11 ms·

Instagram's official response

334 points by kurtvarner 14y ago

Mystalic 14y ago
I don't think Instagram/Systrom had any intention to sell user photos or do anything as drastic as the blogosphere made its TOS changes sound. It did the right thing responding so quickly to user feedback. Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.
- jonknee 14y ago
  > Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users. And maybe just maybe they will review further TOS changes before unleashing them. If these terms were really against Instagram's plans, it's almost even more pathetic.
  - tharris0101 14y ago
    I agree. There is a lot of attention paid to TOS changes lately. How could they not see that this would come with heavy backlash? I know he keeps saying "not our intention" in that post, but intentions don't amount to anything if the TOS clearly gives them carte blanche with your photos. Just some really bad public relations going on there.
  - jobu 14y ago
    Though they probably won't admit it, I'm betting Hanlon's Razor fits this situation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor) After reading some of the TOS changes and this blog post it really seems like a case of overzealous lawyering - trying to cover Instagram for all possible uses of the photos.
  - shabble 14y ago
    I'd like to see a site/service along the lines of http://www.tldrlegal.com/ http://www.tldrlegal.com/ but which crowdfunded some decent lawyers to review the ToS, privacy policy, etc of popular sites (determined by user votes) and provided a list of potentially objectionable statements. Not as Proper Noun Legal Advice, but more as a set of things which might be a concern, and you should have your own qualified legal counsel examine in detail if desired) I can think of all sorts of problems though; malpractice, negligence, copyright infringement of ToS, libel for misinterpretations, and many more besides. Maybe that's why it doesn't (can't?) exist.
- chmars 14y ago
  The legal text, i.e., the announced new ToS, remain relevant, in particular since the ToS rule out suing Instagram (you have to revert to arbitration). I therefore see today's announcement as an important first step but an amendment to the announced new ToS has to follow suit if Instagram really takes this matter serious from a legal perspective.
- pdonis 14y ago
  Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users. What I don't get is why Instagram doesn't just let users pay for the value they are obviously receiving from the service. http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/your-cloud-data-not-yours.html http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/your-cloud-data-not-your...
- mstefanko 14y ago
  The blogosphere will always make things sound worse than they are. But was it really that exaggerated this time. I don't think there intentions were as bad as it came off, but they made a huge mistake. There response was honestly not all that fast considering the instant shit storm this caused. If a million users complain about something immediately after it hits the feeds, and it takes them literally hours to say much of anything about it, there's an issue. The apology was not heartfelt, it wasn't sincere, and came off far more like like, "we're sorry you didn't understand." I think instagram/facebook should be able to monetize, but I think today marks a gigantic mistake in their history, they went down in myspace fashion. Users dropping like flies, the amount of traffic on services like instaport.me and http://freethephotos.com/ http://freethephotos.com/ is phenemonal. In other news, flickr came back from the grave.
newishuser 14y ago
As a non lawyer who likes to pretend he knows what he's talking about, I say: "Lovely, now let's get that in writing."
- tharris0101 14y ago
  Exactly. There is a big difference between "not our intention" and "we legally can't do that"
- chmars 14y ago
  I absolutely agree, the legal Terms of Service (ToS) are relevant and not some blogging about intensions. The legal text is in particular important because according to the ToS, you are now allowed to sue Instagram but you have to revert to arbitration.
AlexMuir 14y ago
This is a completely different style of incident response than parent company Facebook's. I much prefer this (relatively) straight up approach, although I'll admit it's more likely to come back and bite them in the arse a few years down the line.
- MattSayar 14y ago
  Why will it come back to bite them?
  - tharris0101 14y ago
    Because some day they will want to do the things he is insisting they "have no intention" of doing and this post will come back to bite them.
    - mark-r 14y ago
      How will it bite them? The blog post has no legal bearing, and they can just claim they changed their minds - circumstances have changed, etc.
  - AlexMuir 14y ago
    I'm not saying it will, but that it's more likely to. No-one knows what technology brings to the table. Eg. "it is not our intention to sell your photos" But what if some kickass image analysis startup emerges that can mine valuable data from billions of pics. And then sell that data. So, just like Twitter with its firehose, Instagram licences its data to 3rd parties. They've just ruled that out (except they haven't, because licensing something is legally different to selling it, if not in substance). It's a lawyer's job to leave terms as much in their client's favour as they can get away with. It would be foolish to close avenues for no reason. There's a balancing act with PR but overall I think Instagram were just unlucky here and handled it well.
davewiner 14y ago
They want to use your pictures to sell products to your friends. Say you take a picture of your friends at Domino's Pizza. They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out." Now you may not mind making an endorsement. But with this plan they don't have to ask you for permission. They can just do it. And if you turn out to be a hit they can use it to sell the pizza to everyone not just your friends. And if you're really a hit, they can use it to sell underwear. Or adult diapers. Or contraceptives. Or whatever you might not like them to use your imagery to sell.
- alexismadrigal 14y ago
  Agree. It's pretty obvious where they are going with this. And from an advertiser's perspective, it's pretty sweet. Right now, the distinction they are trying to draw seems to be that they'll only use you to advertise things that you choose to follow. But what's to stop them from your "implicit" endorsements of products/services you use from location data or with machine vision (something Google can already do with many logos in Street View imagery, I've discovered in my reporting)? Oh, that's right. Nothing. Which is why they don't want to have to ask for permission to do these things.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out."" They actually can't. There's a world of difference between using a photo to depict an event, and using a photo to endorse. "Domino's is featuring $5 large pizzas, here's your friend Bob at Domino's last week!" is legal. "Look at Bob who loves our pizza, come try it out!" is not, unless Bob has signed off on it. You've crossed the line into commercial endorsement, which is a civil suit waiting to happen. Now, there could potentially be an argument that depicting Bob at Domino's next to a paid message by Domino's is implied endorsement - that's something Instagram will have to figure out. IANAL, though I have studied commercial vs. editorial usage of photography reasonably deeply. Using someone to endorse a product is a legally non-trivial proposition. It's not as simple as "we can use your photo here".
  - 14y ago
stfu 14y ago
One of the main reasons these documents don’t take effect immediately, but instead 30 days from now, is that we wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to raise any concerns. I see, they learned quite a bit from politicians. First push for the extremes, and if you get buried by bad press, produce a watered-down compromise. Still, it is a surprisingly fair statement from a Facebook owned company.
- Flenser 14y ago
  Is it bad press? Or free advertising for their new features for promoting accounts? I don't think there was any downside to making the TOS changes the way they did.
nikunjk 14y ago
Kevin Systrom is the man. To be acquired, be part of a public company and still respond quickly, succinctly and effectively their monetization plan is something a lot of companies can learn from.
- jonknee 14y ago
  It's not hard to say what people want to hear, especially when you're not under oath. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagram-testimony-doesnt-add-up-2/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr...
kurtvarner 14y ago
Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve an absolutely free service?
- mirkules 14y ago
  We (consumers) deserve to have an honest description of how our data is and will be used. We also deserve to receive the service we signed up for and not have the ToS switched on us midway through the lifecycle of the product. The fact that that is happening is dishonest, and is called a "bait and switch" in most other industries.
  - clarky07 14y ago
    >We also deserve to receive the service we signed up No you don't. They can shut the whole thing down and don't owe you a damn thing. If you don't like the new ToS, when they switch to them and an accept/decline option comes up in the app you can feel free to decline and delete the app.
- larskinn 14y ago
  No. I'll hold my judgement until I see the new TOS, but what they propose in this blog post is much more reasonable. If the new TOS reflect that, I see little reason to bitch about it.
- nhangen 14y ago
  I don't think users feel that way. What they want is to be acknowledged and respected for helping build the server to what it is today. No users = no service. Don't sell us out just because you chose to take money and sell for a cool bil.
  - kurtvarner 14y ago
