Instagram's official response • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram's official response

#51

Post by fluidcruft » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:43 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #21

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-instagr... That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Faceboo…

I particularly appreciate all their statements about "nothing HAS changed" which ring hollow when balanced against the fact that the changes aren't in effect and won't be for 30 days.

Re: Instagram's official response

#52

Post by aculver » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:44 PM UTC

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#53

Post by daltonlp » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #15

davewiner wrote: post #5

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…

> "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…

I fail to see the difference between the two examples. They both imply endorsement.

In both cases, Dominoes has paid Instagram to promote its product. In both cases, Instagram has taken a photo of Bob (taken by Bob? Taken by a friend of Bob's?) And attached it to a marketing effort on behalf of Dominoes. In neither case does the photo's subject (Bob) or its author (Bob?) have a say over the photo's use.

Re: Instagram's official response

#54

Post by w1ntermute » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #21

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-instagr... That said, at least it looks like they're going to tweak the TOS change in favor of their users. But with Faceboo…

> 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.

I think the fears are really overblown: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-te...

Re: Instagram's official response

#55

Post by listaware » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:46 PM UTC

hexis wrote: post #31

"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.

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) . I'm no lawyer, but it does sound like that statement had the once over by a few.

Re: Instagram's official response

#56

Post by frossie » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:46 PM UTC

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #25

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?

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#57

Post by numbsafari » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:47 PM UTC

Splendor wrote: post #44

Too late. I already deleted my account.

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#58

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:47 PM UTC

aculver wrote: post #52

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.

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).

Re: Instagram's official response

#59

Post by level09 » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:48 PM UTC

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 ? "

Re: Instagram's official response

#60

Post by wbharding » Tue, Dec 18, 2012, 10:48 PM UTC

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.