The Instagram Muddle

December 18, 2012, 10:13 pm

Our story so far: Instagram, the filter-and-share photo app that was recently bought by Facebook for $1 billion, changed its privacy policy on Monday. The new one says:

“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.”

Wow. So you do beautiful, creative photography - and Instagram gets to sell it to advertisers without a nickel to you.

The Web went nuts. Instructions for canceling your Instagram account burned up the Internet. Indignation and outrage we re everywhere.

I had a hunch nobody at Instagram was really that stupid. This sort of thing happens every few months: someone reads the fine print of Google's terms of services, or Apple's, or Microsoft's, and discovers what seems to be an outrageous “we own you” statement buried in the legalese. Google, or Microsoft, or Apple, apologizes, saying, “That's not what we meant - that's just what our lawyer put in there, and we'll change it.” And life goes on.

And sure enough: On Tuesday, Instagram's co-founder Kevin Systrom responded to the outrage with a blog post that says, in essence, “that's not what we meant.”

“It was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation,” he wrote. “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 working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

So what did he mean? “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.”

I have no idea what that means, either. I've read the post six times, and nothing he says translates into English.
In any case, it's clear that Instagram is owning up to its “misinterpreted” language, and vows to change it before the policy takes effect next month.

Well, fine. But honestly - how could anyone, in this age of hyper-privacy-awareness, think that he could get away with such an inflammatory choice of words? Who could possibly have missed the probability of “misinterpretation”? What kind of reaction did he expect?

Maybe once you've got $1 billion in your bank account, y ou lose just a little touch with reality.