    Really? Only 5 days ago this was on the front page of HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689. And what about the complaints of Twitter and Facebook ads? You can't say that people don't whine about companies monetizing via advertising.
alecdibble 14y ago
Hopefully the take-away is an explanation would have been helpful when the ToS was changed. Everyone was given limited information and they interpreted it how they could. Maybe sites will think about this next time they quietly changed their ToS.
- MichaelGG 14y ago
  If they needed an explanation to say "the terms say this, but we don't really mean it" then perhaps they should just not release a ToS with stuff they don't actually mean. It's little comfort for a company to say "oh the contract says X, but don't worry it's not true". The take-away here is to actually properly review the ToS in light of "how might a user interpret this" not in "how can we make sure we have the absolute most coverage on our side".
comice 14y ago
What they claim their intentions were is unimportant. They were granting themselves irrevokable rights to do things people didn't ever want them to be able to do.
- jaggederest 14y ago
  A possible negative scenario: They grant themselves these rights and then get spun off / acquired by someone with malicious intent. The rights never expire... Can you guarantee that your company will respect the rights of users a decade from now? A century?
  - shabble 14y ago
    Also, you now can't ever sell exclusive rights[1], because there's a perpetual sub-licence capable party floating about out there. [1] IANAL, but I think that's how it would work; for any licenceable aspect which you wish to grant exclusively, they can grant the same to one or more others, making it non-exclusive.
gyardley 14y ago
The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Interesting use of the present tense in the second sentence, in an "I am not having an affair with that woman" sort of way.
rjd 14y ago
To late they lost my trust when facebook brought them, and even rumours of facebook behaviour was enough to walk away. My account is now gone, same with atleast a dozen people I've talked to in the last day or so. I'd hazard a guess the quick response has been in response to sudden surge in accounts deleted.
jonknee 14y ago
Take it with a grain of salt. They tried to sneak this by and it blew up in their faces. While under oath, Kevin Systrom: “No, we never received any offers,” Reality, Instagram had an offer from Twitter and Kevin Systrom had direct knowledge. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagram-testimony-doesnt-add-up-2/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr... That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Facebook pulling the reigns, we all know where this will end.
- nathanb 14y ago
  Some language in the post I found interesting: > The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Note that he doesn't say "we won't use your photos as part of an advertisement", he merely says "the reason we're removing that language is because we don't [currently] plan on using your photos as part of an advertisement". I'm sure if they thought of a way they could make money by doing so without losing critical mass, they'd be all over that.
  - bentruyman 14y ago
    Of course. It would be silly to speak in absolutes like that and not leaving certain advertising opportunities on the table for the future.
  - loceng 14y ago
    Nor "at this time" doesn't mean they can't and won't add this later anyhow. This is damage control, though damage has been done.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    He also doesn't say he's going to stop beating his wife.
    - merlincorey 14y ago
tobyjsullivan 14y ago
I like this response. Terms of Service often need to change over time and, as of late, the Internet seems to have made a game out of ripping the changes to shreds when put forward by a known brand. I'm looking forward to seeing how companies handle ToS changes moving forward. Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether?
- frossie 14y ago
  Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether? Err, write TOSes that are not a land grab of other people's intellectual private property and/or private data? You make it sound like it is unreasonable to care about that.
  - tobyjsullivan 14y ago
    I think you underestimate the Internet's ability to find things to misquote and complain about. The predominant backlash to Google's recent ToS changes come to mind as an example of selective content being reported out of context.
dntbrme 14y ago
Why don't they just offer to share some of the profit of selling/using the photos? I think this would gain more users who would not mind being in promotional post, as long as they get a cut.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
When you're getting into bed with Facebook, writing poor terms of service in the same week that you lie about acquisition offers is a pretty damn good way of souring the well. If they revise the ToS and remove the offending sections, good, but for some, it will already be too late.
hexis 14y ago
"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." That is less clear than saying "We will not sell your photos." It's either a knowingly slippery statement, or they forgot how to not be slippery.
- listaware 14y ago
  This was exactly what I stuck with me. Intention can be either direct or indirect. So they could sell something as a package, which would be indirectly selling something, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal_law) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal_law) . I'm no lawyer, but it does sound like that statement had the once over by a few.
jburwell 14y ago
There seems to be a disconnect between the TOS and this statement. If/when it comes down to brass tacks, a legal agreement between the Instagram and its users trumps a blog post about intentions. Talk is cheap -- codify the intentions expressed in the blog post in a TOS revision before the current changes take effect.
darushimo 14y ago
It's difficult to believe that the language of the ToS communicates things they 'don't intend', Especially following this potential Twitter-acquisition / possible perjury situation. Also, lets not forget that this is not a startup talking to us anymore--this is a Facebook-owned company. I would expect Facebook to take full advantage of their intentionally vague legal wording. Although with that said, they don't need to stop the bleeding as much as shut up the major negative press about it, and this statement will probably do that.
blhack 14y ago
What an absolute shock! Instagram hasn't actually decided to cut off their own hands!
Splendor 14y ago
Too late. I already deleted my account.
- numbsafari 14y ago
  Same here. I'm also working on deleting my FB account. That one is a lot harder to do because so many of the small businesses and artists that I follow have abandoned maintaining their own blog/website in favor of just using FB.
  - g-garron 14y ago
    what a big mistake! What if FB is suddenly turned off? they do not even have their own url. Well, not everybody thinks about worst case scenarios.
    - numbsafari 14y ago
      It's really true. What it really gets to is that there really aren't very good/affordable resources for artists and venues to reach a large audience. Hiring a local "designer" is often really expensive and you end up with a crappy website that is hard to maintain. Even using something as "simple" as WordPress can be way too technical for a lot of people. FB has the benefit of giving them a platform that enables them to quickly connect with their audience. I see it as a failure of the rest of the internet ecosystem.
aculver 14y ago
I don't want "innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram" any more than I want what Facebook has done with advertising in my timeline. Please just give me an option to pay a monthly fee to turn all that garbage off.
- wmeredith 14y ago
  I've paid for and really enjoyed Flickr's Pro service for years. The fact that they just released a really nice app made it easy to kill my Instagram account once and for all today (I'd thought about it when they first got acquired by Facebook, but never followed through).
- tharris0101 14y ago
  I would pay for this too. Unfortunately, not a lot of people would.
level09 14y ago
I guess you still need to work on your language, Can't you just use clear sentences with straight meanings ? e.g. > we respect that your photos are your photos. Period wouldn't it be better to just say "we are not going to use your photos without your permission ? "
wbharding 14y ago
What the blogosphere seemed to miss when getting all crazy about Instagram selling their pictures to businesses for advertising: what business in their right mind would want the bad press that would go along with exploiting Instagram users? The first time a business used a user's picture without their knowledge, the Internet would go crazy with rage, and rightfully so. It was never going to work that way, because businesses wouldn't want to be part of that game any more than the users would. The FUD that CNet was able to perpetrate far outweighs any reasonable outcome that I can foresee. For this reason, I take Kevin at his word: both that they aren't going to do stupidly publish user pics on the side of buses, and that they will learn from this blunder.
lalwat 14y ago
Still out.
timkly 14y ago
Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way. Isn't this just exactly how facebook fooled the world? You pay x to gain y followers and when they have bleed that river dry, they roll out another update that requires you to pay z if you want your posts to show up in their feed?
jmgrimes 14y ago
I think that a possible positive side effect of all this is that customers might start realising that they actually would rather pay for web-based software.
suprgeek 14y ago
