Amazon and eBay Images Broken By Photobucket's 'Ransom Demand' (bbc.com)

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Amazon and eBay Images Broken By Photobucket's 'Ransom Demand' (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday July 4, 2017 @04:00AM from the whoa dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Thousands of images promoting goods sold on Amazon and other shopping sites have been removed after a photo-sharing service changed its terms. Ebay and Etsy have also been affected, in addition to many forums and blogs. The problem has been caused by Photobucket introducing a charge for allowing images hosted on its platform to be embedded into third-party sites. The company caught many of its members unaware with the change, prompting some to accuse it of holding them to ransom. Denver-based Photobucket is now seeking a $399 annual fee from those who wish to continue using it for "third-party hosting" and is facing a social media backlash as a consequence.

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idiots by DontBeAMoran · 2017-07-04 04:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why the fuck would you use a third-party service to host your products/auctions images instead of using Amazon or eBay?

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#DeleteFacebook
1. Re:idiots by nnet · 2017-07-04 04:05 · Score: 2
  
  to make it more difficult.
2. Re:idiots by Harold+Halloway · 2017-07-04 04:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because if you sell a lot of items on a number of different platforms it makes more sense to upload the images once and then link to them from the various platforms.
3. Re:idiots by Kardos · 2017-07-04 04:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  But that costs money
4. Re: idiots by epyT-R · 2017-07-04 04:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No it's not. This is a site for technical people. There's no need for every site online to be 'accessible' to the lowest common denominator. Should ESPN or buzzfeed (eew) cater to us?
5. Re:idiots by freeze128 · 2017-07-04 04:58 · Score: 2
  
  Well, I bet it doesn't cost $400 a year!
6. Re:idiots by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-07-04 05:09 · Score: 2
  
  But that costs money
  I spend $180 per year for my hosting provider and another $20 per year to store backups on AWS and Rackspace.
7. Re:idiots by Dunbal · 2017-07-04 05:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you sell a lot of items you're not a casual user, in which case you should be able to afford or at least look into other solutions for your image problem instead of forcing someone else to pay for your bandwidth. Ahh, but greed.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
8. Re:idiots by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-07-04 06:10 · Score: 2
  
  Either you're using the hosting for a heck of a lot more than hosting images or you're an idiot for overpaying by a factor of 10. My guess is the latter.
  I pay $15 per month for a Virtual Private Server (VPS) at DreamHost to host a dozen websites. If you know where I can host a dozen websites for $1.50 per month, let me know.
9. Re:idiots by barc0001 · 2017-07-04 06:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Because back in the day Ebay at least didn't offer photo hosting. My sister has been selling things on Ebay since the 90s and she hosts her images on my server for the simple reason that it's the way she's always done it and it works well. Now on top of that she has an independent site hosted on my server that also sells the same items and reuses the same image links.
  I imagine a lot of Photobucket users started off doing it a few images at a time when they first started and now it's a matter of process inertia and a large number of images that would have to be moved. People aren't necessarily idiots for doing it, they do what works simply for them with their limited experience.
10. Re: idiots by kqs · 2017-07-04 07:03 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  and when whatever they try fails BLAME SOMEONE ELSE for their lack of understanding.
  It's not that bad. In fact, it's downright presidential.
11. Re: idiots by Brockmire · 2017-07-04 07:55 · Score: 2
  
  Owning a domain is not the same as hosting them. Not knowing the difference makes you look stupid.
12. Re:idiots by thegarbz · 2017-07-04 08:04 · Score: 3
  
  Ahh, but greed
  Greed isn't the answer. Simplicity is. There are few paid services quite as simple as uploading something to photobucket and posting a link elsewhere.
13. Re:idiots by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-07-04 08:27 · Score: 2
  
  What steak?
  https://www.craftsteaklasvegas.com/
14. Re:idiots by phantomfive · 2017-07-04 10:49 · Score: 2
  
  If you didn't get the wagyu beef, you're missing out.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
15. Re: idiots by jowaju · 2017-07-04 22:55 · Score: 2
  
