The Instagram Lawsuit

Instagram is an online service that allows users to take pictures, treat them and then share them on different social networking websites. This allows people to interact with each other and share pictures of their loved ones and families. However, a recent development has been made in it’s policy terms which has lead to a class action lawsuit. The Instagram company is said to have made new rules which give it rights over people’s data but protects the company from being accused of any misuse of that data. The new rules transfer the valuable property rights of customers to the company but at the same time they relieve it from any legal liability of the customer’s data being commercially exploited.

Due to this report, a severe backlash of customers took place. These new terms were to take place from the 16^th of January 2013. Instagram also stated that the users who were unhappy with the new policy of Instagram could stop using social networking websites that were linked with it. To do this, they would have to delete their current accounts but they can still not stop Instagram from having rights over their previously uploaded pictures. This made the users angry and frustrated as they believed that no one other than themselves had the right over their property. It is said that there hasn’t been a user revolt greater than this one.

However, Instagram has apologized to its users. The Chief Executive Kevin Systrom has said in a blog that it was their mistake that the language was confusing which lead to this revolt. Instagram states that they do not wish to gain rights over the pictures of their users in order to sell them for any commercial purpose. The company has also stated that they are going back to the company policy terms that were launched in 2010 when the company was launched. Right after the revolt started, it is also said that it was just a misunderstanding of words and the user that filled a complaint couldn’t understand the true meaning of it and therefore the wordings were changed. The fact remains that the social networking websites such as Facebook have photographs of users which might be at risk of being misused at all times despite the fact that Instagram changes its policy or not.

Published on 7th Jan 2013 @ 5:18 AM