In the wake of Instagram's TOS policy change — which prompted loads of arguably unnecessary and affected handwringing — the photo filter/sharing social media company has been hit with its first civil lawsuit. San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk filed the lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court on Friday, claiming that customers who do not agree with the company's new police can cancel their profile "but then forfeit rights to photos they had previously shared on the service."
The complaint says that the plaintiffs allege that Instagram's new terms amount to a unfair business practices, breach of contract, and a major violation of California business codes. "In short, Instagram declares that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don't like it, you can't stop us,'" the lawsuit states.
As most of you know by now, the furor against Instagram was so severe, that the company revoked much of their new TOS within 24 hours. However, the terms still maintained some of the language that, according to Reuters, "gave it the ability to place ads in conjunction with user content, and saying 'that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.'"
Instagram, we should point out, is also entirely free to use. Something to think about.
As noted in a Slate article, a Facebook spokesman (Facebook, if you recall, bought Instagram for a whopping $1billion) said of the lawsuit, "We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously."
While we don't think this lawsuit has any merit, we can only hope it paves the way for frivolous lawsuits against users who abuse their filters and/or post too many food photos.
