Instagram can sell your photos without telling you

Instagram, the now Facebook owned image sharing and retro-filtering site, has just changed its terms and conditions, allowing the site to have complete say in what happens with your photos once uploaded. It could use them in adverts or sell them to other organisations, all without telling you a thing.

“You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such,” the new terms say. This raises concerns over the privacy of not only adults, but those under 18 as well. According to the Telegraph, the new ToS could apply to those as young as 13 and allows for the use of not only a user's photos, but their name, messages and other profile content as part of marketing for the site and its services.

This seems like a method that new owner Facebook is using in order to monetise Instagram, but it's unlikely to leave users with anything but a sour taste in their mouth. Historically as photo sharing sites have introduced unwanted terms of service, they've either dropped them soon after or seen a lot of people flock to the open arms of a competitor.

KitGuru Says: If you use Instagram, do you still plan to keep doing so with this latest change to the ToS? If not, do you plan on using another similar service? Let us know.

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