There are several variations of "Our real intention is....", "we are aiming for...." in this post. Instagram users really need to realize that "Actual TOS agreement" trumps a thousand "our real intention...." blog posts. Plus as other posters have pointed out there are some pretty clear giveaways in the Phrasing of some of the denials. In the very first paragraph is " Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean...." Basically saying that our changes were not bad it is the users that are confused. If you have not already --- ABANDON SHIP
- creativityland 14y ago
  Abandoned.
richardjs 14y ago
Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. It's a shame this is the case. Isn't it part of the point of legal documents to be hard to misinterpret? Isn't that supposed to be why they use such stiff language?
ianstallings 14y ago
Not like it will matter. The witch hunt has started and nothing can disperse an angry mob. Except free pie of course.
shabble 14y ago
There's something I can't quite put my finger on, that makes this response seem a bit forced and insincere. "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone" My understanding is that legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible. They say exactly what they mean, and (subject to possible judicial interpretation) mean exactly what they say. I'm sure the average layperson might misunderstand or not realise the consequences or scope of a particular term, but as I understand it, the original concerns appear to have been raised by an EFF lawyer[1] who presumably does have a reasonable grasp of the matter. That sets the tone for the piece. "Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." We are selling a package. Which might include some photos and some other advertising or whatever services, juicy user data, etc, but we're definitely not selling the photos. Only the package thing. "Ownership Rights: Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos." My understanding is that this is irrelevant to everything except maybe attribution; they're granting themselves sufficient rights to transfer & sub-licence the works, which is essentially everything necessary to sell/use/licence a copy. In fact, the existence of a perpetual royalty-free transferable/re-licenceable licence will significantly devalue the content, if the actual owner wanted to sell or exclusively licence the content. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. But it definitely feels like the Non-Apology-Apology "We're truly sorry that you feel upset about how we're trying to shaft you good & hard." [1] mentioned in http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says-it-now-has-the-right-to-sell-your-photos/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says... as Kurt Opsahl[2] [2] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/kurt-opsahl https://www.eff.org/about/staff/kurt-opsahl
- dustingetz 14y ago
  > legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible legal documents reuse diction that has been ruled on and has court established precedent, which creates a bias towards diction which ended up in court in the first place. i read that in a HN comment somewhere, sorry, no citation.
nemof 14y ago
A little bit of balance for the pitchforks crowd: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-terms-of-service-what-they-really-mean http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te... This story is giving me a headache.
- spangborn 14y ago
  It's already been pointed out that the Verge ignored several important pieces of the ToS when writing that article - take a look at the comments both on HN (for other articles) and The Verge to see. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4940062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4940062
ianstallings 14y ago
What blows my mind about this whole mess is how quickly this community has gone off on some witch hunt. Just read the comments. This is apparently what you have to look forward to if your startup is successful and you eventually try to monetize. Good luck everyone.
- forensic 14y ago
  Boo hoo, the multi-millionaires are getting insulted when they try to fuck their users! Won't someone please think of the feelings of the millionaires! I'm pretty sure they can wipe away their tears with $100 bills and their feelings won't suffer permanent damage. Since their feelings are so much more important than all of the people they are trying to fuck over.
  - ianstallings 14y ago
    Are you an adult? These are your peers not billionaire bankers leeching off the backs of the poor. You know, programmers, marketers, entrepreneurs. They made it. And you want to tear them down because they've been successful? Now that they have money they are automagically evil? What planet am I on?
    - pfortuny 14y ago
      Wow, sorry your argument has nothing to do with the ToS. Peers really? And why is it that it is the CEO who answers and not those nice engineers? Come on, the engineers made the product, the lawyers and the board made the company's legal arrangements. And they are utter bullshit.
      - ianstallings 14y ago
        That CEO is Kevin Systrom, my peer because he is a programmer and entrepreneur. Your whole argument is baseless. He wrote Instagram with his partner Mike Krieger.
    - forensic 14y ago
patrickgzill 14y ago
imgur.com is something like $24 a year, and AFAIK they don't claim any ownership on your photos...
davidcollantes 14y ago
For me, that's too late. Flickr mobile app is getting better, using it.
danso 14y ago
>> The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things like advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time. ---- <<< . This whole time, I was thinking, "whatever they do, they won't back away from this language...why else would they drop a bombshell if they weren't willing to suffer the blowback"...And it turns out, it was just some optional path they were considering and thought, "what the hell, let's just put in there for now, no biggie" ??? Is that seriously the mindset of a billion dollar company? All I can imagine is: 1) They are lying 2) They really thought people wouldn't read the TOS (hasn't Facebook learned by now that someone will read it and make a big deal about troubling language?) 3) They are an incredibly careless company who will make other "mistakes" that could harm users. I had been mostly ambivalent about this whole thing, as I don't maintain a very active Instagram account. But now I might just put in the energy to delete my account.
javajosh 14y ago
Does anyone else find the phrasing "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone..." to be eerily similar to Dr. Breen's PSAs in the beginning of Half-Life 2? Dr. Breen: "Let me read a letter I recently received. 'Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen.' Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced."
rauljara 14y ago
I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in favor of. If anyone in the masses of angry Instagram users could be appeased by words, this is probably about as good as you could do at appeasing them. However, judging from the responses here, a lot of Instagram users are unappeasable, and I don't think unreasonably. Their motives are basically unknowable by anyone not in their inner circle, so all we have to go on is their actions and their words. If your internal heuristics say that when it looks like a social media company is trying to steal your personal data/intellectual property, they probably are and will then lie about it after the fact... well, that seems like a reasonable heuristic to have this day and age. I'm not sure I buy into it unreservedly, but I wouldn't try to convince anyone they're wrong about it, either. This whole event shows me (or at least, reminds me) that there are limits to what words can fix.
- danso 14y ago
  I can imagine a better response, but not one that would take significantly longer for lawyers to vet. An ideal response would actually show examples (i.e. "This is an example of your photo being used in conjunction with an advertisement. This is an example of how your photo will never be used"), because as it is, the language is just couched enough that Instagram users, once burned, will be even more suspicious and cynical.
  - lifeguard 14y ago
    The terms are deliberately foggy in a way to protect Instagram. They used a good lawyer. The product manager failed here, not the lawyers.
    - frabcus 14y ago
      Such a dated definition of a good lawyer! If a lawyer's advice pisses off your users, that isn't a good lawyer. Sure a lawyer can claim that being "conservative" on behalf of their "client's interests" is the best way to act. That's no longer credible though. The client (Instagram's) interests can be more closely linked now to their user's interests, than was the case before the Internet when a company could write whatever shit they like in legal agreements, and nobody would complain.
itsprofitbaron 14y ago
I posted something similar on here[1] about how Instagram cannot sell its users photos and what they're actually doing is trying to monetize similar to how Facebook does Sponsored Posts. Instagram's terms of service stated that was their intentions: To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, 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. And "Section 106: Exclusive rights in copyrighted works aka. 17 U.S.C. § 106"[3] essentially states Instagram cannot sell its users photos and it cannot use its users photos and alter them in any meaningful way. The problem was how they communicated the change and they've admitted that too[2] although they've started to fix this with this blogpost and will continue to communicate this. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650 [2] https://twitter.com/instagram/status/281133360833773568 https://twitter.com/instagram/status/281133360833773568 [3] http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
clarky07 14y ago
