How To Delete Your Instagram Account (And Why I Did)

To delete your Instagram account go to the Instagram website, sign in, click on your name in the upper right, select "Edit Profile" and look for an "I'd like to delete my account" link at the bottom right of the edit page. Click that link and follow the instructions to delete your account.

Interestingly, even within Instagram's account deletion process they use three different words to describe what is happening. (See screenshots.)

• "I'd like to delete my account"
• "Permanently deactivate my account"
• "Your account has been removed."

I mean how hard would it be to unify those? I was a bit thrown off by "Permanently deactivate my account" be cause deactivating seems to apply that it can be reactivated and/or your information is saved for reactivation.

Regardless of the semantics of the deletion process I did delete my Instagram account today. I wanted to do so before their new Terms of Service come into effect on January 16, 2013.

Deleting My Instagram Account

I deleted my account because I didn't want them to be able to sell my copyrighted photos to third parties to use for advertising (or for what ever else they would use it for) without notifying me or giving me any kind of compensation.

This is bad. get out while you can and tell Instagram (and its parent company Facebook) that you won't stand for these types of money-grabs that make services worse for the user.

I'm not sorry to go.

This is what happens when services stop looking at us as users and start look at as as products to sell (in this case quite literally).