Instagram announces an unpopular change to its terms of service less than a week after Flickr relaunches its i0S app
It may not be long before photos of your dinner or household pets are sold to advertisers on Instagram. And if that happens, you will see none of that money, according to Instagram's new terms of use. You have until 16 January to decide whether or not you'd like to opt out – and you do that by by deleting your account.
So that's where we are.
Update: That's not where we are! Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom issued this Tuesday afternoon: "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."
But weren't we just here last week, talking about how Twitter and Instagram were breaking up because Instagram wanted more "control" over the information its users provided for free? (Are you really surprised that this is what "control" meant?) Secondly, everyone needs to take this latest news with a grain of salt and follow this rough hypothesis: if you like (pun inevitable) a service in social media, then be prepared for some under-30 CEO to try to capitalize on your enjoyment by selling said service for an ungodly amount of money and then attempting to sell advertising against your activity. (See also: Facebook playing video ads in your newsfeed whether you like it or not.)
That said, if you'd like to leave Instagram, you can use a tool such as Instaport to store those photos to your hard drive. And if you'd like to see your options about controlling what you're sharing and who you're sharing it with, here's an analysis of Instagram's three biggest social photography competitors.
Service: Twitter
The rundown: Twitter is not the service for you if you're concerned with who sees your photos and how or with photo storage. But if you want to use it to add some nice filters and share those images with your Twitter network, this is a good option.
App available? Yes. It's free. Now with filters!
Archiving available? Ha! No.
Ads, rights, etc. Here is what Twitter has to say on its terms of service: "Twitter has an evolving set of rules for how ecosystem partners can interact with your Content. These rules exist to enable an open ecosystem with your rights in mind. But what's yours is yours – you own your Content (and your photos are part of that Content)."
TRANSLATION: "We might be able to do whatever we want with your info in the future, but for now your breakfast will not show up in a banner ad."
Service: Hipstamatic
The rundown: Hipstamatic is what everyone used before Instagram, and it has stuck to its namesake hipster credo if the company's tagline is any evidence: "digital photography never looked so analog." But some bungled strategies are said to be what resulted in the company's fall from investor focus and the cause of a shrinking staff.
App available? Yes. If you download it right now, it'll cost you 99¢. Non-sale pricing is $1.99. Hipstamatic has an active online marketplace – new lenses, new "film", better flash – and allows publishing to various social networks. It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to do anything within this app.
Archiving available? No.
Ads, rights, etc. The [Instagram-like] TOS: "we are the sole owner of the information collected through our Websites and Products. We may combine information about you that we have with information we obtain from business partners or other third parties."
TRANSLATION:
"Your photos plus our advertisers equals a match made in hipster heaven."
Service: Flickr
The rundown:Flickr, the original social photo site, looks really great right about now. Guardian US resident photo rights and privacy aficionado Erin McCann says Flickr is an attractive alternative because "Yahoo has reinvested in Flickr since Marissa Mayer took over, which is exactly what those of us who never left Flickr have been hoping for."
App available? Yes. It's free. And yes, you can add filters. You can use the app to share a photo to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or e-mail.
Archiving available? Yes, to a point, and then you have to pay for more storage.
Ads, rights etc: Advertising is sold to you based on textual information – what you're searching for, for instance – but not on your photos. Also, if you decide to cough up the cash for a pro account, you can bypass ads altogether, and archive and store unlimited amounts photos. There are toggle-style controls that let you decide how much photo information you share, and with whom. You can opt into Flickr's collection of Getty Images, and be paid for it if Getty uses your photo.
TRANSLATION: "We will sell ads to you based on what you're searching for, but if you give us a little bit of money, we will give you total control (and no ads). You can also make some money too if you want."
If you would like to view the full range of other (nearly identical) social photography apps, Huffington Post has a handy slideshow here.
TRANSLATION: If you're really that concerned about what's happening to your photos, use an actual camera and store those photos to your actual hard drive. Or, you know, use Flickr.
More #smarttakes on the issue:
•Why You Should Want to Pay for Software, Instagram Edition
•Facebook's Access to Instagram Data Could Uncrack Images for Ad Targeting
Social media
Instagram
Flickr
Photography
Facebook
Yahoo
Mobile phones
Katie Rogers
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