Facebook Buys Instagram

Instagram has been a hot topic since the social network, now owned by Facebook, updated its terms of service (ToS) last night. We

covered it in depth a bit earlier today

, so be sure to read up on the new changes and how they will affect you as a user. In general, Instagram isn't going to sell your photos to anyone, but it did say that it will allow advertisers to use your photos in advertisements. That put the Internet, and Instagram users overall, up in arms today.

Is it right?

Well, look, it's no secret that what you post online is never really private. Don't post things online if you don't want them viewed by strangers or consumed by huge corporations looking to boost revenue. Instagram sees your concerns, however, and recently tweeted that it will address them soon.

Here's the exact tweet, posted earlier today:

We've heard you (sic) that the updates to our Privacy Policy & Terms of Service are raising a lot of questions. We'll have more to share very soon.

We'll let you know what Instagram and Facebook have to say as soon as we hear more. In the meantime, you may want to read the new ToS for yourselves.

Update: That was fast, Instagram has already published its update. Here's a bit from what the company had to say:

I'm writing this today to let you know we're listening and to 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.

…

Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.

…

The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement. We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we're going to remove the language that raised the question. Our main goal is to avoid things likes advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience. Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time.

The company also said that nothing has changed in relationship to user privacy. We appreciate the response, but are still a bit boggled as to why the original ToS seemed to suggest the opposite of what the company just said in the above statements. Here's a link to the full explanation.