Instagram Privacy Changes Prompts User Exit

The wildly popular photography application Instagram recently went through a bit of a row with its users when its parent company changed the language of its privacy policy.

Facebook, which owns the app, recently changed the language of its policy to state that advertisers could be sold data such as consumers' usernames, likenesses, photos and metadata, according to a report from Reuters. There was significant outcry over the changes, to the point where Instagram founder Kevin Systrom posted an apology online, and some aspects of the policy reverted back to their original language.

Nonetheless, numbers compiled by the tracking service AppData shows that in the course of a week, Instagram's users who accessed the service through their Facebook accounts dropped to 12.4 million from 16.4 million, the report said. The social networking giant, for its part, disputes that data, saying it has seen a steady increase in users. Overall, AppData conceded that there have been 1.7 million users added in the last week, bringing its monthly active users to 43.6 million.

However, it's important to note that only between 20 and 30 percent of Instagram users link that account to their Facebook accounts, historically, the report said. Further, because it was the holiday season, when use of these services can often swing wildly in one direction or another, it may be more difficult to judge whether this drop in user logins is tied to the privacy dispute or just traditional shifts. By way of comparison, the popular service Yelp saw a decline of 320,000 users during the same period from its 820,000 a week prior.

"We'll have to monitor the data over the coming weeks to gain perspective on trends in Instagram's performance," AppData marketing manager Ashley Taylor Anderson told the news agency in an email.

Facebook has had its fair share of privacy controversies in the last few years, and has often run afoul of federal government agencies in the process. Nonetheless, it remains the most popular social network in the world and adds users at a very rapid pace.

Eduard Goodman, the chief privacy officer for IDentity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways in which consumers may be putting their privacy at risk through their various social media apps and activities.