After the public outcry of “FAIL” against Instagram’s New Terms agreement, the photo sharing giant has announced that maybe they’ve made a few premature changes afterall. As previously reported earlier this week, Instagram had planned on instating new terms of use which would require users photos to involuntarily become property of Instagram for use in ads, promos and more. The terms of that user agreement said, “You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your user name, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata) and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” Since the announcement, journalists, celebrities and users gallore have taken to Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram to share their distane for the new terms and even threatened to delete their Instagram accounts altogether.
In the aftermath of the uproar over changes to Instagram’s privacy policy and terms of service earlier this week, the company back-pedalled late Thursday. In a blog post on the company’s site, Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, said that where advertising was concerned, the company would revert to its previous terms of service, which have been in effect since October 2010. “Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed,” he wrote, “we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.” Users had been particularly concerned by a clause in Instagram’s policy introduced on Monday that suggested Instagram would share users’ data — like their favorite places, bands, restaurants and hobbies — with Facebook and its advertisers to better target ads.
Following a reaction that included customers defecting to other services, Mr. Systrom told Instagram users on Tuesday that the new policy had been misinterpreted. “It is our mistake that this language is confusing,” he wrote, and he promised an updated agreement. That statement apparently was not enough. With more people leaving the service, the company, which Facebook bought for $735 million this year, reacted again by returning to the old rules. Acknowledging those concerns late Thursday, Mr. Systrom wrote: “I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos — you do.” Mr. Systrom said the company would still be tweaking its privacy policy to quell users’ fears that their photos might pop-up on third-party sites without their consent.
The day before Instagram announced changes to its terms of service, Flickr’s mobile app was ranked at around 175 in Apple’s overall iTunes app charts. Since that day, the application skyrocketed to #7, only three spots behind Instagram #4.
Were you worried about Instagram’s new terms of agreement? Have you already downloaded the new Flickr app?
