Wow. I heard rumors of Facebook doing this and now people are confirming that Instagram is now requesting these too.

Money quote:

“This is just a general practice for both Facebook and Instagram to request photo IDs for verification purposes depending on what type of violation may have occurred,” a spokesperson for Facebook told TPM. “Unfortunately, I can’t share more with you beyond that as we don’t go into details beyond that.”

If you were actually paying for Instagram this would make sense.

Note: To Facebook’s credit you can pay for features like promoted posts so it makes sense. Instagram doesn’t charge users though.

Unless Instagram is planning on offering premium services like Facedaddy, then their request for government ID’s should not be met with compliance, but a letter from a lawyer (not a mention a call from your state Attorney General’s office).

instagram:

Earlier this week, we introduced a set of updates to our privacy policy and terms of service to help our users better understand our service. In the days since, it became clear that we failed to fulfill what I consider one of our most important responsibilities – to communicate our intentions…

Me: So basically Instagram is going to embrace the future terms at an unspecified date when they are ready.

I am not surprised.

instagram:

Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used, and the rules that govern…

Me: Yada, yada, yada. Honestly if people read the Terms of Service of Instagram (before and the new one), Tumblr, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera, then you would realize that they ALL have the right to sell your content without paying you a dime. Some like YouTube already do.

The only difference is that most are too scared to do it without your permission (rightfully so). Facebook not so much.

Here’s a rule of thumb known to many geeks but unfamiliar to everyone but the paranoid: if you are NOT paying for the product, then you ARE the product. You are either the cow being sold or the butcher buying the cow.

Instagram is just the farm…

Instagram to support multi-tumblr’s in the semi distant future?

We look forward to offering support within Instagram for secondary Tumblr accounts, but are unable to estimate when this support will occur.

Ever since Flipboard embraced multi Tumblr support I’ve been requesting it upon all my apps.

Vimeo (a service that I love) did not show much interest in the idea, although at least there is a workaround via mobile (albeit annoying) that I can use.

Instagram is more problematic, although I’d prefer if they gave us more options besides “just delete your Tumblr blog and start over from scratch with a new primary blog” which is a craptastic solution truth be told.

Since Instagram keeps going down, I’ll be posting images upon my backup site (also powered by Tumblr)