Well, this was not easy to decide. But I finally made up my mind, that I will delete my Instagram account in a few days, just before the new ToS get activated. I will delete it on Friday. This was a hard decision, because I quite enjoyed this silly app. But ever since Facebook bought the start up, I knew that sooner or later I would have to stop using it.
Basically, Facebook cannot be trusted. Ever.
I use it, because I have to, Facebook is still a necessary evil.
And I sure hope, that soon we won’t be forced to use it anymore.
But Instagram is optional. And I can live without it.
Yes, it is a fun way to stay in touch with your friends, very haptic, very easy to use and a simple daily pleasure.
But it belongs to the evil empire now, so I have to move on.
As far as all the legalese goes: I am no expert.
I am aware that Instagram retrieved one of the most objectionable passages from the first proposal of the new ToS, because it created such a huge uproar. But they replaced it with a much more vague formulation, that still leaves them ample wiggle room to do exactly what it sounded like they intended to do in the first version. Imho they were quite honest in the first version of the ToS, that is where they eventually want to go.
But the two parts that worry me much more in the upcoming ToS is, where they state, that they can change their terms at any time and that after January 18. if you delete your account, it is no longer deleted and gone, but whatever rights apply to the content at the time remain in their hands. Those two points to me are a most explosive combination and since I just don’t trust them anymore, that is enough to have to leave. Who tells me they won’t change the terms in a few months, only at that point I will no longer be able to delete my stuff and leave.
Well anyway. What I will mostly miss were the interactions, the humor, the small comments – and of course having this small window into some other peoples lives. But this can happen elsewhere and I sure hope that some of my Instagram friends will find me on different platforms, twitter, flickr, pinterest, tumblr, mlkshk, soundcloud, google +, and even on FB, while we are still forced to use it …
The backup on instaport is just downloading now, 95.8 MB. All my instagram photos are now on flickr, btw. and who cares, right? But the export using the free the photos script was super sexy and smoothe.
edit: I realized that I forgot to mention one crucial thing, and actually it is important in that it offers a constructive solution. The only way I would come back to their services, if FaceBook and Instagram introduce Creative Commons licenses. In fact in that case I would be glad to come back, because it would show me that they are interested in Open Data and standards.
i-am-cc.org – It’s a long shot, I know, and it is not legally binding, but this website that tries to place your Instagram photos under a CC license. For those sticking with Instagram, may be worth a try.
