Instagram Terms of Service Create an Outrage, Instagram Responds!

Instagram, the hugely popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook announced new terms of service that claimed 'some' rights with language that appeared to give the Facebook app the right to “sell” users’ photos to advertisers.

You hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service

Instagram had stated in a blog post.

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.

It emphasized that the coming updates to its privacy policy and terms of service will help it improve the reliability of the service and fight spam. The new terms of service will take effect on January 16.

The new terms of service caused an uproar on the Internet. Many, including some well known photographers, have said that they are bidding good bye to Instagram. Many users have been voicing their concerns using the hashtag #againstnewtos following the announcement.

However, the new terms of service turned out to be different. Instagram later posted a long response to the criticism on various social media networks, saying that it had no intention of selling photos.

Instagram responded saying

Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern the thriving and active Instagram community. Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean.

Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed.

Nothing has changed about the control you have over who can see your photos. If you set your photos to private, Instagram only shares your photos with the people you've approved to follow you. We hope that this simple control makes it easy for everyone to decide what level of privacy makes sense.

It seems many users had incorrectly interpreted Instagram's revised terms of service.

Featured image by cheeseslave