How To Delete Your Instagram Account

Instagram is in business to make money. I understand that, and I accept that sometimes I must give up a certain amount of control or privacy in exchange for useful goods or services. But the pending changes to Instagram's Terms of Service (TOS), which are scheduled to go into effect in January 2013, allow the company to profit from users' photos without notifying, compensating or allowing them to opt out.

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.

For me, that was going a bit too far, so I decided to delete my Instagram account. It wasn't difficult, and it did not take long. If you want to delete your Instagram account, just follow the simple steps below.

1. Before you delete your account, make sure have a backup of your photos. Depending on your settings, you may already have your photos saved on your phone and/or in the cloud, or you can use Instaport, a free utility that allows you to export all of your Instagram photos to other social services or your local hard drive.
2. Once you have backed up of all your photos, go to Instagram's I want to delete my account page, and follow the simple instructions to put Instagram and their heavy handed privacy policy in your rear view mirror.

UPDATE: 12/18/2012 @7:33 PM CST
Instagram has issued a statement acknowledging they really screwed up and promising to reword their "Privacy" policy, but I don't think I'll be signing back up.

UPDATE: 12/21/2012 @5:31 PM CST
Bowing to the avalanche of negative comments from subscribers, Instagram is reverting to their previous Terms of Service.

No More Free Google Apps for Business

I've been a fan of Google Apps for Business since 2007, particularly the free version for businesses with up to 10 users. Many of my clients fall into this category, and it has been a no-brainier to set them up with this suite of tools that offers company-branded email accounts, 5gb of cloud file storage per user, calendars, document collaboration, and more.

I still believe Google Apps is an excellent software suite, but as Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Apps, wrote in a blog post this morning, the free version is going away. The change has no impact on existing customers using the free version, but from now on only the premium (paid) version of Google Apps for Business will be offered. At $50/year per user, it is still a good deal, it just isn't the great deal it once was.