Instagram Reverts To Old Terms Of Service

Instagram on Thursday announced plans to revert the company’s terms of service statement back to its previous wording. On Monday we reported that Instagram was changing its TOS in an effort to more flawlessly sync with Facebook’s own data collection systems. Almost immediately following Instagram’s announcement angry users took to Facebook, Twitter and other networks to voice their disapproval.

Photographers were worried that Instagrams new TOS would allow the company to sell photos uploaded to Instagram and to use photos for advertising with little to no notice. Instagram immediately denied what it calls “myths” of its new TOS.

In a company blog post Instagram notes that the original TOS language states:

“Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy.”

Essentially Instagram still has the option to sell photos, although it doesn’t clearly state that is the goal. In his company’s blog post Kevin Systrom notes:

“Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.”

Despite various websites dispelling the myths regarding the new Instagram TOS the company has obviously found it far easier to just revert back to its old rights section.

One area of the Instagram TOS is rock solid, the company notes that content that is not shared publicly “will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services.”

Do you think Instagram’s TOS needed to be reverted or should the social photo sharing service have stuck to its original TOS changes?

[Image via play.google]