Since being acquired by Facebook (News - Alert) in April, the social networking giant’s influence is finally being felt. Instagram’s privacy policy will be undergoing changes where the company recently announced on its blog that the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service will ensure greater data sharing with Facebook starting January 16, 2013.
In part, the announcement reads, “Our privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups. This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.” According to Instagram, these updated terms of service help protect uses and prevent abuse as it grows.
Instagram also explicitly states that in order to deliver interesting paid and sponsored content or promotions, “a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you. The new privacy policy also shows that Instagram will be able to “share information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data and usage data” with Facebook and other companies under the same ownership.
Image via SlashGear
Instagram has clearly stated that users will continue to have ownership of their photos and decide with whom they want to share them with. All of this comes in the wake of changes to Facebook privacy settings this month, where the company included “Privacy Shortcuts” that enable change-over across the board for masses.
With only a one-button-link, you can now easily set “Who can see my stuff?”, “Who can contact me?” and “How do I stop someone from bothering me?” These questions now pop-up just below the “Privacy Shortcuts” section.
These recent Instagram and Facebook updates will likely have little impact in how people use these services; however, they make it clear to anyone using these services what they can expect when posting and sharing content.
