Instagram Now Has The Right to Use All Your Content - Including Your Images and Likeness - To Sell To Advertisers Without Permission...

Shared by Justin Case — 17 Dec 2012

Instagram appears to be going through a sea change in popular perception at the moment -- and not one for the better.

...And on Monday came the latest blow: Instagram's new privacy policy, which kicks in on Jan. 16, got its first airing. And for any one of the photo-sharing app's 100 million users who want little or nothing to do with Facebook, it's bad news.

Systrom now has the right to share all your information with his boss, Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, all of it, in most all the ways you can imagine -- to the point where the pair will soon have the right to sell your likeness to advertisers without your knowledge.

In shockingly brazen language, the new policy says: "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."

Let's take a moment to digest that. And pause to imagine a future you flopping on the couch, opening the laptop and seeing an ad -- one of those faux-amateur, gauzy collections of images of everyday life used to sell just about everything. Only one of the images is you, or your spouse, or your kid from when she lost her tooth the other month.

It isn't necessarily the exposure of your image to a wide number of people -- after all, that's what you hoped for when you posted it to Instagram, right? It's the fact that money has changed hands regarding an image you took of you, your family, your friends. Not only did you fail to see a red cent from the deal, but the whole experience of taking and sharing the pic seems somehow soiled.

And what can you do? You can't reject the privacy policy. (Since Facebook isn't a democracy any more, you can't even vote on it.) You can only vote with your feet and never use Instagram again. Even following a link to an Instagram pic constitutes acceptance of the policy.

Source: mashable.com