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Brian Hoff's wife, Kathleen, had her Instagram username stolen. It's now owned by a Facebook employee(medium.com)

9 years ago from Jonathan Suh, Designer at Planning Center

  • Jonathan SuhJonathan Suh, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

    Wow, the wording of the policy is so terribly obtuse. Seems like it's more targeted for username squatters, but still, disconcerting.

    Would be helpful if Instagram defined what a period of prolonged inactivity is. Shady nonetheless, considering they didn't even notify her informing that her username was revoked due to inactivity.

    5 points
    • Matt ThomasMatt Thomas, 9 years ago

      This is exactly my feeling. Give specifics on what “inactivity” means. By not being specific, and not mentioning a policy of contacting users with suspected inactive account, it gives Instagram/Facebook a lot of leeway to take over accounts they may want.

      1 point
    • Jim SilvermanJim Silverman, 9 years ago

      can we be sure that she wasn't notified?

      the user didn't even attempt to use the app until "a few months" after the issue was discovered. i strongly doubt this user type would notice or care about an automated email from the service.

      but then again, there's no way of telling for certain one way or the other. there's a lot of assumptions and accusations being thrown around here based on very little information from an angrily written blog post.

      1 point
      • George ChenGeorge Chen, 9 years ago

        While "recycle" a user name was never a good practise, I am actually ok with a popular user name (on any system) going to a random new user. But the fact, a popular user name had gone to an "insider" that just doesn't seems right at all.

        1 point