<rant> I really have no idea what people are complaining about. What are you putting in your Instagram photos? It's a cool service that lets you share pictures with friends. What is it that you think your pictures are worth? When you sign up for a free service, you have to know that you are the product. PERIOD. Don't sign up for free services if you don't want to be the product. Go pay flickr. They will take your money. Stop bitching about free services adding ads so that they can keep the lights on and keep offering your free service. </rant>
mikebonnell 14y ago
Decent response, but I remain unconvinced.
piyush_soni 14y ago
Sorry. The damage has already been done, and we clearly hear your intentions, instagram. I deleted my account and don't plan on joining back.
DigitalSea 14y ago
I am happy with this apology. Everyone loves to hate on something, once one person starts hating others join in the mob mentality against someone or an entity continues until it gets to the point where the arguments have lost sight of what they were originally arguing about. What kind of apology were people expecting? An apology using animated GIF's and infographics? Considering the photo quality of Instagram photos is extremely questionable, are people really upset that a photo of the nicoise salad they had could be used in an ad for for promotional purposes? Please. 99.9% of the photos on Instagram wouldn't be fit for advertising considering they're most shots of insecure teenagers taking photos in the mirror and the rest pictures of food. Calm down.
gkanai 14y ago
I deleted my Instagram account and won't be going back. Flickr's new mobile apps and their much more user-friendly TOS is where was before Instagram and where I want to be in the future.
DRMAN 14y ago
It's time to say goodbye to both Instagram and facebook and say hello to iphoto!
hoi 14y ago
Seems to me this is a test. Push the updated terms of service out, if no-one complains, or if there is only minimal response then cool, it's acceptable by the users. If complainst come around, mitigate that risk by issuing an apology afterwards. As the phrase goes - " Do What You Think Is Right & Apologize Later "
uptown 14y ago
It's odd. The vast majority of Instagram users seem to leave their accounts open to the public - more so that most photo-sharing services I've used in the past. Instagram presumably has business relationships with all sorts of entities. And Instagram has APIs allowing users to access the data exposed by these public galleries. It seems the pieces are already in place for a 3rd party to enter into a business relationship with Instagram to pay for access to the data contained in their users photos. Why were the new terms even necessary?
ygmelnikova 14y ago
These mistakes are so common among billion dollar corporations. Can they not anticipate these sort of reactions? Do they get 'Larry' down in legal to quickly write something up and then post it without another thought?
- forensic 14y ago
  If it slips by unnoticed, they are looking at hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars. So the upside is VERY VERY big. Well worth the risk.
aptwebapps 14y ago
The proof is in the pudding. Let's see the new TOS.
julienmarie 14y ago
"Legal documents are easy to misinterpret." => Isn't their goal the opposite ?
- mark-r 14y ago
  Easy to misinterpret by people who aren't lawyers and judges is the implication. But when actual lawyers come out and warn you about what it really means, you need to be concerned.
onedev 14y ago
All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere.
- bobsoap 14y ago
  > All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere. Care to spellcheck and elaborate?
  - onedev 14y ago
    No, because that was a typo and typos happen.
thekevinjones 14y ago
For those that would still like to easily move their Instagram images to Flickr, without exporting to a zip then reimporting,we built a small webapp that will allow you to do so only a few clicks. http://freethephotos.com http://freethephotos.com
Tloewald 14y ago
And we have always been at war with Eastasia.
li-ch 14y ago
I don't trust the legal opinions from the sales and marketing people. I'll read the ToS myself.
fernly 14y ago
Exactly what part of "you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your ... photos (along with any associated metadata), ... without any compensation to you" is "confusing"? It is not complicated legalese; on the contrary it is admirably terse and lucid English. The reason that "it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation" is because that is EXACTLY what it says they will do. Unambiguous. Not confusing. What's confusing is that Kevin Systrom now claims it does not say what it very clearly and unambiguously says.
reasondiscourse 14y ago
Another way to approach this might be to ask yourself specifically what uses you as a user do not want Instagram to pursue with your photos. Then look at the TOS and assess whether the TOS give you any protection against those uses. If the TOS do not protect against those uses then you can tell Instagram directly via feedback what you do not want them to do with your photos. It is easier to amend the TOS by adding specific, unambiguous restrictions on certain uses than it is to try to define the full scope of the permissions to users using random examples. To restate this another way: Instead of trying to imagine everything Instagram might be permitted to do under the TOS, imagine what you as a user do not want them to do, and then ask for explicit restrictions on those uses.
jlgray 14y ago
If they had said we're setting up a market to sell Instagram photos. You can opt-in any of your photos, we'll take a cut for running the service, and you get the rest. The problem would be filtering out the junk, not getting people to sell their cat pictures.
bhashkarsharma 14y ago
Is it just me who feels that it is just a re-run of the classic 'Zuck' way of doing things: Make mistake and apologize when it blows up? What's happening inside the company is any outsider's guess, but I definitely don't feel reassured.
thekevan 14y ago
tl;rd: We're not selling your pictures, just using them for our own ads.
lnanek2 14y ago
tumblr seems to be doing quite well just letting users promote their posts. instagram could be moving that direction, not just for businesses. i guess they have facebook doing it from the business side, though, so it is natural for them
- mherdeg 14y ago
  Speaking of which, how cool is it that Instagram's official blog is a tumblr? That infrastructure is everywhere!
ck2 14y ago
I still don't get why instagram is evil and facebook is fine. Is it because instagram is more disposable/replaceable to people?
tripzilch 14y ago
> Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. Actually the reason legal documents are written in a quirky funny dialect is to make them less ambiguous, not more so. If they are, whoever's written them is doing it wrong. In today's social environment, the way people are made to feel like customers/users, only to later be sold as product, with little regard to privacy and/or control over their data and profile, isn't it funny how people are starting to assume the worst? In all fairness, except for that bad start, later on you write the confusing language was your mistake, so you probably meant to say "Legal documents are hard to write, especially when people actually read them". > Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Um, yeah. What's "Ownership Rights"? It's not a legal term. Yet you capitalized and bolded the term. I'm sure you didn't mean to say "Copyrights" because you know what those are very well and take great care to not mention them. Also you can't have meant "Personality Rights" because they're generally non-transferable. On the other hand, at least you acknowledged the public's reaction. And rather quickly, at that. That's good. You also say you're listening and will improve the wording of the TOS. How that will turn out remains to be seen, when it happens. If so, I hope you'll excuse my skepticism.
babesh 14y ago
The more interesting question is what is Instagram planning to do that caused this change in terms of service. I would bet that they are going to group photos together that show off a product or to attach advertising around your photos based on location or what the photo shows. I think that they are doing this soon.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
At my last job, our Director of Operations was responsible for rewriting the company rulebook/handbook. People didn't really know why, since we were a small company and I don't think anyone had ever read the handbook. Obviously, as you can imagine from someone with the title of Director of Operations, no one was asked for input. A few weeks later, we;re all given copies of the handbook and ordered to sign it. People read the handbook and it was very clear that the new rules were not in line with company culture at all. No drinking in the office when we had multiple beer fridges, stuff about how you can be fired with less notice, etc. Of course, no one in their right mind would agree to an amended rulebook while at a company, especially when they could freely move to another startup. The thing that amazed me most though, was in our next company meeting, people kept asking the Director of Operations about the rulebook and he finally snapped to say "Look, I made some changes, if you dont like them, its just really not a big deal, I don't think the rulebook actually means anything anyway". Okay so lets recap. Our director of operations spent months writing a "meaningless" document? Doubtful. If so, why WRITE the document at all? This is the parallel I see here. There was no reason whatsoever to change the terms, yet they had some presumably high priced lawyers rewrite them. Why would they do this? Do we really believe they spent time an effort updating these terms for no reason? To me, this reads as some SERIOUS backpedaling and I would be shocked if they actually didn't intend to use data in the exact way people were upset they would.

