Facebook-owned Instagram can sell your photos

Your photos could be sold and displayed for commercial purposes, if sweeping changes to photo-sharing site Instagram's terms and conditions go ahead.

The hugely popular photo app, which was acquired by Facebook earlier this year, has announced some major changes to its terms of use and privacy policy which come into effect on January 16.

The specific addition in the updated terms and conditions in regards to this is pretty straightforward. It reads:

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

Let's break that statement down a little.

Say you go on a trip and take photos of your hotel room, your meal or even yourself sunbathing by the poolside. Potentially, the hotel could pay Instagram/Facebook for the use of those photos, and display them on their own website or marketing material -- with no financial compensation to you.

Where the terms of service talks about metadata, this specifically means the information stored in the photograph that identify the time, the GPS co-ordinates (ie the exact location; unless location services are turned off), the phone used and more besides (like keywords used to tag the photo).

Your likeness, is of course, your photo. So who knows, a photo of yourself in your bikini drinking a particular beverage could be plastered on a billboard by the drink manufacturer. (This may well run foul of privacy laws, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the small print that suggests this kind of thing couldn't happen somewhere down the line.)

No doubt that as this story hits the news, disgruntled users will cry foul and Instagram/Facebook may well water down the terms and conditions -- they could at the very least, make this clause something you're able to opt-out of.

In another worrying development, Instagram also says:

"You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such."

This could be in breach of advertising codes of practice, which state that such content should clearly be identified as such.

Sources: For more on this, check out the Cnet article about the topic as well as the new Instagram terms of use and privacy policy.