Instagram got itself into quite a PR firestorm in December with its controversial new terms of service announcement and privacy policy change. As we noted in our blog post on
Instagram’s privacy policy controversy, the company’s quick response in reverting to the original terms of service and privacy policy was great PR crisis triage.
Instagram was forced to deal with the aftermath: its brand’s credibility taking a beating and the rumored loss of millions of users. AppStats shows the figure of daily active users uploading to Instagram to be around 7.41 million on January 14, down from 16.35 daily users on December 17, although that information is open to
different interpretations. And there were further threats to pull out of the service from huge accounts like National Geographic, although that didn’t come to pass.
While Instagram removed the offending language from their terms of service, the new change took effect on January 19. Read on to learn more.
Changes to Expect with Instagram:
If you use Instagram, you should have received a message about the updates in policies with a link to a blog post by Kevin Systrom, co-founder. The changes took effect as of January 19, and were made to aid in the integration with Facebook, ostensibly to combat spam, built better features, and detect system reliability problems.
A visit to the blog post on
Instagram’s terms of service shows:
- “Nothing has changed about your photos’ ownership or who can see them.
- Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups. This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.
- Our updated terms of service help protect you, and prevent spam and abuse as we grow.”
In terms of advertising, Systrom promises to come to users with new, fully-developed advertising products that are clearly defined. He also 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.” The privacy policy governs the distribution of users’ content and photos.
Other changes include the unfortunate development that Instagram photos no longer appear in Twitter users’ photo galleries. Users can also expect ads to run on Instagram in the future.
Sources:
Forbes, “
Are People Abandoning Instagram? Of course not.” 28 December 2012.
Instagram. “
Updated Terms of Service Based on Your Feedback.”
Instagram. “
Privacy and Terms of Services Changes on Instagram.” 17 December 2012.
Washington Post, “
Instagram Reminds Users of Privacy Policy Change,” by Hayley Tsukayama, 16 January 2013.
Wired,”
Instagram Loses Half Its Daily Users after T&Cs Debacle,” by Philippa Warr, 15 January 2013.
Image credit:
Opensourceway