334 points by kurtvarner 14y ago

I don't think Instagram/Systrom had any intention to sell user photos or do anything as drastic as the blogosphere made its TOS changes sound. It did the right thing responding so quickly to user feedback. Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.

jonknee 14y ago
> Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users. And maybe just maybe they will review further TOS changes before unleashing them. If these terms were really against Instagram's plans, it's almost even more pathetic.
- tharris0101 14y ago
  I agree. There is a lot of attention paid to TOS changes lately. How could they not see that this would come with heavy backlash? I know he keeps saying "not our intention" in that post, but intentions don't amount to anything if the TOS clearly gives them carte blanche with your photos. Just some really bad public relations going on there.
- jobu 14y ago
  Though they probably won't admit it, I'm betting Hanlon's Razor fits this situation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor) After reading some of the TOS changes and this blog post it really seems like a case of overzealous lawyering - trying to cover Instagram for all possible uses of the photos.
- shabble 14y ago
  I'd like to see a site/service along the lines of http://www.tldrlegal.com/ http://www.tldrlegal.com/ but which crowdfunded some decent lawyers to review the ToS, privacy policy, etc of popular sites (determined by user votes) and provided a list of potentially objectionable statements. Not as Proper Noun Legal Advice, but more as a set of things which might be a concern, and you should have your own qualified legal counsel examine in detail if desired) I can think of all sorts of problems though; malpractice, negligence, copyright infringement of ToS, libel for misinterpretations, and many more besides. Maybe that's why it doesn't (can't?) exist.
chmars 14y ago
The legal text, i.e., the announced new ToS, remain relevant, in particular since the ToS rule out suing Instagram (you have to revert to arbitration). I therefore see today's announcement as an important first step but an amendment to the announced new ToS has to follow suit if Instagram really takes this matter serious from a legal perspective.
pdonis 14y ago
Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users. What I don't get is why Instagram doesn't just let users pay for the value they are obviously receiving from the service. http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/your-cloud-data-not-yours.html http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/your-cloud-data-not-your...
mstefanko 14y ago
The blogosphere will always make things sound worse than they are. But was it really that exaggerated this time. I don't think there intentions were as bad as it came off, but they made a huge mistake. There response was honestly not all that fast considering the instant shit storm this caused. If a million users complain about something immediately after it hits the feeds, and it takes them literally hours to say much of anything about it, there's an issue. The apology was not heartfelt, it wasn't sincere, and came off far more like like, "we're sorry you didn't understand." I think instagram/facebook should be able to monetize, but I think today marks a gigantic mistake in their history, they went down in myspace fashion. Users dropping like flies, the amount of traffic on services like instaport.me and http://freethephotos.com/ http://freethephotos.com/ is phenemonal. In other news, flickr came back from the grave.

newishuser 14y ago

As a non lawyer who likes to pretend he knows what he's talking about, I say: "Lovely, now let's get that in writing."

tharris0101 14y ago
Exactly. There is a big difference between "not our intention" and "we legally can't do that"
chmars 14y ago
I absolutely agree, the legal Terms of Service (ToS) are relevant and not some blogging about intensions. The legal text is in particular important because according to the ToS, you are now allowed to sue Instagram but you have to revert to arbitration.

AlexMuir 14y ago

This is a completely different style of incident response than parent company Facebook's. I much prefer this (relatively) straight up approach, although I'll admit it's more likely to come back and bite them in the arse a few years down the line.

MattSayar 14y ago
Why will it come back to bite them?
- tharris0101 14y ago
  Because some day they will want to do the things he is insisting they "have no intention" of doing and this post will come back to bite them.
  - mark-r 14y ago
    How will it bite them? The blog post has no legal bearing, and they can just claim they changed their minds - circumstances have changed, etc.
- AlexMuir 14y ago
  I'm not saying it will, but that it's more likely to. No-one knows what technology brings to the table. Eg. "it is not our intention to sell your photos" But what if some kickass image analysis startup emerges that can mine valuable data from billions of pics. And then sell that data. So, just like Twitter with its firehose, Instagram licences its data to 3rd parties. They've just ruled that out (except they haven't, because licensing something is legally different to selling it, if not in substance). It's a lawyer's job to leave terms as much in their client's favour as they can get away with. It would be foolish to close avenues for no reason. There's a balancing act with PR but overall I think Instagram were just unlucky here and handled it well.

davewiner 14y ago

They want to use your pictures to sell products to your friends. Say you take a picture of your friends at Domino's Pizza. They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out." Now you may not mind making an endorsement. But with this plan they don't have to ask you for permission. They can just do it. And if you turn out to be a hit they can use it to sell the pizza to everyone not just your friends. And if you're really a hit, they can use it to sell underwear. Or adult diapers. Or contraceptives. Or whatever you might not like them to use your imagery to sell.

alexismadrigal 14y ago
Agree. It's pretty obvious where they are going with this. And from an advertiser's perspective, it's pretty sweet. Right now, the distinction they are trying to draw seems to be that they'll only use you to advertise things that you choose to follow. But what's to stop them from your "implicit" endorsements of products/services you use from location data or with machine vision (something Google can already do with many logos in Street View imagery, I've discovered in my reporting)? Oh, that's right. Nothing. Which is why they don't want to have to ask for permission to do these things.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "They can show that picture to your friends and say "Look this guy who you know loves our pizza. Come try it out."" They actually can't. There's a world of difference between using a photo to depict an event, and using a photo to endorse. "Domino's is featuring $5 large pizzas, here's your friend Bob at Domino's last week!" is legal. "Look at Bob who loves our pizza, come try it out!" is not, unless Bob has signed off on it. You've crossed the line into commercial endorsement, which is a civil suit waiting to happen. Now, there could potentially be an argument that depicting Bob at Domino's next to a paid message by Domino's is implied endorsement - that's something Instagram will have to figure out. IANAL, though I have studied commercial vs. editorial usage of photography reasonably deeply. Using someone to endorse a product is a legally non-trivial proposition. It's not as simple as "we can use your photo here".
- 14y ago

stfu 14y ago

One of the main reasons these documents don’t take effect immediately, but instead 30 days from now, is that we wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to raise any concerns. I see, they learned quite a bit from politicians. First push for the extremes, and if you get buried by bad press, produce a watered-down compromise. Still, it is a surprisingly fair statement from a Facebook owned company.

Flenser 14y ago
Is it bad press? Or free advertising for their new features for promoting accounts? I don't think there was any downside to making the TOS changes the way they did.

nikunjk 14y ago

Kevin Systrom is the man. To be acquired, be part of a public company and still respond quickly, succinctly and effectively their monetization plan is something a lot of companies can learn from.

jonknee 14y ago
It's not hard to say what people want to hear, especially when you're not under oath. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagram-testimony-doesnt-add-up-2/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr...

kurtvarner 14y ago

Great, now all the bitching can change to be about their plans to advertise. The sense of entitlement that people have is getting ridiculous. Why do you deserve an absolutely free service?

mirkules 14y ago
We (consumers) deserve to have an honest description of how our data is and will be used. We also deserve to receive the service we signed up for and not have the ToS switched on us midway through the lifecycle of the product. The fact that that is happening is dishonest, and is called a "bait and switch" in most other industries.
- clarky07 14y ago
  >We also deserve to receive the service we signed up No you don't. They can shut the whole thing down and don't owe you a damn thing. If you don't like the new ToS, when they switch to them and an accept/decline option comes up in the app you can feel free to decline and delete the app.
larskinn 14y ago
No. I'll hold my judgement until I see the new TOS, but what they propose in this blog post is much more reasonable. If the new TOS reflect that, I see little reason to bitch about it.
nhangen 14y ago
I don't think users feel that way. What they want is to be acknowledged and respected for helping build the server to what it is today. No users = no service. Don't sell us out just because you chose to take money and sell for a cool bil.
- kurtvarner 14y ago
  Really? Only 5 days ago this was on the front page of HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917689. And what about the complaints of Twitter and Facebook ads? You can't say that people don't whine about companies monetizing via advertising.

alecdibble 14y ago

Hopefully the take-away is an explanation would have been helpful when the ToS was changed. Everyone was given limited information and they interpreted it how they could. Maybe sites will think about this next time they quietly changed their ToS.

