Pinterest, a widely popular photo-sharing new boy, is still in an invite-only beta, even though it boasted 17.8 million unique US visitors in February. To cope with the growing user base, the company has planned to release new terms of service, privacy policy and acceptable use policy that will be into effect April 6th onwards.
The new terms no longer give Pinterest the right to sell its users content, something the company claims it never wanted to do in the first place. In addition, the site will place a ban on any contact that may ‘explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse’.
The company says these news terms will prepare the site for new features like an upcoming API and the ability to make Pinboard private, although there still exists a concern over copyright infringement. Previously, the company made available some code to let websites block users from pinning content, but sites have been reluctant to shoo away what may be a valuable stream of pageviews, With the new terms, Pinterest has simplified how owners can file copyright claims, although it isn’t clear how they have changed the process, that requires parties to fill out a form identifying the infringing work and provide their contact details. A stronger takedown system may be sufficient to protect the company from lawsuits from copyright owners, if they can be on top of what will probably be a constant stream of infringement claims.
