On Monday Instagram a popular photo sharing site which was purchased by Facebook earlier this year released their new terms of service which caused a bunch of confusion and uproar among users.

Monday’s statement:

“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.”

The updated terms significantly broaden what Instagram can currently do with users’ content. The current terms simply note that “Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content.”

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom vowed Tuesday to remove language from the service’s privacy policy that seemed to say Instagram was going to allow user pictures to be employed in advertising.

“The language we proposed … raised questions about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement,” Systrom wrote in a blog post entitled “Thank you and we’re listening.”

Tuesday statement:

“I’m writing this today to let you know we’re listening and to commit to you that we will be doing more to answer your questions, fix any mistakes, and eliminate the confusion. As we review your feedback and stories in the press, we’re going to modify specific parts of the terms to make it more clear what will happen with your photos.”

“We do not have plans for anything like this, and because of that we’re going to remove the language that raised the question.”

Systrom reiterated several points, including two particularly controversial ones.

- Instagram doesn’t plan to sell user photos. He said the company is working on updated language to make that perfectly clear.

- He said language that indicated your photos could be used in advertisements will be removed from the terms completely.

“Our main goal is to avoid things likes advertising banners you see in other apps that would hurt the Instagram user experience, Systrom wrote. “Instead, we want to create meaningful ways to help you discover new and interesting accounts and content while building a self-sustaining business at the same time.”

The new terms of service are scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 16.

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Sprint is preparing to announce the iPhone on its no-contract, prepaid Virgin Mobile carrier this week with a launch as early as July 1. The move would make Sprint the second carrier to offer the iPhone on a prepaid basis following an announcement from Leap Wireless last week about its intentions to begin selling prepaid iPhones on its Cricket brand starting June 22. Perhaps more interesting is Virgin’s $35/month all you can eat Data plan.

Sprint Nextel Corp. is set to become the second U.S. mobile-phone carrier to offer Apple Inc.’s iPhone on a pay-as-you-go basis… Sprint will announce this week it will offer the popular smartphone on its Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go brand as soon as July 1, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.

Cricket will offer the 8GB iPhone 4 for $399 and the 16GB iPhone 4S for $499 with the $55 a month unlimited plan. Virgin currently has prepaid plans starting at $35 a month with 2.5 GB cap before being throttled.

This sucks for those who have a contact and are locked in.

According to techcrunch

Facebook Camera lets you rapidly pick one or more photos, apply filters, tag friends and locations, add a description, and post. While its 14 filters, batch uploads, and streamlined interface are a big step up from Facebook for iOS, the design isn’t as beautiful as Instagram and neither are the photos you’ll see in it. When asked if Facebook Camera would become a direct competitor to the photosharing network it bought last month, a spokesman told me “As Mark asserted, we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently, so I anticipate some healthy competition.”

Even though Fb purchased Instagram for a billion dollars they’ve been working on this app for the past year. By purchasing Instragram they got rid of their competition ahead of time. Either way Facebook will make money.