As recently as late last year Instagram had granted a request for access to its data feed to Dialogue.
As well as denying any breach of Facebook's operating conditions Dialogue says cutting off its access is unconscionable and will substantially lessen competition in the social media marketing space. "It is implied in both organisations' terms that Facebook and Instagram will act in good faith and reasonably before cutting access for entities, such as Dialogue, which rely on those platforms to conduct business."
Dialogue argues Facebook's assertions that it had a right to terminate access without acting reasonably breaches Australian consumer law."This has a detrimental effect on Dialogue's business, revenues and client relationships, and has caused and is continuing to cause significant adverse reputational and financial harm for Dialogue.
At an initial hearing this month, Facebook was ordered to not take any action that would restrain Dialogue's access to Facebook or Instagram products or services. The case is listed for another hearing on May 17.This is not the first time a small company has run into strife after basing its business model around a tech platform. A number of operators have found that