally? Which explains the legalese, because while it may not be "our intention", it is no longer expressly prohibited, is it?
Is it too little too late? And can the company convince the millions that have already left, and the further tens of millions on the fences, that its mission, like Google, is also"to do no evil"? We will find out in the next several days when Instagram's competitors are furiously collating the latest Comscore and various other traffic data to pronounce the early death of the photo sharing service over something as "trivial" as a change in the Terms of Service which many had hoped would fly under the radar unnoticed by anyone.
From Instragram's blog (highlights ours)
Thank you, and we’re listening
Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern the thriving and active Instagram community. Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean.
I’m writing this today to let you know we’re listening and to commit to you that we will be doing more to answer your questions, fix any mistakes, and eliminate the confusion. As we review your feedback and stories in the press, we’re going to modify specific parts of the terms to make it more clear what will happen with your photos.
Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone:
Advertising on Instagram From the start, Instagram was created to become a business. Advertising is one of many ways that Instagram can become a self-sustaining business, but not the only one. 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.
To provide context, we envision a future where both users and brands alike may promote their photos & accounts to increase engagement and to build a more meaningful following. Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way. In order to help make a more relevant and useful promotion, it would be helpful to see which of the people you follow also follow this business. In this way, some of the data you produce — like the actions you take (eg, following the account) and your profile photo — might show up if you are following this business.
The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things likes advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time.
Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.
I always want you to feel comfortable sharing your photos on Instagram and we will always work hard to foster and respect our community and go out of our way to support its rights.
Privacy Settings Nothing has changed about the control you have over who can see your photos. If you set your photos to private, Instagram only shares your photos with the people you’ve approved to follow you. We hope that this simple control makes it easy for everyone to decide what level of privacy makes sense.
I am grateful to everyone for their feedback and that we have a community that cares so much. We need to be clear about changes we make — this is our responsibility to you. One of the main reasons these documents don’t take effect immediately, but instead 30 days from now, is that we wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to raise any concerns. You’ve done that and are doing that, and that will help us provide the clarity you deserve. Thank you for your help in making sure that Instagram continues to thrive and be a community that we’re all proud of. Please stay tuned for updates coming soon.
Sincerely,
Kevin Systrom co-founder, Instagram
* * *
In other words Instragram may not sell your photo outright. Instead, it will contextualize it, re-package it, and use it to sell advertising, without giving you a penny. Oh, and while it is certainly not Instagram intention to do so, it may still sell it...
All better now?
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If it's free... then my nude photos are the products being sold
I deleted my Instagram and FB account today. THAT FELT GOOD!!!
I've never understood the entire concept of instagram. Other than stealing artists works and flogging ads. Wouldn't a photo blog do the same thing?
What's ticker for Instagram? I want PUTS!
Facebook owns instagram.
NASDAQ:FB
Nope, not our intention at all. We also didn't mean to turn a profit so that our stock options are actually worth something, but Shit Happens.
meanwhile over at RIMM
Luca Filigheddu @filos
Zuckerberg donates 18M Facebook shares worth $500M to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation http://tnw.co/WoXR1v
View summary 3h Luca Filigheddu @filosInstagram Back Peddling on New Privacy Rules to Quiet Angry Mob http://dthin.gs/SOmJyo
Once it is on the net ... It is on the net forever!
Go ahead and feel good just as long as you can!
But as a reality check, this is the world you actually live in:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/gov-dossiers-on-us-citizens/
Im aware that what was there will be forever. But nothing new will be there.
You just need to comprehend what you read. We said; It is not our
"Intention" toWe did not say we would NOT!
NOW GO HOME AND PLAY.
Imagine if people behaved this way over the drone striking of kids.
Too far outside of their monkeysphere of influence.
Nice to see Dunbar's number used right.
"Imagine if people behaved this way over the drone striking of kids."
Handguns bad, Drones Good. Get with the programme.
If people could feel tears in their eyes for 178 innocent kids killed by US drones in Pakistan and raised their voices, Newtown killer might have thought it is bad to kill innocent children. He might have given killing of innocent kids a second thought.
You just don't get it. It's not what they do, it's what a few of us do. Now turn over all your wepons like a good little boy.
SitOnFaceBook, InstaCheckGram, TwitterTracker, GoogleOOGLE, Microshaft & Apple iSpyOS = all part of a glorious Stellar Wind.
they can rot in hell.
