Slashdot Mirror
Instagram: We Won't Sell Your Photos
hugheseyau writes "Earlier, we discussed news that Instagram introduced a new version of their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. The changes seemed to allow Instagram to sell users' photos, and many users were upset. Instagram now says 'it is not our intention to sell your photos' and that 'users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos.' This is good news for Instagram users."
And so closes another chapter of "We Let Lawyers Write a Legal Document and The Internet Freaked Out."
Rule #0 of business agreements: If a contract says that the other party CAN do something, proceed under the assumption that they WILL do it.
So this is a great example of doublespeak/equivocation -- our contract lets us do what we want, but we promise not to use what it allows us to right now to avoid a PR frankenstorm.
I don't see how the case is closed after this...it isn't so much a case of we let lawyers write a document, as, we're just making sure we're "protected" to keep our "options" open in the future when we might "want" to exercise our rights to "your" photos...
Given Facebook's history on privacy policy shenanigans, I think any reasonably prudent person would not trust Instagram's assertions..
So when is the new new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service will be shown?
They Got Caught, and had to respond.
There is a business plan on fire in a trashcan somewhere, most likely; or just put off for awhile.
We'll see this again, wait and see. And not as a repost, lol.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
The chapter is closed? Nonsense. They haven't offered to change the contract, they just claim that everyone's misinterpreted it. Which gives you no more rights than you had before. If it's in the contract, it's in the contract. Their PR statements would not affect in the slightest their legal ability to use your photos.
It is the actual EULA/UA that matters. Until it is properly amended all this announcement is worth is a loud stinky fart.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
This article shed some light on the new TOS for me:
What the new terms of service really mean | The Verge
'it is not our intention to sell your photos' is not the same as "We won't ever sell your photos". History make a note before this is erased from yourself.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
"Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos"
No.. they dont claim "ownership"... they do claim a perpetual and unlimited rights though... which is all the benefits of ownership, with none of the liabilities.
Instagram already showed us who they are on the inside. How they feel about their users. That they see them as cattle to be slaughtered and sold in whatever way most suits their customers, the advertisers. The only thing that has changed is they got caught and so they are going to hide their disdain for a while until this storm blows over.
It is not this policy that is unacceptable, it is their attitude. They have shown that they cannot be trusted, and it is our duty -- as the silent hand of the free market -- to put them out of business as a warning to others.
Delete your Instagram account, and never darken their door again.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
That's why I often wish laws, contracts, etc could contain sections written in plain/common language explaining the intention/spirit of the document. Of course it would never work but I can dream.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Yes those evil lawyers. Fucking slashdot with its predictable "commentary."
Lawyers are one of the few priesthoods left in Western society. The purpose of a priesthood is to guard information from the uninitiated, so that most people are dependent on the priests.
The Catholic Church of medieval times really hated the idea of a Bible written in the native languages of the laypeople. They preferred Latin, a language that was generally taught only to the clergy at that time. If there is ever a movement to simplify the law and remove the legalese, so that the average person could easily understand and apply it without professional help, you will see a similar outcry from the lawyers.
The difference between a lawyer and a doctor is that the human body is inherently complex. The law is only so complex because men have made it so.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
After we're done turning them over to any TLA with the words "defense", "security", "intelligence", or "investigation" in their names.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And so closes another chapter of "We Let Lawyers Write a Legal Document and The Internet Freaked Out."
More like, "We were caught trying to stick it to our users BUT they called us on our shit."
Instagram says "It is not our intention to sell your photos". Unsaid was "But our intention doesn't matter, since Facebook controls us now, and only their intention matters."
I don't put anything on Google services that I might want to claim copyright on, for similar reasons. Google's TOS includes an unlimited license for them to publish any material that users put on their services:
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
Here's Google's disclaimer:
Google does not claim any ownership in any of the content, including any text, data, information, images, photographs, music, sound, video, or other material, that you upload, transmit or store in your Gmail account.
But note what Google does *not* promise to do: avoid harming users' economic interests in their data. Yes, you might still *own* your data, but you give Google practically unlimited permission to do anything it pleases with your data, up to and including binding it in a paper book and selling it.
I'm not particularly concerned they'd do that -- that's sure to be viewed as unconscionable. I believe that what Google wants to do are things that some jury somewhere might construe as "publishing". Unfortunately, that same jury that would exonerate Google based on the TOS would also strip the author of certain special rights authors enjoy for unpublished manuscripts -- secrecy, for example. It is also possible (I hope) that at under future changes in copyright law, Google's having quasi-published a manuscript might effect its copyright term.
Scientists might have similar issues with inadvertently "publishing" data by storing it on some Google service (Gmail for example), thus rendering it unpublishable in an academic journal.
If Google intended to protect the users' interest in their data, they'd qualify the permissions they claim to "publish" your data so it only applied to public facing services. Yahoo does this:
"Publicly accessible" areas of the Yahoo! Services are those areas of the Yahoo! network of properties that are intended by Yahoo! to be available to the general public.
So I avoid GMail and use Yahoo Mail for anything I don't want "published", because Yahoo doesn't claim a right to "publish" emails and their attached documents, but in Gmail Google *does*.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"So now we're trying to see if meaningless reassurances will smooth things over." What matters is the agreement terms. Until they change, nothing has chaned.