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Allyson Kapin 4 min read

Sign the Petition: Instagram, Don't Sell Us Out

Instagram caused a fire storm on Monday after they pulled a bait-and-switch in their Privacy Policy and Terms and Service that claims "a business or other entity may pay" Instagram for users images without any compensation or notification. It's not just individual users that are upset over the announcement, nonprofits raised many questions about how this impacts their content posted on Instagram. For example, with Instagrams new Terms of Service, a nonprofits photo could be used by an opposing lobbying group to misrepresent them in an ad they purchased.

After more then 24 hours of silence, Instagram's founder Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram responded to the communities outrage and apologized for the confusion around the legal jargon. Systrom said, "legal documents are easy to misinterpret..... "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."

Here's the issue though. Instagram's new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service were clear about their intentions. I suspect Instagram senior leadership and Facebook who know owns them, thought the community would not revolt about the sale of their personal data. (Won't FB ever learn what ticks off their community of users?)

While Instagram made a commitment to update their Terms of Service, we've seen this type of backtracking before and with Facebook at the helm, it's more important than ever to keep the pressure on Instagram to make sure they stick to their promise of protecting your photo rights and not sell them without your permission and with no compensation. Sign the petition I started on Care2's Petitions Site.

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Allyson Kapin

Allyson has been named one of "Top Tech Titans" by the Washingtonian, one of the Most Influential Women In Tech by Fast Company, and one of the top 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter by Forbes for her leadership role in technology and social media. As Founding Partner of Rad Campaign, she leads the firm's client and online strategic services. For over a decade Allyson has helped non-profit organizations and political campaigns create dynamic and award-winning websites and online marketing and recruitment campaigns. She works side-by-side with her clients to meet their web needs and maximize their online effectiveness to create real world impact.

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