Instagram, which was built upon the foundation of a location-sharing app called Burbn, met with an abrupt exit by its founders and went over to new hands under the leadership of Adam Mosseri, who previously worked on the Facebook News Feed. The reason might be that Instagram founders were not altogether very happy to be considered as one of Facebook’s apps instead of a standalone platform.
According to a TechCrunch report, user Jane Manchun Wong spotted a setting that would let Facebook use Instagram to build up Location History data from a user’s phone, similar to Foursquare’s data business and also to what Google does with its Maps in Android phones.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Facebook said
To confirm, we haven’t introduced updates to our location settings. As you know, we often work on ideas that may evolve over time or ultimately not be tested or released. Instagram does not currently store Location History; we’ll keep people updated with any changes to our location settings in the future. – Facebook
The setting is expected to work with both Instagram and Messenger that would help Facebook accumulate data from people who might not regularly use or install the main app. This is by default off, suggesting that it could be an opt-in addition.
The future might bring to tighter integration from the app and serve Facebook’s various ad targeting ambitions.