MichaelGG 14y ago
If they needed an explanation to say "the terms say this, but we don't really mean it" then perhaps they should just not release a ToS with stuff they don't actually mean. It's little comfort for a company to say "oh the contract says X, but don't worry it's not true". The take-away here is to actually properly review the ToS in light of "how might a user interpret this" not in "how can we make sure we have the absolute most coverage on our side".

comice 14y ago

What they claim their intentions were is unimportant. They were granting themselves irrevokable rights to do things people didn't ever want them to be able to do.

jaggederest 14y ago
A possible negative scenario: They grant themselves these rights and then get spun off / acquired by someone with malicious intent. The rights never expire... Can you guarantee that your company will respect the rights of users a decade from now? A century?
- shabble 14y ago
  Also, you now can't ever sell exclusive rights[1], because there's a perpetual sub-licence capable party floating about out there. [1] IANAL, but I think that's how it would work; for any licenceable aspect which you wish to grant exclusively, they can grant the same to one or more others, making it non-exclusive.

gyardley 14y ago

The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Interesting use of the present tense in the second sentence, in an "I am not having an affair with that woman" sort of way.

rjd 14y ago

To late they lost my trust when facebook brought them, and even rumours of facebook behaviour was enough to walk away. My account is now gone, same with atleast a dozen people I've talked to in the last day or so. I'd hazard a guess the quick response has been in response to sudden surge in accounts deleted.

jonknee 14y ago

Take it with a grain of salt. They tried to sneak this by and it blew up in their faces. While under oath, Kevin Systrom: “No, we never received any offers,” Reality, Instagram had an offer from Twitter and Kevin Systrom had direct knowledge. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagram-testimony-doesnt-add-up-2/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagr... That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Facebook pulling the reigns, we all know where this will end.

nathanb 14y ago
Some language in the post I found interesting: > The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Note that he doesn't say "we won't use your photos as part of an advertisement", he merely says "the reason we're removing that language is because we don't [currently] plan on using your photos as part of an advertisement". I'm sure if they thought of a way they could make money by doing so without losing critical mass, they'd be all over that.
- bentruyman 14y ago
  Of course. It would be silly to speak in absolutes like that and not leaving certain advertising opportunities on the table for the future.
- loceng 14y ago
  Nor "at this time" doesn't mean they can't and won't add this later anyhow. This is damage control, though damage has been done.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  He also doesn't say he's going to stop beating his wife.
  - merlincorey 14y ago

tobyjsullivan 14y ago

I like this response. Terms of Service often need to change over time and, as of late, the Internet seems to have made a game out of ripping the changes to shreds when put forward by a known brand. I'm looking forward to seeing how companies handle ToS changes moving forward. Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether?

frossie 14y ago
Is there a way to avoid the backlash altogether? Err, write TOSes that are not a land grab of other people's intellectual private property and/or private data? You make it sound like it is unreasonable to care about that.
- tobyjsullivan 14y ago
  I think you underestimate the Internet's ability to find things to misquote and complain about. The predominant backlash to Google's recent ToS changes come to mind as an example of selective content being reported out of context.

dntbrme 14y ago

Why don't they just offer to share some of the profit of selling/using the photos? I think this would gain more users who would not mind being in promotional post, as long as they get a cut.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

When you're getting into bed with Facebook, writing poor terms of service in the same week that you lie about acquisition offers is a pretty damn good way of souring the well. If they revise the ToS and remove the offending sections, good, but for some, it will already be too late.

hexis 14y ago

"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." That is less clear than saying "We will not sell your photos." It's either a knowingly slippery statement, or they forgot how to not be slippery.

listaware 14y ago
This was exactly what I stuck with me. Intention can be either direct or indirect. So they could sell something as a package, which would be indirectly selling something, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal_law) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_(criminal_law) . I'm no lawyer, but it does sound like that statement had the once over by a few.

jburwell 14y ago

There seems to be a disconnect between the TOS and this statement. If/when it comes down to brass tacks, a legal agreement between the Instagram and its users trumps a blog post about intentions. Talk is cheap -- codify the intentions expressed in the blog post in a TOS revision before the current changes take effect.

darushimo 14y ago

It's difficult to believe that the language of the ToS communicates things they 'don't intend', Especially following this potential Twitter-acquisition / possible perjury situation. Also, lets not forget that this is not a startup talking to us anymore--this is a Facebook-owned company. I would expect Facebook to take full advantage of their intentionally vague legal wording. Although with that said, they don't need to stop the bleeding as much as shut up the major negative press about it, and this statement will probably do that.

blhack 14y ago

What an absolute shock! Instagram hasn't actually decided to cut off their own hands!

Splendor 14y ago

Too late. I already deleted my account.

numbsafari 14y ago
Same here. I'm also working on deleting my FB account. That one is a lot harder to do because so many of the small businesses and artists that I follow have abandoned maintaining their own blog/website in favor of just using FB.
- g-garron 14y ago
  what a big mistake! What if FB is suddenly turned off? they do not even have their own url. Well, not everybody thinks about worst case scenarios.
  - numbsafari 14y ago
    It's really true. What it really gets to is that there really aren't very good/affordable resources for artists and venues to reach a large audience. Hiring a local "designer" is often really expensive and you end up with a crappy website that is hard to maintain. Even using something as "simple" as WordPress can be way too technical for a lot of people. FB has the benefit of giving them a platform that enables them to quickly connect with their audience. I see it as a failure of the rest of the internet ecosystem.

aculver 14y ago

I don't want "innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram" any more than I want what Facebook has done with advertising in my timeline. Please just give me an option to pay a monthly fee to turn all that garbage off.

wmeredith 14y ago
I've paid for and really enjoyed Flickr's Pro service for years. The fact that they just released a really nice app made it easy to kill my Instagram account once and for all today (I'd thought about it when they first got acquired by Facebook, but never followed through).
tharris0101 14y ago
I would pay for this too. Unfortunately, not a lot of people would.

level09 14y ago

I guess you still need to work on your language, Can't you just use clear sentences with straight meanings ? e.g. > we respect that your photos are your photos. Period wouldn't it be better to just say "we are not going to use your photos without your permission ? "

wbharding 14y ago

What the blogosphere seemed to miss when getting all crazy about Instagram selling their pictures to businesses for advertising: what business in their right mind would want the bad press that would go along with exploiting Instagram users? The first time a business used a user's picture without their knowledge, the Internet would go crazy with rage, and rightfully so. It was never going to work that way, because businesses wouldn't want to be part of that game any more than the users would. The FUD that CNet was able to perpetrate far outweighs any reasonable outcome that I can foresee. For this reason, I take Kevin at his word: both that they aren't going to do stupidly publish user pics on the side of buses, and that they will learn from this blunder.

lalwat 14y ago

Still out.

timkly 14y ago

Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way. Isn't this just exactly how facebook fooled the world? You pay x to gain y followers and when they have bleed that river dry, they roll out another update that requires you to pay z if you want your posts to show up in their feed?

jmgrimes 14y ago

I think that a possible positive side effect of all this is that customers might start realising that they actually would rather pay for web-based software.

suprgeek 14y ago

There are several variations of "Our real intention is....", "we are aiming for...." in this post. Instagram users really need to realize that "Actual TOS agreement" trumps a thousand "our real intention...." blog posts. Plus as other posters have pointed out there are some pretty clear giveaways in the Phrasing of some of the denials. In the very first paragraph is " Since making these changes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many users are confused and upset about what the changes mean...." Basically saying that our changes were not bad it is the users that are confused. If you have not already --- ABANDON SHIP

creativityland 14y ago
Abandoned.

