Instagram’s suicide note?

Default avatar.
December 18, 2012
Instagram's suicide note?.

ThumbNot a lot keeps Mark Zuckerberg up at night. When he slips between his — presumably luxury — sheets, rests his head and closes his weary eyes, it’s unlikely his sleep will be disturbed by worries over his cable bill or the cost of servicing his car. As his peers toss and turn, fretting over the problems they’ll have to face the following morning, the 28 year-old billionaire drifts into a deep, satisfied sleep.

At least that’s what you might expect…

However, if you snuck into the Zuckerberg household under the cover of night (assuming you manage to evade the inevitable security) you might find the pyjama’d Zuckerberg in the kitchen; pacing back and forth as he hyperventilates into a brown paper bag, his pan of warm milk bubbling-over on the hob.

What could possibly be troubling him? Well, it’s very simple: like every other social network, Zuckerberg’s staff have one giant headache, how do they monetize their service before investors start using phrases like return on investment”? And like every other social network, Zuckerberg’s staff have fixed their sights on the one area that may deliver the kind of revenue they need to keep surviving: advertising.

Advertising is nothing new to Facebook, they’re currently attempting to settle a multi-million dollar lawsuit that alleges they made use of their users’ private data in their sponsored stories’ advertising feature. Zuckerberg himself has acknowledged their interest in targeted advertising, calling personal referrals’ the holy grail of advertising.

The interest in the personal referral’ approach shed new light on Facebook’s surprise acquisition of Instagram — Facebook purchased Instagram for $1billion this year despite already owning a similar in-house app — when Instagram’s terms of service were updated yesterday, as follows:

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, 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. If you are under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to this provision (and the use of your name, likeness, username, and/​or photos (along with any associated metadata)) on your behalf.

One has to wonder if the purchase of Instagram was made to limit the opt-out possibilities for Facebook’s one billion users, which would have been substantially greater had the terms only been applied to Facebook’s in-house app. Executives can’t have failed to anticipate the response the change would provoke, with many users going so far as to describe it as Instagram’s suicide note, and sites like Wired publishing instructions on how to delete your Instagram account.

It’s important to understand that Instagram isn’t claiming ownership of your intellectual property; they are asserting the right to make use of it, anywhere in the world, for the purposes of advertising third party products, without your permission and without paying you a dime.

Instagram

As of January 16th 2013, expect to see photographs of the most popular kids at school, used to advertise clubs, bars and shops to the least popular. Expect to see the photographs of your girlfriend sunbathing, plastered over adverts for the local singles-scene. Expect to see photographs of your husband, advertising local bankruptcy services.

As blue_​beetle stated in the oft quoted MetaFilter discussion:

If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.

As you lay in bed, worrying over what your friends and family, co-workers and neighbors are being sold using your endorsement’, spare a thought for Mark Zuckerberg; he’ll probably be fast asleep.

Have you deleted your Instagram account as a result of their new terms? Do you trust corporations with your personal data? Let us know in the comments below.

Ben Moss

Ben Moss is Senior Editor at WebdesignerDepot. He’s designed and coded work for award-winning startups, and global names including IBM, UBS, and the FBI. One of these days he’ll run a sub-4hr marathon. Say hi on Twitter.

Read Next

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s …

10+ Best Tools & Resources for Web Designers and Agencies (2023 updated)

Having the ability to envision a tastefully designed website (i.e., the role creativity plays) is important. But being …

20 Best New Websites, May 2023

This month, there are tons of great new agency websites to get excited about. 3D animated prisms are a popular theme, a…

How to Find the Right White Label Website Builder for Your Agency

Web design agencies face a lot of obstacles in closing the deal with new clients. One of the most common ones is the ar…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, May 2023

There are hundreds of new tools for designers and developers released each month. We sift through them all to bring you…

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2023

All three of the website design trends here mimic something bigger going on in the tech space, from a desire to have mo…

10 Best AI Tools for Web Designers (2023)

It’s time to stop worrying if AI is going to take your job and instead start using AI to expand the services you can of…

10 Best Marketing Agency Websites (Examples, Inspo, and Templates!)

Marketers are skilled in developing strategies, producing visual assets, writing text with high impact, and optimizing …

15 Best New Fonts, April 2023

Fonts are a designer’s best friend. They add personality to our designs and enable fine typography to elevate the quali…

20 Best New Websites, April 2023

In April’s edition, there’s a whole heap of large-scale, and even full-screen, video. Drone footage is back with a veng…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, April 2023

The AI revolution is having a huge impact on the types of products that are hitting the market, with almost every app b…

3 Essential Design Trends, March 2023

One thing that we often think about design trends is that they are probably good to make a list. That’s not always true…