

Instagram Reverts To Original Ad Terms After Outcry - PedroCandeias
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/20/instagram-updated-terms-of-service/

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notimetorelax
Robert Anhalt Writes in comments:

... They [users that left] bought the CNET article that misreported on the
proposed changes and thought that Instagram would all of a sudden have the
ability to use their content for the purposes of advertising, hence quitting
like Manny down there. The proposed changes were actually better for users, as
they would have limited the existing advertising ability to be "about or
around" the user content, but now we're sticking with the ability to modify
user content for advert purposes. The media misreported it, the people bought
it, and Instagram got to stick with their original TOS that will benefit their
advertisers.

Anyone who left Instagram because of this never read the TOS in the first
place and gets their legal advice from people with no background in IP law.
For the record, this is exactly why I get my IP/patent/copyright news from The
Verge, who have Nilay Patel and Matt Macari on staff, former
IP/patent/copyright lawyers, on staff. That's about as credible as you're
going to get.

\---

Could anyone with knowledge on the matter explain if it's true?

~~~
unavoidable
The Verge had a great summary (as posted above) so I won't go into the actual
'law'. I don't even think the issue is really about what they can or cannot do
in the license - Instagram is entitled to write whatever they want in the
license agreement, and the original TOS was drafted in a very lawyerly way to
basically allow them to do almost anything (advertising-wise) they wanted with
your photos anyway.

The real interesting part is that users are willing to make a lot of noise
about these license agreements without reading them. I think there's a lot of
pent up FUD about license agreements because there are so many of them out
there that nobody ever reads any of them, and there's a big appetite out there
for somebody, anybody, to clarify these terms for them.

The consumer group-think goes kind of like: "What can Facebook do with my
data? I don't know, but I'm sure their lawyers put something in the license
agreement that I'm never going to read or understand. Oh, this blog says it's
really bad, time to complain loudly!"

I think the result is that there really needs to be an effort on the part of
these online service providers to clarify their terms and make human-readable
summaries of users' rights/licenses so that everyone understands where they
stand contractually.

~~~
kamjam
_I think the result is that there really needs to be an effort on the part of
these online service providers to clarify their terms and make human-readable
summaries of users' rights/licenses so that everyone understands where they
stand contractually._

There was a post on HN quite some time ago about the Terms of Service
agreement on <http://500px.com/terms>, take a look. I really like what and how
they have laid it out. It's a really good idea and wish more companies would
do this. I for one skim over the ToS, esp for free online services, and
although I think many of us are the same we may start to read them more
carefully from now on.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831357>

~~~
Gormo
It does seem as though they acknowledge that most users won't read or
completely understand the entire terms, and invite users to rely on the
summarized terms instead. So if there were ever litigation that involved
careful interpretation of the terms, might the "basically" sections be
construed as estoppel and override the main text?

If so, doesn't this make the summarized text the _actual_ controlling terms of
service, leaving full "legalese" to clarify ambiguities only to the extent
that is consistent with the "basically" sections?

~~~
kamjam
Not sure, there is quite a few comments on the original hn article. I think
the crux of it is that the "basically" and effectively summarize the point
without trying to sneak something in which the "basically" does not cover. I
think it would very much depend on you ToS if you are able to use this. I'd
imagine the likes of Facebook have such complex ToS that they could not
effectively summarize like this without missing out on a lot of important
detail.

------
toyg
Obligatory XKCD (and fresh!): <http://xkcd.com/1150/>

~~~
spinchange
I know it's humor, and suspect Randall is generally far brighter than I, but
comparing a photo sharing social network to a friend's garage is fallacious.
In point of fact, people feeling like they were being sold out and getting
vocal about it -from Zuck's wedding photographer to National Geographic and
regular users in between- did make a difference, did it not?

~~~
toyg
You're missing the point. Whether a garage owner is "sensible" or not, or
whether he is a friend or a professional, the fact is that _he is still the
owner, not you_.

That's actually a deeper truth of cloud computing in general, something that
mainstream people (like Louis C.K. did recently) seem to actually grasp better
than us geeks... probably because many of us have a vested interested in the
public trusting us with (and being absolutely irresponsible with) their
personal data, so we'd rather ignore some inconvenient truths.

~~~
spinchange
Look, obviously Instagram's servers, infrastructure and software are their
own. I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor
the point. They are in fact a company, serving users, and need those users'
trust to do what they want to do. I am totally fine with Instagram or any free
service making money and experimenting with ways of doing that. I have no
issues with contextual advertising or trying to sell me something. The issue
people complaining about _is_ one of trust and a feeling/fear of broken faith.
(e.g. "Hey, use our cool site for photo sharing! Oh by the way, now all your
photos are belong to us.")

~~~
toyg
> I think that's so obvious on the face of things that it's trite to labor the
> point.

No, it's not. It's the dirty little secret of "free" cloud services: you're
using somebody else's resources to store your own (intellectual) property,
relying on vague TOS clauses that can change from one minute to the next. This
is exactly why this brouhaha took off: all of a sudden people "felt" those
clauses were now abusive; they realised they were relying purely on
Instagram's benevolence, and they "felt" that benevolence was now gone.