richardjs 14y ago

Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. It's a shame this is the case. Isn't it part of the point of legal documents to be hard to misinterpret? Isn't that supposed to be why they use such stiff language?

ianstallings 14y ago

Not like it will matter. The witch hunt has started and nothing can disperse an angry mob. Except free pie of course.

shabble 14y ago

There's something I can't quite put my finger on, that makes this response seem a bit forced and insincere. "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone" My understanding is that legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible. They say exactly what they mean, and (subject to possible judicial interpretation) mean exactly what they say. I'm sure the average layperson might misunderstand or not realise the consequences or scope of a particular term, but as I understand it, the original concerns appear to have been raised by an EFF lawyer[1] who presumably does have a reasonable grasp of the matter. That sets the tone for the piece. "Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos." We are selling a package. Which might include some photos and some other advertising or whatever services, juicy user data, etc, but we're definitely not selling the photos. Only the package thing. "Ownership Rights: Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos." My understanding is that this is irrelevant to everything except maybe attribution; they're granting themselves sufficient rights to transfer & sub-licence the works, which is essentially everything necessary to sell/use/licence a copy. In fact, the existence of a perpetual royalty-free transferable/re-licenceable licence will significantly devalue the content, if the actual owner wanted to sell or exclusively licence the content. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. But it definitely feels like the Non-Apology-Apology "We're truly sorry that you feel upset about how we're trying to shaft you good & hard." [1] mentioned in http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says-it-now-has-the-right-to-sell-your-photos/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57559710-38/instagram-says... as Kurt Opsahl[2] [2] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/kurt-opsahl https://www.eff.org/about/staff/kurt-opsahl

dustingetz 14y ago
> legal documents are written precisely to be as hard to misinterpret as possible legal documents reuse diction that has been ruled on and has court established precedent, which creates a bias towards diction which ended up in court in the first place. i read that in a HN comment somewhere, sorry, no citation.

nemof 14y ago

A little bit of balance for the pitchforks crowd: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-terms-of-service-what-they-really-mean http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te... This story is giving me a headache.

spangborn 14y ago
It's already been pointed out that the Verge ignored several important pieces of the ToS when writing that article - take a look at the comments both on HN (for other articles) and The Verge to see. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4940062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4940062

ianstallings 14y ago

What blows my mind about this whole mess is how quickly this community has gone off on some witch hunt. Just read the comments. This is apparently what you have to look forward to if your startup is successful and you eventually try to monetize. Good luck everyone.

forensic 14y ago
Boo hoo, the multi-millionaires are getting insulted when they try to fuck their users! Won't someone please think of the feelings of the millionaires! I'm pretty sure they can wipe away their tears with $100 bills and their feelings won't suffer permanent damage. Since their feelings are so much more important than all of the people they are trying to fuck over.
- ianstallings 14y ago
  Are you an adult? These are your peers not billionaire bankers leeching off the backs of the poor. You know, programmers, marketers, entrepreneurs. They made it. And you want to tear them down because they've been successful? Now that they have money they are automagically evil? What planet am I on?
  - pfortuny 14y ago
    Wow, sorry your argument has nothing to do with the ToS. Peers really? And why is it that it is the CEO who answers and not those nice engineers? Come on, the engineers made the product, the lawyers and the board made the company's legal arrangements. And they are utter bullshit.
    - ianstallings 14y ago
      That CEO is Kevin Systrom, my peer because he is a programmer and entrepreneur. Your whole argument is baseless. He wrote Instagram with his partner Mike Krieger.
  - forensic 14y ago

patrickgzill 14y ago

imgur.com is something like $24 a year, and AFAIK they don't claim any ownership on your photos...

davidcollantes 14y ago

For me, that's too late. Flickr mobile app is getting better, using it.

danso 14y ago

>> The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things like advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time. ---- <<< . This whole time, I was thinking, "whatever they do, they won't back away from this language...why else would they drop a bombshell if they weren't willing to suffer the blowback"...And it turns out, it was just some optional path they were considering and thought, "what the hell, let's just put in there for now, no biggie" ??? Is that seriously the mindset of a billion dollar company? All I can imagine is: 1) They are lying 2) They really thought people wouldn't read the TOS (hasn't Facebook learned by now that someone will read it and make a big deal about troubling language?) 3) They are an incredibly careless company who will make other "mistakes" that could harm users. I had been mostly ambivalent about this whole thing, as I don't maintain a very active Instagram account. But now I might just put in the energy to delete my account.

javajosh 14y ago

Does anyone else find the phrasing "Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. So I’d like to address specific concerns we’ve heard from everyone..." to be eerily similar to Dr. Breen's PSAs in the beginning of Half-Life 2? Dr. Breen: "Let me read a letter I recently received. 'Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen.' Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced."

rauljara 14y ago

I find this thread really fascinating. I have a hard time imagining a more better apology from Instagram. They accept responsibility, there isn't a trace of hostility towards any of the people who 'misinterpreted' their terms, they are upfront about needing to make money, and they communicate (or attempt to) that they were never in favor of any of those kind of downright villainous things it seemed like they were in favor of. If anyone in the masses of angry Instagram users could be appeased by words, this is probably about as good as you could do at appeasing them. However, judging from the responses here, a lot of Instagram users are unappeasable, and I don't think unreasonably. Their motives are basically unknowable by anyone not in their inner circle, so all we have to go on is their actions and their words. If your internal heuristics say that when it looks like a social media company is trying to steal your personal data/intellectual property, they probably are and will then lie about it after the fact... well, that seems like a reasonable heuristic to have this day and age. I'm not sure I buy into it unreservedly, but I wouldn't try to convince anyone they're wrong about it, either. This whole event shows me (or at least, reminds me) that there are limits to what words can fix.

danso 14y ago
I can imagine a better response, but not one that would take significantly longer for lawyers to vet. An ideal response would actually show examples (i.e. "This is an example of your photo being used in conjunction with an advertisement. This is an example of how your photo will never be used"), because as it is, the language is just couched enough that Instagram users, once burned, will be even more suspicious and cynical.
- lifeguard 14y ago
  The terms are deliberately foggy in a way to protect Instagram. They used a good lawyer. The product manager failed here, not the lawyers.
  - frabcus 14y ago
    Such a dated definition of a good lawyer! If a lawyer's advice pisses off your users, that isn't a good lawyer. Sure a lawyer can claim that being "conservative" on behalf of their "client's interests" is the best way to act. That's no longer credible though. The client (Instagram's) interests can be more closely linked now to their user's interests, than was the case before the Internet when a company could write whatever shit they like in legal agreements, and nobody would complain.

itsprofitbaron 14y ago

I posted something similar on here[1] about how Instagram cannot sell its users photos and what they're actually doing is trying to monetize similar to how Facebook does Sponsored Posts. Instagram's terms of service stated that was their intentions: To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, 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. And "Section 106: Exclusive rights in copyrighted works aka. 17 U.S.C. § 106"[3] essentially states Instagram cannot sell its users photos and it cannot use its users photos and alter them in any meaningful way. The problem was how they communicated the change and they've admitted that too[2] although they've started to fix this with this blogpost and will continue to communicate this. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650 [2] https://twitter.com/instagram/status/281133360833773568 https://twitter.com/instagram/status/281133360833773568 [3] http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

clarky07 14y ago

<rant> I really have no idea what people are complaining about. What are you putting in your Instagram photos? It's a cool service that lets you share pictures with friends. What is it that you think your pictures are worth? When you sign up for a free service, you have to know that you are the product. PERIOD. Don't sign up for free services if you don't want to be the product. Go pay flickr. They will take your money. Stop bitching about free services adding ads so that they can keep the lights on and keep offering your free service. </rant>

mikebonnell 14y ago

Decent response, but I remain unconvinced.

piyush_soni 14y ago

Sorry. The damage has already been done, and we clearly hear your intentions, instagram. I deleted my account and don't plan on joining back.

