Facebook defends Instagram in civil lawsuit

Facebook is vowing to defend Instagram, its photo-sharing-service, which is facing a civil lawsuit for changing its terms of service and breaching its contract with users. 

The social networking website defended the popular photo application, saying the complaint was “without merit”.

A class-action lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco federal court last week, calling on the court to bar Instagram from changing its rules.

“Instagram is taking its customers property rights while insulating itself from all liability,” said the law firm which also demanded the service to pay its legal fees.

“In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us,’” the law firm added.

Changes to the Instagram privacy policy and terms of service had included wording that allowed for people’s pictures to be used by advertisers at Instagram or Facebook, without any remuneration to the user.

The lawsuit comes less than a week after Kevin Systrom, Instagram CEO, released a statement which backed off from the proposed changes which were due to come into effect in January.

“I want to be really clear: Instagram has no intention of selling you photos, and we never did. We don’t own your photos, you do,” said the statement.

Tens of thousands of Instagram users in the state of California are eligible to join the class action lawsuit.