After dealing with non-stop outrage ever since it proposed changes to its privacy policy and terms of service on Monday — and despite making some clarifications about the changes — Instagram is throwing in the towel. Back to the old policy ... at least in one regard.
"Because of the feedback we have heard from you," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post, "we are reverting [the] advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010."
The problem with the new advertising policy was that users understood it to mean that Instagram would let advertisers snatch up user-posted images for ads. Many users wondered if this would mean that they are surrendering their ownership of images by posting them to the service. On Tuesday, Systrom attempted to clarify that this wouldn't be the case. "Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote.
As NBC News' Helen Popkin initially pointed out, Instagram never suggested that it would take ownership of your content in the first place. It just sounded as if it was reserving the right to sell your photos, based on the language of the now-abandoned "new" terms of service:
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, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in the Service's Privacy Policy...
Now while things did sound a bit shady, Systrom writes that "Instagram has no intention of selling your photos." Innocent intentions or not, it's back to the drawing board for parts of Instagram's terms of service now. "[R]ather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed," Systrom explains, "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."
And as far as the mass confusion over the policy changes goes? Systrom is "sorry for that" and "focused on making it right."
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