[taytus]

We provide a full "end to end" posting service requiring no intervention from you after you have scheduled your posts (no push notifications to your phone and you having to open the Instagram app to post it for example. We don't use IG's API.

[GrinningFool]

> We don't use IG's API.

This suggests that you're either using people, have found an effective automated method, or have reached agreement with IG.

If the first: how well will that scale with growth? If the second: what happens when the block this current method, or otherwise block your ability to do this because it violates some obscure ToS clause?

If the third: congratulations and best of luck!

[taytus]

All I can say is that this is indeed an automated method. All that IG receives is a https call from an Android phone. We can't go on details because this is our secret sauce (but we are opening our API so other developers can do the same).

[georgiecasey]

is this the secret sauce? https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API

the work the Spanish developer puts into this 3rd party API is crazy and all the issues are from Indian spammers demanding he fixes it!

[pavel_lishin]

This one seems fairly representable, and great: https://github.com/mgp25/Instagram-API/issues/1097

[jimminy]

IANAL

But that is the issue, you as a developer and provider may not run afoul of the terms directly, but your users will.

Section 10 in the Basic Terms forbids accessing Instagrams Private API's.

And if that isn't being used and you are a user of Instagram are running afoul of Section 4 of those terms in soliciting, collecting, or using the login credentials of other users. As well as your naming being in conflict with Terms and trademarks.

Unless you're offering the service, through a reminder system with push notifications, you or yoru customer is probably breaking the Terms somewhere. You should probably have a lawyer verify that you're not running straight into a legal mess.

[elastic_church]

I think the part that you are missing is that nobody cares about company Terms of Service.

The consequences are nonexistent to negligible at best.

If in this case Instagram kills someone's account because of this service, then Statimgram takes on the possible liability of damages if its worth it to the brand.

Having an understanding of how people spin up accounts on Instagram and build mass real targeted followers quickly and cheaply, it wouldn't even be worth it to sue. But again, Statimgram's liability. Low risk proposition though.

[GrinningFool]

> The consequences are nonexistent to negligible at best.

Unless you build a business model around violating them, and they shut you down when they discover it...

Arbitrary changes are always a risk when it comes to building for a third party platform, but if you're violating the ToS from the start, it's just asking for a 'worst case' scenario for your company and customers.

[ceejayoz]

> The consequences are nonexistent to negligible at best.

Not in all cases. I work for a company that has a Facebook app at its core, and while we'd love to use a service like this to post to Instagram, it'd risk Facebook shutting our main app's access to the Facebook API down.

[sushid]

Sounds like they're using Android emulators to simulate button presses, uploads, etc. without using IG's API.