Instagram's new terms of service - your photographs and more (Instagram is owned by Facebook)

If you use Instagram and more importantly if you continue to to and don't want your photographs used without your knowledge... Well, you'd better read this: What Instagram's New Terms of Service Mean for You - NYTimes.com

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1. Instagram can share information about its users with Facebook, its parent company, as well as outside affiliates and advertisers.
Instagram said that the changes to its privacy policy are a means to help Instagram “function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups.” The potentially lucrative move will let advertisers in Facebook’s ad network use data and information that users have shared on Instagram, like details about favorite places, bands, restaurants or hobbies, to better target ads at those users.

2. You could star in an advertisement — without your knowledge.
A section of the new terms of service, titled “Rights,” notes that Instagram will also be able to use your photographs and identity in advertisements. “You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, 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,” the new terms say. This means that photographs uploaded to Instagram could end up in an advertisement on the service or on Facebook. In addition, someone who doesn’t use Instagram could end up in an advertisement if they have their photograph snapped and shared on the service by a friend. Facebook already runs ads that make use of people’s activity on its site.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in Washington, said that the use of a person’s likeness in ads could run into some state laws protecting people’s privacy.

“Most states have laws that limit the use of a person’s ‘name or likeness’ for commercial purposes without consent,” Mr. Rotenberg said. “The legal purpose is to allow people to obtain the commercial value of their images and endorsements, which is a big issue for celebrities and others, but also a reasonable concern for Facebook users whose images are used by Facebook to encourage friends to buy products and services.”

3. Underage users are not exempt.....

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I don't know if this link I posted will allow nonsubscribers to read the article...but you can read more here: Terms of Use • Instagram.

I have used Instagram but not for many months...too busy doing work on the new old house :wink: among other things.

Hope this is helpful.

wow, that's pretty agressive! Although I don't think regular photos posted on facebook are protected any better...

They may well not be protected. I don't really use Facebook much except for my political postings:biggrin: and keeping track of some news about the new town to which we're moving...though I realize many do use Facebook religiously.

Instagram, Facebook, Google, Apple ... we're not real people to them, just commodities, data and "commercial opportunities" to be bought and sold ... "social networking" sounds pretty cosy, but the reality is that it's just another way of capital owning the means of production ...

Thanks BBW. It's a big news item in some of our papers today; our Privacy Commissioner has not been too pleased with some of these moves in the past.

My concern is the concentration of so much information in a few places, and then of course its security and/or how it is used. Google is my main concern. Larry Page's views on privacy are, at best, creepy.

In the Instagram case, it may be important for some people to note that their images, plus their identity, can not only be sold to other concerns, but can actually be used in advertising. I would not be too excited to see my 14 year old daughter being used in that way.

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Instagram, Facebook, Google, Apple ... we're not real people to them, just commodities, data and "commercial opportunities" to be bought and sold ... "social networking" sounds pretty cosy, but the reality is that it's just another way of capital owning the means of production ...

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Essentially I would agree, though with a few observations. I would add Amazon, Yahoo and a host of smaller entities to the list. More importantly (from my perspective), I would consider the reason why data is captured. Apple is the odd one out in the list. The others (Google being the big one) make money from this information as the core item of their business model. It's why they need the data. Apple makes money selling hardware, and some software / services. They don't sell the user to other parties. This is not to say they are morally superior. It's simply to note that their business model is different, so their motives are different. Of course that could change at any time.

Isn't this just symptomatic of the problem faced by larger free social media websites? Despite the size of their user bases they have no native means of making money and the only commodity they have to sell is your information. It will probably get worse once their creators cash out since the buyers will want a return on their considerable investment.

I think in this case it was just a matter of Facebook bringing Instagram into line with its own policy. EDIT... It looks like it is more ambitious than that and going to make a lot of people mad. But as was pointed out, they paid $1 billion for Instagram and they have to recoup their investment somehow. You have until January 16 to opt out and cancel your acct otherwise they get to use your images in perpetuity.

I know a lot of people who would be willing to pay for services similar to Instagram and Facebook and avoid the advertising and privacy issues. But that never happens, not yet anyway.

I simply don't use Facebook. I liked Instagram early on because of their processing, but then they changed the recipes and I stopped.

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Originally Posted by Pelao

. Apple makes money selling hardware, and some software / services. They don't sell the user to other parties. .

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I carefully didn't limit my remarks to saying that the particular entities I named as sharing a business model. Apple is the quintessential "lifestyle" company, and one only has to witness the insane "brand loyalty" and quasi-beatification of Steve Jobs that followed his death to realise that. I would be extraordinarily surprised if they did not sell data as well as overpriced hardware, of course.