Hey, I love open source porn.
Let me get this straight. Chicks put shit on the net, and they think it's only going where they send it?
Bwa ha hahahahahah.
They don't say that they are not going to use any info without permission.
Is that so fucking hard?
It would be easy to SAY, but it's not true. Apparently they're trying to tell some version of the truth.
i wouldn't give those bastards the sweat off my ballz bitchez
I don't see the crime.
Am I just plain stupid?
Someone explain it to me in English.
http://www.angrysinner.blogspot.kr/2012/12/wednesday.html
There's no "crime." People just don't understand the media industry--how it works, who it's for, etc etc. If you send a team of corporate lawyers your pictures, they're no longer "your" pictures.
Amazing that 'Merkins are so confused about "property" that this needs to be expressly spelled-out for them.
Downvoted for continued shitty blog spam, as promised.
your OK the average IQ needs to be over 100 and sadly the average in Good old USA isn't
We have a country that cry's over innocent children getting murdered as they should, but it shouldn't end there.
But have no problem letting a confirmed torture enabler mass civilian killer stand up and put on a good act!
Demand the actor to stop the wars and the killing everywhere.
We have 6 or more polio volunteers executed today because the US used the Doctor's in Pakistani to trace DNA to try to find Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden!
We can hate the killers of the volunteers but come on bragging about using the doctor is kind REAL FUCKING dumb(that on US)
Or Obama coming in to office second term and saying Venezuela is off track,
HEY NEWS FOR YOU PRESIDENT>> they don't subsidize the oil companys they use the profits for there Poor.
Latin America except for the power elite the .001% think your a *((*&^^ sell out to the rich. We are having Democratic elections and they are just a little harder to rig down here (media harder to control) so our votes count and we don't electoral college to over ride the little guy. see this http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121218123136470626.html
Instascam....a big steaming pile of digital bullshit deemed to have value. God help us.
I think you just described the american economy in general
So it means NSA, FBI, CIA et'al don't need court orders. they simply pay instagram and get your information?
No payment required. An open conduit streaming user info and postings to Big 'Sis in real time, 24/7/365.
I've noticed television commercials encouraging people to put naughty videos and pics on their cell phones and then they mush them back to back to share with their husbands when he goes away on a trip. Yeah, nothing could go wrong with that plan. Scumbags all.
Not to mention the risk of being convicted and pilloried as a sex-offender.
they stole that one from corzine
"Corzine doesn't flush the toilet, he vaporizes the shit out of it"
Corzine's shit doesn't stink because Corzine does not shit. Corzine flushing the toilet is nothing more than a philosophical concept.
mankind still amazing me with its stupidity! were all stars... aren't we? indeed, it's alright-- it is our right, to let a phantom paparazzi ubiquitously plagiarize our polarized vanity... mediocrity rules!!!
Tumblr must be pissing off the porn industry.
Keep in mind, this is a BILLION dollar company.
in gold or Bernank Bucks?
I beleive the operative word here is "was" This was a billion dollar company.
There, fixed it for you.
The first question that comes to mind is, "What concept of a billion are we talking about here?" and the next is "What discount rate was used to arrive at that valuation?"
It is completely their intention to sell your photos.
facebook gotta try to make a few clams from their billion dollar impulse buy
This is a trial balloon for Facebook. They are obviously seeing how much they can screw the social media morons before the morons will wake up and realize that there is a dick up their ass. Then, the same amount of penetration will be used on Facebook users.
Today there is a very serious and ugly Instagram scandal in Gothenberg Sweden. Pictures of young high school girls were taken and posted with things about sex etc.
It caused a riot in the city. This is a real nightmare example of kids devices/cellphone crap blowing up in their faces. Not good at all. Facebook was part of it too.
http://www.businessinsider.com/gothenburg-riots-after-instagram-account-2012-12
Maybe these little kids will stop using Facebook, Instagram and this other crap.
Because photos don't belong to you after you post them on Instagram, so, of course, they are not selling your photos.
Don't take this as support for Instagram/FB, but to be fair, from the above Instagram blog post:
"Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period."
I stand corrected!
That does *not* mean you are not granting them a license to use your content for any purpose you approve of in the TOS. If you grant them that license, they don't need to own your photos :)
Note to self: Everyone lies about everything. That is all.
It would be more reassuring if they said "We also won't run facial recognition software on your images."
