The Instagram Dilemma

Under the new terms of service, Instagram states users must give them the right to use images to promote brands they have chosen to “like’ in the past.

Basically, the ads would record user activity to draft an ad targeted to their friends using an image they themselves have uploaded to Instagram.

The practice is similar to what Facebook has done and is doing with their ads which appear on the upper right hand side of your profile.

The only difference is users don’t seem to have control over whether or not the ad is made public. Following public backlash from the user community Instagram opted to change its terms of service explaining, “It’s not what we meant”. While Instagram still reserves the right to access and use client photos in ad campaigns, there are ways to go about protecting content.

Setting Your Account To Private

Experts argue that Instgram Terms of Service are tricky, yet users can still make their accounts private. A private account means that only your friends can see your photos, and not any random strangers who might be stalking you online. The catch is, although your Instagram account will remain private, the company still reserves the right to use your photos in Facebook Ads (remember Facebook owns Instagram now).

Such ads would only be seen by your friends but some are still bothered by this. Why shouldn’t they? After-all, photos taken by the user and uploaded by the user can be considered a creative work, and Instagram technically stands to profit off them.

While there is a valid argument to both sides it is important to remember that social networking sites like Instagram and Facebook are still a business. In essence, we have always provided networking sites with free content. Very rarely do social networking sites charges a subscription fee, so why wouldn’t they try to make money off us? How does one deal with such a dilemma?;

Well, unfortunately the only way to protect your content is to stop using Instagram altogether, backup or copy all the photo’s you’ve uploaded then erase them, or simply deal with the fact that Instagram will use your content for Facebook ads.;

This may be a hard pill for some to shallow as social networking sites have become all the rage these days for variety of reason. It’s not that social networking is anything new, it’s just the way we share information online has made us more susceptible to unwanted marketing campaigns.

There are ways around it, but in Instagram’s case, there doesn’t seem to be any common ground to agree on. Simply put: If you stay on Instagram don’t expect your pretty mug not to be used in an ad targeted to your friends on Facebook.

For more information contact James Mulvey