The great pace of change in real cloud vendors is what really makes them attractive. Unfortunately that ease of changes also has a dark side. This month two big names in cloud decided to change their terms of usage.
Most cloud vendors use a neat trick like pointing their terms of use to a web page with a notice that they are allowed to change the terms at any time with no notice. We have been warning about this practice for a while and this week shows why that can be a dangerous trap.
Let's look at instagram. They decided to change their terms to allow them to sell your pictures without paying you a dime or even having to tell you. Now I know that instagram is free and they have a lot of expensive infrastructure to support all the users they have. Someone has to pay for it.
But imagine if you are a celebrity whose face and or likeness is actually worth a lot of money, say Mila Kunis or Robert Pattinson. You happen to have used Instagram in the past and all of a sudden they can use your face and likeness to sell other products. I'm also a little unclear on what happens if I don't agree and terminate my account. Here's why. Under "General Conditions" paragraph 3 it says
".....You agree that we may notify you of the Updated Terms by posting them on the Service, and that your use of the Service after the effective date of the Updated Terms (or engaging in such other conduct as we may reasonably specify) constitutes your agreement to the Updated Terms......"
That seems fair. If you disagree stop using it.
But in paragraph 1 of the same section it says
"...If we terminate your access to the Service or you use the form detailed above to deactivate your account, your photos, comments, likes, friendships, and all other data will no longer be accessible through your account (e.g., users will not be able to navigate to your username and view your photos),..."
So far so good I can delete my account and not have to worry about it right?? Keep reading
but those materials and data may persist and appear within the Service (e.g., if your Content has been reshared by others).
OK If my data still persists does that mean I am "engaging in such other conduct as we may reasonable specify" constitutes my agreement? I'd hope not since I tried to cancel my account but courts can be weird some times. Frankly I'd be shocked if that were the case but I'd hate to be the one to have to pay a lawyer to find out. The bigger issue is what if you didn't know that the terms changed.
Google also changed their terms for the business free version of Google Apps. They handled it a bit better since they "grandfathered" people whose account was created before the announced it. My Google account from earlier this year is still free and will continue to be free, but if anyone going forward wants one, they need to pay.
That just feels like a "fairer" way of dealing with changes. It let's the turn an incredibly popular service into a way to make money without penalizing the people that helped it become an incredibly popular service.
Google and Instagram aren't the first vendors to change the rules and I'm sure they won't be the last ones either. Personally the way Instagram handled the change would annoy me if I were a user of their service. It just feels a little sneaky and devious. The Google approach seems perfectly reasonable to me.
