The popular photo sharing app Instagram has updated it’s Terms of Use to include a few lines that are rubbing quite a lot of it’s users the wrong way.
To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you,
What does this mean? Well exactly what is stated. Sign up for their service and they have the right to take whatever photo you snap and sell it on to advertisers, complete with your name and an image of you. Does this all this sound a little outrageous? I mean you should have some right to the content and be due some sort of payment shouldn’t you? Well not according to that final line ‘without any compensation to you’. Brilliant. You do all the hard work taking those fantastic shots of sunsets, your cat or maybe a nice dinner you just cooked and Instagram reap the benefits. Isn’t that lovely.
Quite how someone, let alone a company worth 1 billion (dubious), could have the audacity pull this off is beyond me. With Twitter updating their app to add filters and Snapseed coming to Android we don’t need to rely on Instagram anymore, we have options. Will you stay loyal to them? If you don’t want to fall foul to your photographic gold being sold for their gain you have to delete your account by the 16th of January, then you can jump ship to one of the aforementioned services. Sound off in the comments. Can we change Instagram’s mind?
Instagram – Privacy and Terms of Use
About Tom Ranson
Member of the CoolSmartphone.com Grammar Police, Technology Ambassador, Motorsport Enthusiast and Tottenham Hotspur fan. Living in North Essex I get to play with ‘future technologies’ in my day to day job.
I am currently rocking a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7, my main area of interest obviously being Android! I also make videos but that’s on hold until I get my hands on new equipment and new studio.
You can contact me on twitter @TomkinsonR or via e-mail [email protected]