What they share with the others (as you point out, my list was hardly exhaustive) is the projection of the organisation as "cool" "fun" "lifestyle" "friendly" "trustworthy" when their only motive is profit and they couldn't (and wouldn't) give a farthing for their customers if their customers' money runs out ...

Of course, they are there to make profit, and one might admire the gusto and effectiveness of these companies' approach, but I consider it humbuggery.

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Originally Posted by pdh

I carefully didn't limit my remarks to saying that the particular entities I named as sharing a business model. Apple is the quintessential "lifestyle" company, and one only has to witness the insane "brand loyalty" and quasi-beatification of Steve Jobs that followed his death to realise that. I would be extraordinarily surprised if they did not sell data as well as overpriced hardware, of course.

What they share with the others (as you point out, my list was hardly exhaustive) is the projection of the organisation as "cool" "fun" "lifestyle" "friendly" "trustworthy" when their only motive is profit and they couldn't (and wouldn't) give a farthing for their customers if their customers' money runs out ...

Of course, they are there to make profit, and one might admire the gusto and effectiveness of these companies' approach, but I consider it humbuggery.

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PDH, Apple makes money because they make better products than anyone else. They simply get things right (and they know how to maximize profit per device). And yes, I'm willing to pay more for it. That goes for many of the products I buy. Quality costs money.

My company which designs and builds applications, largely on Microsoft platforms, just replaced 20 of our machines. 18 people chose Retina MacBook Pros, 1 person chose a Mac Mini and 1 person chose a Lenovo. Simple fact. Most of those were developers and a couple were designers. Running Windows, the MBPs simply work better for our engineering teams. It also also allows them to flip and develop for iOS should that be the project. They often run Windows as a virtual machine inside OS X. These are their tools to get the job done and it's what they overwhelmingly prefer. Nothing about lifestyle or brand loyalty... just the best machine available today.

There is no doubt that Apple does not want its customers to run out of money. They depend entirely on people counting to spend money, as do many or most other companies. Facebook relies on having a huge base of members as does Google.

That's not to say that all is rosy. My wife just received her iPhone 5 (so we could switch to Verizon) and it turns out she could not immediately activate it. She had to have a newer version of iTunes, and that required a certain version of the OS which had to be downloaded via the App Store, which required a certain version of a previous OS to use... and on and on... my wife is not up to date on technology! So we had to order Snow Leopard DVDs, which Apple delivered to the local Apple store on a Saturday and we picked up, then go through the tedious update process. All is fine, but it was a hassle and my wife asked me why it had to be so complicated.

I pay $25 a year for Flickr. I sure hope they don't go social!!! Let me pay the money and do things my own way.

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Originally Posted by Andrewteee

PDH, Apple makes money because they make better products than anyone else. They simply get things right (and they know how to maximize profit per device). And yes, I'm willing to pay more for it. That goes for many of the products I buy. Quality costs money.

My company which designs and builds applications, largely on Microsoft platforms, just replaced 20 of our machines. 18 people chose Retina MacBook Pros, 1 person chose a Mac Mini and 1 person chose a Lenovo. Simple fact. Most of those were developers and a couple were designers. Running Windows, the MBPs simply work better for our engineering teams. It also also allows them to flip and develop for iOS should that be the project. They often run Windows as a virtual machine inside OS X. These are their tools to get the job done and it's what they overwhelmingly prefer. Nothing about lifestyle or brand loyalty... just the best machine available today.

There is no doubt that Apple does not want its customers to run out of money. They depend entirely on people counting to spend money, as do many or most other companies. Facebook relies on having a huge base of members as does Google.

That's not to say that all is rosy. My wife just received her iPhone 5 (so we could switch to Verizon) and it turns out she could not immediately activate it. She had to have a newer version of iTunes, and that required a certain version of the OS which had to be downloaded via the App Store, which required a certain version of a previous OS to use... and on and on... my wife is not up to date on technology! So we had to order Snow Leopard DVDs, which Apple delivered to the local Apple store on a Saturday and we picked up, then go through the tedious update process. All is fine, but it was a hassle and my wife asked me why it had to be so complicated.

I pay $25 a year for Flickr. I sure hope they don't go social!!! Let me pay the money and do things my own way.

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Pretty much reflective of my experiences.

Flickr has just released a very, very nice updated iOS application. I don't know the terms of service though, but being owned by Yahoo will no doubt play a role.