Much has been written regarding outfits such as Dropbox, iCloud and others that offer free storage by simply setting up an account. And there are, as Brandon Butler at Network World pointed out, enough storage providers on the market that one could acquire as much as 112 GB of free storage by simply registering on the site.

Earlier this year, SiliconANGLE’s John Furrier wrote an excellent breakdown of the pros and cons of several of the top cloud storage providers.

However, as our tech lives have become increasingly more mobile, much of the free storage we take advantage of happens so seamlessly, it doesn’t ever really cross our minds. That is, until it is brought to our attention.

CASE IN POINT

One such instance that caused quite a stir occurred last December when Instagram, the popular photo styling and sharing app, announced they were changing their terms of service. The app, which stores your photos, free of charge, on their servers, claimed their new TOS would allow them to sell user submitted photos to outside companies and that you, as the user, were not entitled to any compensation.

Even before the furor that ultimately resulted from this proposed TOS change, Instagram had asserted the right to sell a user’s information for the purposes of targeted advertising. It was only after they planned to take ownership of users’ stored property that Instagram saw a backlash that required walking back their plans and engaging in a full public relations offensive.

According to Andrew Bolson in his article “Important Lessons From the Instagram Controversy,” one lesson gleaned from the brouhaha was the differentiation companies that store user data would have to make between information and data. Bolson says, “The overwhelmingly negative response indicates that users are unwilling to relinquish property rights in their data, especially when the property is personal photographs.”

The most important consideration one should make when downloading the next social app that stores your uploaded data – free of charge – is whether that company intends to make use of your data and exactly how they will do it. Instagram took a gamble at turning their users’ uploaded property into a source of revenue and it was a bet they lost.