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Meta, aided by Apple and Google takes down an ad-free Instagram clone
- bskap 4y agoThe title says clone. The article says client. Those are very different things.
- mccorrinall 4y agoLooks to me like a patched client a la vanced: https://www.theogapp.com/ https://www.theogapp.com/
- elcomet 4y agoIt is a clone of the client, so both.
- nkingsy 4y agoSeems like it's clearly a client, but Meta calls it a "clone site": https://about.fb.com/news/2022/07/how-meta-safeguards-people-against-clone-sites/ https://about.fb.com/news/2022/07/how-meta-safeguards-people...
- nicolashahn 4y agoShouldn't be news, the same would happen with literally any ad-based app.
- mandeepj 4y agoI hope they will release an apk and a website
- vorpalhex 4y agoI wonder if this will haunt Google and Apple as proof of their monopoly power. One of the monopoly tests is whether or not it harms competition. This clearly did.
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoIt wasn't competition, it was more or less piracy. The app store monopoly is bad but this isn't an example of its misuse.
- mojzu 4y agoIt seems like they were just a client for Instagram which was stripping out the ads, which would probably be a pretty clear cut violation of Instagram ToS or whatever API they were using, so I'm not surprised Google/Apple would remove it from their stores
- vorpalhex 4y agoGoogle and Apple aren't, or shouldn't be, the ToS enforcers for Meta. It's a ToS violation, not a legal one.
- dagmx 4y agoThey are however copyright enforcers and have detailed copyright infringement policies
- Nextgrid 4y agoIt is unclear whether a third-party client that accesses content you are otherwise licensed to access is actually infringing, and it's likely to differ in many countries as well.
- vorpalhex 4y agoThis is not copyright infringement. The users logging in have the ability and license to view the material.
- dudul 4y agoMisleading title, it is not a clone, but a client for the actual Instagram.
- permo-w 4y agoI think the title here is misleading. if they had moved to take down an ad-free instagram clone, that would be anti-competitive and possibly illegal. taking down an ad-free instagram client is still unpleasant, but probably [IANAL] not illegal and somewhat justifiable. as it is, and as is made clear deeper into the article, they took down a client
- Entinel 4y agoThis is a bad article and does the entire story a disservice. This wasn't a clone it was a reverse engineered client which is against Instagrams ToS. You may not like it but Apple and Google were absolutely correct to take this down. The more salacious part of the story is Facebook going after the teams personal accounts. I don't believe they have any basis for that. Unfortunately that part of the story is constricted to a small blurb in the second to last section.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago> it was a reverse engineered client which is against Instagrams ToS ...and perfectly legal in many parts of the world.
- Entinel 4y agoThat is completely irrelevant.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bfung 4y agoI mean … what do you expect when the client uses the Instagram API directly and filters out the monetization part of it? And also routes pic traffic via 1 IP address making it super easy to block… Quote: “This app uses Instagram’s private API without permission, it won’t last long on the app stores,” Paluzzi predicted.
- ivanjermakov 4y agoBanned on stores, but why not post APKs & IPAs so advanced users can continue using it? Instead they make one join the waitlist.
- drooby 4y agoIt’s honestly insane to invest that much time and effort into an app so dependent on a 3rd party API.
- AlexandrB 4y agoThe modern internet sucks. I remember using Pidgin (née GAIM) in the early 2000s to access multiple chat accounts/protocols in one clean interface. Third party apps like this are very rare now.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y agoAs others noted, Meta is misleading here calling an alternative client a "clone", and the site accepts this naming, but HN shouldn't.