DigitalSea 14y ago

I am happy with this apology. Everyone loves to hate on something, once one person starts hating others join in the mob mentality against someone or an entity continues until it gets to the point where the arguments have lost sight of what they were originally arguing about. What kind of apology were people expecting? An apology using animated GIF's and infographics? Considering the photo quality of Instagram photos is extremely questionable, are people really upset that a photo of the nicoise salad they had could be used in an ad for for promotional purposes? Please. 99.9% of the photos on Instagram wouldn't be fit for advertising considering they're most shots of insecure teenagers taking photos in the mirror and the rest pictures of food. Calm down.

gkanai 14y ago

I deleted my Instagram account and won't be going back. Flickr's new mobile apps and their much more user-friendly TOS is where was before Instagram and where I want to be in the future.

DRMAN 14y ago

It's time to say goodbye to both Instagram and facebook and say hello to iphoto!

hoi 14y ago

Seems to me this is a test. Push the updated terms of service out, if no-one complains, or if there is only minimal response then cool, it's acceptable by the users. If complainst come around, mitigate that risk by issuing an apology afterwards. As the phrase goes - " Do What You Think Is Right & Apologize Later "

uptown 14y ago

It's odd. The vast majority of Instagram users seem to leave their accounts open to the public - more so that most photo-sharing services I've used in the past. Instagram presumably has business relationships with all sorts of entities. And Instagram has APIs allowing users to access the data exposed by these public galleries. It seems the pieces are already in place for a 3rd party to enter into a business relationship with Instagram to pay for access to the data contained in their users photos. Why were the new terms even necessary?

ygmelnikova 14y ago

These mistakes are so common among billion dollar corporations. Can they not anticipate these sort of reactions? Do they get 'Larry' down in legal to quickly write something up and then post it without another thought?

forensic 14y ago
If it slips by unnoticed, they are looking at hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars. So the upside is VERY VERY big. Well worth the risk.

aptwebapps 14y ago

The proof is in the pudding. Let's see the new TOS.

julienmarie 14y ago

"Legal documents are easy to misinterpret." => Isn't their goal the opposite ?

mark-r 14y ago
Easy to misinterpret by people who aren't lawyers and judges is the implication. But when actual lawyers come out and warn you about what it really means, you need to be concerned.

onedev 14y ago

All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere.

bobsoap 14y ago
> All of you a pathetic. Along with the blogosphere. Care to spellcheck and elaborate?
- onedev 14y ago
  No, because that was a typo and typos happen.

thekevinjones 14y ago

For those that would still like to easily move their Instagram images to Flickr, without exporting to a zip then reimporting,we built a small webapp that will allow you to do so only a few clicks. http://freethephotos.com http://freethephotos.com

Tloewald 14y ago

And we have always been at war with Eastasia.

li-ch 14y ago

I don't trust the legal opinions from the sales and marketing people. I'll read the ToS myself.

fernly 14y ago

Exactly what part of "you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your ... photos (along with any associated metadata), ... without any compensation to you" is "confusing"? It is not complicated legalese; on the contrary it is admirably terse and lucid English. The reason that "it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation" is because that is EXACTLY what it says they will do. Unambiguous. Not confusing. What's confusing is that Kevin Systrom now claims it does not say what it very clearly and unambiguously says.

reasondiscourse 14y ago

Another way to approach this might be to ask yourself specifically what uses you as a user do not want Instagram to pursue with your photos. Then look at the TOS and assess whether the TOS give you any protection against those uses. If the TOS do not protect against those uses then you can tell Instagram directly via feedback what you do not want them to do with your photos. It is easier to amend the TOS by adding specific, unambiguous restrictions on certain uses than it is to try to define the full scope of the permissions to users using random examples. To restate this another way: Instead of trying to imagine everything Instagram might be permitted to do under the TOS, imagine what you as a user do not want them to do, and then ask for explicit restrictions on those uses.

jlgray 14y ago

If they had said we're setting up a market to sell Instagram photos. You can opt-in any of your photos, we'll take a cut for running the service, and you get the rest. The problem would be filtering out the junk, not getting people to sell their cat pictures.

bhashkarsharma 14y ago

Is it just me who feels that it is just a re-run of the classic 'Zuck' way of doing things: Make mistake and apologize when it blows up? What's happening inside the company is any outsider's guess, but I definitely don't feel reassured.

thekevan 14y ago

tl;rd: We're not selling your pictures, just using them for our own ads.

lnanek2 14y ago

tumblr seems to be doing quite well just letting users promote their posts. instagram could be moving that direction, not just for businesses. i guess they have facebook doing it from the business side, though, so it is natural for them

mherdeg 14y ago
Speaking of which, how cool is it that Instagram's official blog is a tumblr? That infrastructure is everywhere!

ck2 14y ago

I still don't get why instagram is evil and facebook is fine. Is it because instagram is more disposable/replaceable to people?

tripzilch 14y ago

> Legal documents are easy to misinterpret. Actually the reason legal documents are written in a quirky funny dialect is to make them less ambiguous, not more so. If they are, whoever's written them is doing it wrong. In today's social environment, the way people are made to feel like customers/users, only to later be sold as product, with little regard to privacy and/or control over their data and profile, isn't it funny how people are starting to assume the worst? In all fairness, except for that bad start, later on you write the confusing language was your mistake, so you probably meant to say "Legal documents are hard to write, especially when people actually read them". > Ownership Rights Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Um, yeah. What's "Ownership Rights"? It's not a legal term. Yet you capitalized and bolded the term. I'm sure you didn't mean to say "Copyrights" because you know what those are very well and take great care to not mention them. Also you can't have meant "Personality Rights" because they're generally non-transferable. On the other hand, at least you acknowledged the public's reaction. And rather quickly, at that. That's good. You also say you're listening and will improve the wording of the TOS. How that will turn out remains to be seen, when it happens. If so, I hope you'll excuse my skepticism.

babesh 14y ago

The more interesting question is what is Instagram planning to do that caused this change in terms of service. I would bet that they are going to group photos together that show off a product or to attach advertising around your photos based on location or what the photo shows. I think that they are doing this soon.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

At my last job, our Director of Operations was responsible for rewriting the company rulebook/handbook. People didn't really know why, since we were a small company and I don't think anyone had ever read the handbook. Obviously, as you can imagine from someone with the title of Director of Operations, no one was asked for input. A few weeks later, we;re all given copies of the handbook and ordered to sign it. People read the handbook and it was very clear that the new rules were not in line with company culture at all. No drinking in the office when we had multiple beer fridges, stuff about how you can be fired with less notice, etc. Of course, no one in their right mind would agree to an amended rulebook while at a company, especially when they could freely move to another startup. The thing that amazed me most though, was in our next company meeting, people kept asking the Director of Operations about the rulebook and he finally snapped to say "Look, I made some changes, if you dont like them, its just really not a big deal, I don't think the rulebook actually means anything anyway". Okay so lets recap. Our director of operations spent months writing a "meaningless" document? Doubtful. If so, why WRITE the document at all? This is the parallel I see here. There was no reason whatsoever to change the terms, yet they had some presumably high priced lawyers rewrite them. Why would they do this? Do we really believe they spent time an effort updating these terms for no reason? To me, this reads as some SERIOUS backpedaling and I would be shocked if they actually didn't intend to use data in the exact way people were upset they would.