Instapaper has officially bowed out of its acquisition terms with Pinterest, with the online bookmarking service deciding to go independent after Pinterest bought it two years ago.
Instapaper was one of the first read-it-later services that allows users to save articles and read them later. It aso let them download full webpages for offline reading across a variety of platforms, including tablets, smartphones, and even on Kindles and similar e-ink readers.
Instapaper Bids Goodbye To Pinterest
In a press release, the company confirmed that Pinterest has agreed to transfer ownership of Instapaper to Instant Paper, Inc., a new company owned and operated by the same folks who've been developing Instapaper since it was sold to Betaworks in 2013. Instapaper is giving users a 21-day notice period to help them manage their personal information during the transfer procedure.
Despite the change of hands, practically nothing will change moving forward, the company stressed.
"The product will continue to be built and maintained by the same people who've been working on Instapaper for the past five years," said Instapaper. " We plan to continue offering a robust service that focuses on readers and the reading experience for the foreseeable future."
The company also expressed gratitude to Pinterest "for being such great stewards of the product over the past two years." Instapaper was able to implement crucial usability features thanks to the Pinterest acquisition, including an improved search tool, a Firefox extension, and a number of different optimizations for the latest mobile operating systems. Providing a great reading application to readers has always been the company's primary focus, and that won't change even with Pinterest out of the picture.
Instapaper And GDPR Rules
While that's true, a lot of users in European countries are still unable to access and use Instapaper altogether because its privacy policy remains in conflict with the new GDPR rules put in place this past May. A lot of people in the comments section of the press release are still seeking answers from Instapper with regard to this; some even speculate the reason why Instapaper remains noncompliant with new GDPR rules is because it was handling data inappropriately in the first place. True or not, lack of availability is certainly a blow to its whole business, and it's something the company should definitely prioritize as it restructures itself out of Pinterest.
Do you use Instapaper? What do you think of its decision to eject from Pinterest? As always, if you have anything to share, feel free to sound them off in the comments section below!
