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 SAN FRANCISCO — In the aftermath of the uproar over changes to Instagram’s privacy policy and terms of service earlier this week, the company did an about-face late Thursday. In a blog post on the company’s site, Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, said that where advertising was concerned, the company would revert to its previous terms of service, which have been in effect since October 2010. “Rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed,” he wrote, “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.” Users had been particularly concerned by a clause in Instagram’s policy introduced on Monday that suggested Instagram would share users’ data — like their favorite places, bands, restaurants and hobbies — with Facebook and its advertisers to better target ads. “It is our mistake that this language is confusing,” he wrote, and he promised an updated agreement. Acknowledging those concerns late Thursday, Mr. Systrom wrote: “I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling your photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos — you do.” 
 
 Mr. Systrom said the company would still be tweaking its privacy policy to quell users’ fears that their photos might pop-up on third-party sites without their consent.
– 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.