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Instagram's official response

blog.instagram.com

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Re: Instagram's official response

#61
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…

What do you mean they tried to sneak it in? They already had it there in the old TOS but no one bothered to read it, or at least they didn't care when Instagram had full rights to advertise with their photos before. The new TOS actually limits what they an do more than the old one.

Really? Do people not agree that the old TOS less restrictive?

Re: Instagram's official response

#63
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 would pay for this too. Unfortunately, not a lot of people would.

Re: Instagram's official response

#64
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?

Re: Instagram's official response

#66
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

Re: Instagram's official response

#67
post #6

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.

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.

Re: Instagram's official response

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

The difference is that one case is clearly explicit: when the ad says "Bob likes our pizza", Bob liking your pizza is an explicit endorsement. The other is more statement of fact: that Bob ate there. For all you know he could have hated it.

On the other hand, add the context of Facebook. What if Bob hit the like button in facebook? You could argue that hitting the button is an endorsement. Or perhaps if the ad is only displayed in a Facebook context where "like" is understood to mean pushing a button on a page, you could argue that the traditional meaning of "like" doesn't apply so it's not an endorsement.

Re: Instagram's official response

#69
post #48
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for crying out loud, they did not try to "sneak this by". Stop trying to cast a simple snafu regarding a ToS as some evil conspiracy. Remember that the people running this company are you peers . It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today. They're your friends, or just like your friends. Knock it off.

It's a business, not a personal relationship. My peers and friends at least would never use my pictures to create ads and in any case, my relations to peer and friends are not based on comprehensive and one-sided ToS …

By posting on HN you are agreeing to my peer-friendship ToS. As part of this ToS you hereby grant me unfettered access to your personal finances.

edit: give me a $1

Re: Instagram's official response

#70
post #38
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…

Oh for crying out loud, they did not try to "sneak this by". Stop trying to cast a simple snafu regarding a ToS as some evil conspiracy. Remember that the people running this company are you peers . It's disgusting watching the community salivating over burning them all at the stake today. They're your friends, or just like your friends. Knock it off.

I disagree. This was a carefully worded response. Notice "commit to you that we will be doing more to answer your questions, fix any mistakes, and eliminate the confusion. As we review your feedback and stories in the press, we’re going to modify specific parts of the terms to make it more clear what will happen with your photos." They expected this.

It's a classic move from the Facebook playbook. Push out a far-reaching privacy policy or feature update. Release a message or press release saying that "we're listening". Make token changes and say "we've listened and made changes". And just in case people start to sue, vigorously lobby and donate to government officials to keep the regulatory heat off their backs.

They are trying to get away with as much as they can. These stupid companies are going to be the reason why 10 years from now the Internet is going to be a morass of government regulation.

Don't work for or support companies that act like this. Shame on them. Period.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point soon you won't be able to register a domain name or start an Internet company without taking a licensing exam.

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