San Francisco — In a surprising turn of events, the baffled photo-sharing site Instagram, owned by Facebook, has sent an helpful e-mail to users, reminding them that an earlier version of its policies that caused such a ruckus back in December will be replaced with the new terms of service and privacy policy that would go into effect this Saturday, January 19th (but without the clause that caused most of the fuss).
Instagram reminded users on Tuesday morning that the new privacy policy and terms of service documents add a few new elements such as affiliate sharing and new arbitration rules, but do not contain any of the previous advertising language that led many to a widespread user outrage last year accusing Instagram of trying to sell their photos without compensation.
“Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010,” the new service agreement said.
As a matter of fact, the reminder did not reveal any new information but was likely meant to calm users, comes only a few hours before parent company Facebook kicks off a mysterious press event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.
Below is that language that Instagram attempted to thrust into their privacy policy, but public backlash forced them to remove:
Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.
In fact, the initial plan was to introduce the new changes on Jan. 16. Instagram sent out an email to its user base on Tuesday morning, reminding users that this week would be the introduction of the new agreement, beginning on Jan. 19.
Apparently, the changes, according to Instagram, are to help the company better dispense data with its new corporate overlord, Facebook, months after the company was acquired. Essentially, it means moving Instagram from being hosted on Amazon’s Web Services product, and onto Facebook’s in-house servers.
However, Instagram backtracked in late December, with founder and CEO Kevin Systrom announcing that the terms would revert to the version in place since the service was launched in 2010. Also, Instagram claims, it is going to better prevent the spam that is so prevalent in many of the comments on the service.
Here is the full message:
Hello,
Our community has grown by many millions of people since we wrote our original Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. As we announced in December, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. These policies also now take into account the feedback we received from the Instagram Community. We’re emailing you to remind you that, as we announced last month, these updated policies will be in effect as of January 19th, 2013.
You can read our blog post that highlights some of the key updates. And remember, these updates don’t change the fact that you own your photos that you post on Instagram, and our privacy controls work just as they did before.
Thank you,
The Instagram Team
“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,” the new update said.
Users can als read the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service before they take effect in four days.