Instagram Ditches Policy Changes Amid Uproar

After a furor over changes to its ad terms of service, Instagram tried to clear things up; now, it's simply dropping the changes, the New York Times reports. The company is returning to its old advertising terms from 2010, co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote in a blog post. "Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work."

"I want to be really clear," he added. "Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos—you do." Still, the move may have come too late for some users: Similar services like Pheed saw more new users yesterday than any other app in the US, while Flickr's app jumped in popularity from 175 to somewhere in the 20s among iTunes rankings. The question remains, then, how the free service will monetize, notes the Times.