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| In January Instagram's Terms of Service will include new advertising and photo usage legalese. (Joanna Stern) |
Instagram
has heard the mass outrage (including the celebrities') in response to its new
terms of service, and says it will clear things up.
After
confusion over its new Terms of Service, which implied Instagram might sell
photos to advertisers, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom responded this afternoon ina blog post. Systrom said that he and the company are "listening" and
that they plan to "modify specific parts of the terms to make it more
clear what will happen with your photos."
The part
that most users will be happy to hear? "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."
He also said
he wants to clear up the confusion about Instagram's intent to put anyone's
photos in ads. "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."
Systrom
does say advertising will make its way to Instagram's platform and that the
company would like to "experiment with innovative advertising that feels
appropriate on Instagram." Instagram was purchased by Facebook in April
for $1 billion; the company has not been profitable.
But while
today's battle may be over, the backlash and the distrust of Facebook as
Instagram's owner will likely continue. On Twitter it quickly became known as
"Instagate." Many took to blaming the new policy changes on Facebook.
"In
fact, the real lesson here isn't about the legal implications of Instagram's
terms of service — it's about how little we trust Facebook to do the right
thing," Nilay Patel, the managing editor of the tech site The Verge and a
former patent attorney, said in an article.
Ultimately
though, "Instagate" might have been a good reminder for users of just
how quickly companies can change their policies and the awareness they should
have of them. "It's a good reminder for users in an age of the personal
cloud to understand just what vendors can do with their content and how they
choose to monetize," Michael Gartenberg, research director at Gartner
Inc., told ABC News. "I suspect very few users bothered to read
Instagram's original terms of service and therefore the 'new' terms simply made
them aware just what they agreed to."
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Instagram
was bought by Facebook in April 2012
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