Cause they won't be the ones running the software.
pods
Don't you just HATE companies that send you 100 page updates of their terms and conditions, always written in dense legalese, that you have to agree to OR ELSE. (Ebay and Paypal take note!). FB is a serial offender in the privacy area and I'm sure that they will find eventually find a way to own all the data that you add. Maybe they should change their ticker to FBI.
Never put anything on the internet that you would not want a stranger or current or future employer to see.
All your personal (naughty) photos are belong to us!
And it will (read is) all be part of your very own personal Dossier that Eric Holder, c/o DOJ.GOV, is building on everyone. Do not forget that the DOJ (WH) is now in charge of NDAA and interrogations.
For everyone, and your friends, not yet awake, please wake up. Everything you do, and say, can and will be held against you in any future computer dragnets should anything you do fall into a category that displease the new STASI regime. Your naughty pictures with your wife her best friend while on vacay are fair game.
Look at that Lanza kid, his mom and his LiborGate daddy. We knew everything about them in few hours plus all the spin and lies.
He had 4 hand gunds he brought into the school? How do you carry 4 handguns? They claim he had an AR 15.
So I guess they will be going back to the old TOS.
No? Oh.
The circle of internet/mobile tech...
Create a free service, sell it for a billion dollars to a larger company, watch larger company try to monetize it, users leave for newly created free service.
I don't fault them for trying to make money on it. But there are not enough barriers to entry to stop some other VC funded 25 year old from creating a better newer and freer product. Maybe data center and content storage costs but that's about it.
Is the Good Intentions Asphalt & Paving Company finally going public? It's a winner.
www.tradewithdave.com
ZH is only doing good job and reporting correctly. Tyler is a real true person though I have never met him. FED+BOE+ECB+BOJ are the biggest manipulators and JPM +GS +20PD's act on their behalf in this Ponzi Casino. It is all rigged Ponzi Casino. JPM & GS do maximum manipulations from London as no regulators are looking what is going on daily. London is the best place to manipulate Ponzi Casino as no regulators as they are watching porno. Manipulations of highest order without any regulations as every one has been purchased and regulators watching porno. In last 10 trading days, Rio Tinto manipulated by +25% gain and regulators watching porno. JPM doing it. It is just Casino and nothing else. Regulators are watching porno, don't know how Rio Tinto is manipulating daily. On LSE, there is no checks and balances and maximum manipulations daily by Rio Tinto. The market is Casino and the biggest manipulated stock is Rio Tinto and JPM is pulling up daily and no regulations for Rio Tinto in London
Gonna have to start calling you "Deja Vu99."
We get the message, you got screwed in the "market."
pods
it seems it would make more sense to tell everyone that uses the service that their photos are for sale and the owner of the photo would receive a commission on the sale. i know the reality is they are taking advantage of the bottom half of the class who have no idea what is going on and don't care.
Never used them never will.
Everything and anyone that comes in contact with facebook in any way, shape or form immediately turns to shit.
The only way to avoid it is to not use it...which I have been perfectly happy to do.
Never had a FB account...Never gonna have one. Problem solved.
People that use this shit have always amazed me!
Nowadays people pay a premium for privacy, and you have these little tweekers that feel the need to post every waking moment of their lives in living color. I wouldn't touch either one of those shit.coms/
Soooo....
Why is everybody on Facebook again?
because if you are under 25 the word privacy has absolutely zero meaning, no knowledge of what it is or why anyone would give a shit - unless of course you are Scarlett Johansson, in which case the emeffer who hacked her email deserves 10 years in a Fed Pen
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/12/celebrity-hacker-sentenced...
I hate to say but Eric the next Obama Czar was correct " If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6e7wfDHzew
Sooner or later people will realise that the internet is a mostly digital noise and it will drop in importance to the level of radio. Background, occasionally useful.
Once again the people got Fuckerberged. Facebook started out as a way for guys to post pictures of hot chicks in college and comment on them.
Hopefully Fuckerberg's wife murders him soon and returns to Hong Kong and is granted asylum by the Chinese government. God that would be awesome.
Nice move NG! - Instaban. Works much better than increasing a "Thumbs Down" counter.
"In this way, some of the data you produce — like the actions you take (eg, following the account) and your profile photo — might show up if you are following this business."
My own info show up when I follow a business ? Does it make any sense ?
Maybe he means if I follow a business my following info can show up to some of my instagram friends (to promote the business) ?