This comes as no surprise that Instagram has angered many of its users with the new Terms of Service. One Instagram user has decided to take legal action against the photo-sharing platform over its new terms of service. Lucy Funes has filed a class action lawsuit in the San Francisco federal court, against the photo-sharing service, last week. This California resident has accused the website, among other things, of breach of contract and claims that she is acting on behalf of other Instagram users and herself.
Instagram’s takeover by Facebook caused controversy and most people expected it to change its business model to match that of Facebook’s. However, it seems like Instagram was not expecting such a strong backlash against its proposed changes to the terms of service. The new terms of service implies that the photo-sharing service will have ownership of all the photos that users upload and can even share them with third-party advertisers without any remuneration to users.
The changed terms of service gives the site full control over all the images and it can use them however it sees fit without the consent of users. Such drastic changes are bound to stir controversy and Instagram is scrambling to pacify its user base.
Instagram backtracks?
Only after a week since Instagram announced the new terms of service, co-founder Kevin Systrom seems to be going back on some of the terms. Faced with outrage from users, he stated that the language used to explain the new terms and regulations is easy to misinterpret and that the photo-sharing service has no plans of selling any images to advertisers. He attempted to reassure existing users of Instagram by stating that the company is only experimenting with monetizing the site and innovative marketing. He has also promised that the company will remove such confusing language but users are still wary.
If it was never the company’s intention to sell user photos then why bother putting it in the terms of service at all. Also, Systrom’s announcement seems like the company is trying to backtrack without making it obvious. Instagram users have made it clear that they will wait till the revised terms of service is released before changing their minds about Instagram.