This is the case for _any_ cloud service, including Dropbox, iCloud etc; there
are probably a few exceptions (I'd expect Salesforce to have tighter TOS), but
the overwhelming majority of consumer-oriented cloud services are in the same
boat. Last I checked, Dropbox reserved the right to go through your files --
for troubleshooting purposes only, no doubt, but again we have to take their
word for it. How many times did you actually read those TOS? For what I know,
they might now state that Dropbox can sell your data to China.

The hard truth is that the garage is not yours and it will never be yours; in
the best scenario, you are renting it with a tight contract , but in most
cases you just had a chat with the owner once and he sorta promised not to
resell your boxes full of comic books. Sooner or later you'll find a less
honourable owner, and shit will fly.

~~~
spinchange
So what are you saying: don't trust or use any cloud services whatsoever? Or
only use ones you pay for? I think that's taking it to another extreme. There
is obviously an equitable balance between free services and the level of
privacy/control one sacrifices. It's up to each individual user to decide. I
think an important component of that is how the company communicates with its
users, and in this case, the track record of its parent company on similar
matters.

So, I don't take an "all or nothing" view, but I genuinely understand where
you're coming from. I just don't think it is a "dirty secret" (not with this
crowd anyway)

Edit - I'd like to add or underscore that I agree with what you're saying that
ToS can change at anytime, etc. My emphasis is on how companies treat and talk
to their users. I don't think all cloud services should be painted with same
brush, they should be judged on their own merits and how they do business
generally. A Facebook-owned Instagram already made people nervous. This change
in ToS brought back memories of other unpleasant changes.

2nd Edit - Munroe's comic ends with the idea that it's useless to complain or
drop the service. Clearly it isn't because Instagram responded and reverted
back to their original ToS. They need users too. They acknowledged that they
heard them. The joke misses or ignores that fact.

~~~
toyg
I agree that the main difference at the moment is how companies manage the
conversation, and I'm not a maximalist -- I use tons of cloud services myself
-- I just don't think the issues they raise can forever be swept under the
carpet. Unless the industry gets its shit together, more and more companies
will abuse their position and try to "pull a Facebook" or "pull an Instagram",
leading to an inevitable backlash at the legislative level (certainly from
Europe, if not the US).

In the meantime, users should be educated on the risks of cloud platforms as
much as their benefits, and in this sense I think the strip is very useful.

------
jschuur
So the plan now is to still experiment with new business models, but instead
of just letting people guess what the heck they are, they're going to be more
explicit in a future blog post, before, presumably, rolling out TOS changes to
go with them.

And that actually sounds like a much better approach than when they did this
week.

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f4stjack
The genie is already out of the bottle. People have already lost their trust
with Instagram, I did at any rate. Problem is if you try high handed strategy
like they did, as in we will sell your pictures without giving you a single
dime, people will react. And they did. What they should do was to follow
deviantart's model. Grab a percentage from the sold, printed out photos. Or
put in a premium package. Or both.

This is my two cents anyway.

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robgrady
This event was nice to prompt me to remove one more rarely used app from my
phone. Seriously who cares. It is an app, pick another.

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ryguytilidie
But I thought the new terms didn't change anything and we shouldnt be worried
about them. What changed with that made up point?

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skipper86
Copyright laws are archaic and backward, because only the photographer have
right and the person in the picture don't have any, We can't even make a copy
of our own picture.. instead of a shared rights and responsibilities....

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tyrelb
Already uninstalled :( I wish sometimes startups were as loyal to their users
as they expect their users to be...

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cormullion
Going off on a tangent, I confess that the phrase "going forward" always
reminds me of David Mitchell's rant on this YouTube video:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRr7H3woFn4>

It's sometimes hard to take corporate announcements seriously, even if they're
genuine.

------
ianstallings
I'm really happy about this because now I won't have to hear about it anymore
_crossing fingers_.

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pretoriusB
Does that make me a prophet for thinking that this is exactly what will happen
and that the whole thing is a non issue?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4937548>

No, I've just seen the same story play another 10 times for different
companies. As we all did -- but some behave like they just came on the
interwebs yesterday. Makes all those downvotes look silly in hindsight...

~~~
jahewson
Just because the u-turn was inevitable doesn't make it a non-issue. Without
kicking up a fuss there would not have been a u-turn.

~~~
pretoriusB
See the contradiction? You first call the u-turn "inevitable" and then go on
to say that "without kicking up a fuss there would not have been a u-turn".

You can't have it both ways. My case is simply: the u-turn was inevitable and
the fuss was also inevitable.

What could have been different though is people not responding to this with
awe, shock and vows of "abandoning Instagram" and such, as if the situation
would not have changed in a week.

Especially internet-savvy people who have seen this tons of times. Some
regular Instagram user shocked with the license change and thinking his photos
will be sold without his consent? Well, that's OK. But a-list tech bloggers
writing the same thing? WTF. That's what a call faux-rage.

~~~
jahewson
Right, but no uproar = no u-turn, you can't have one without the other.

