If you are a user of Instagram, you should be aware that the Facebook-owned photo sharing site has updated its privacy policy, giving it the right to sell your photos and other information to advertisers without notifying you.
Instagram, which now has in excess of 100 million users worldwide, can also share information about you with Facebook and other affilates and advertisers.
You can opt out, but only by deleting your account by 16 January. A notice updating the privacy policy on the Instagram site said: "We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organisations that help us provide the service to you… (and) third-party advertising partners." Its terms of use include the new phrase: "To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you,"
The site was acquired by Facebook in April this year for £616m. Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice-president of global marketing solutions, was quoted as saying earlier this month: "Eventually we'll figure out a way to monetise Instagram." The site had said that its objective is to make it easier to work with Facebook. In a statement, it said "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," it said in a statement.