  When viewing the actual image on eBay, simply change the final number (after the $ sign) to 57 and reload the link. Full sized, glorious image, works every time. Yes it's stupid but the real image IS there.
The moral of the story: by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-04 04:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Host your own data! Eschew 'The Cloud'!"
Your daily reminder of the risks of 'Teh Cloud...' by ToTheStars · 2017-07-04 04:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Be careful when choosing to host images via Someone Else's System. If you're not paying them, they've got some other business plan going on, and it may not be to every end user's advantage.
Too much. $10 a month- folks would have paid by Maxo-Texas · 2017-07-04 04:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

But $399 a year, someone will just develop a new technique.
However, Amazon should provide free cloud hosting for any image being hosted to one of it's sites.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Can't Blame Them by Luthair · 2017-07-04 04:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Its hard to really blame Photobucket, if the images are embedded everywhere then they have no opportunity to show ads and fund servers. People using them for commercial purposes have no justification for complaints other than lack of notice.
1. Re:Can't Blame Them by msauve · 2017-07-04 04:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  " if the images are embedded everywhere then they have no opportunity to show ads and fund servers"
  
  Sure they do - they could set it so, say, a random 10% of the linked images are displayed as ads instead. A page (or image) reload would then still have a 90% chance of showing the desired image. Win-win, except for the sites on which the ads might appear. They may not like non-remunerative ads appearing on their site, but that provides incentive for them to provide their own image hosting.
  
  --
  "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
2. Re:Can't Blame Them by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-04 04:54 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Or perhaps images uploaded get increased by X/Y pixels which are filled with an ad. Really isn't that hard to accomplish.
3. Re:Can't Blame Them by Just+Some+Guy · 2017-07-04 05:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  I have no quams about a fee being charged, but proper notice time/method is reuqired so people can change without being in a panic.
  People were uploading images:
  
  to a free service
  
  ...who hasn't advertised itself as an image host
  
  ...but has been paying the server and bandwidth bills of people who are hotlinking its content
  
  ...and whose terms of service say "These Terms and the Privacy Policy can change. Again, please carefully read this document and our other policies. We may announce if any "big" changes are made, but so long as you've used the Site after the change, regardless of any separate notice, you agree to the current posted version of the Terms."
  
  I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I can't see that Photobucket did anything wrong or that they have any moral or ethical obligation to allow people to keep using them in a way they never intended. Do you think for a second that if people had been using Facebook as a CDN that Facebook would hesitate to nip that in the bud? And would you blame them? If people were misusing your service in a way you never advertised, would you feel obligated to support that for "proper notice time"? (Rhetorical question: you wouldn't.)
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
4. Re:Can't Blame Them by sjames · 2017-07-04 05:45 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I'll counter with:
  “But the plans were on display”
  “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
  “That’s the display department.”
  “With a flashlight.”
  “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
  “So had the stairs.”
  “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
  “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
5. Re:Can't Blame Them by JonnyCalcutta · 2017-07-04 06:43 · Score: 2
  
  The point wasn't that it was free before - most folk that I know were already paying, but they were paying a lot less than 400 bucks. The free service was limited, so if you used it a lot you tended to upgrade to a non-free account. That was their business model. The same business model as many free 'cloud' services - the limited free account to attract customers. (I'm talking about non-commercial users here though - people who post on canoeing or wargaming or other forums).
  Personally, I think if they'd gone for $10 a month they would have got a lot more people to play along and probably missed out a lot of the bad publicity they are getting on forums across the internet. At $400 all non-commercial users will find alternatives, so they'd better hope there are enough commercial users who have no choice.
  And for those moaning that people should 'just host their own images', most non-commercial users wouldn't even know where to begin. They were usually just pointed at Photobucket by someone else.
6. Re:Can't Blame Them by barc0001 · 2017-07-04 07:05 · Score: 2
  
  It's easy to blame Photobucket here because they jumped in with a pants-on-head retarded $399 price tag for this. They don't *really* want people paying that price, they want an excuse to cut Ebay and Amazon traffic off completely so they slapped a way too high price tag on it in anticipation that everyone would throw their hands up and accept the coming cutoff without a fight, and instead they have a brewing shit show on their hands.
  What they should have done was realize that yes indeed the battle was lost for that traffic and to come up with a reasonable price tag. Image hosting and bandwidth can't be that expensive if I get 30GB of SSD disk and a terabyte of traffic ON TOP of a VM that's hosted for $15 a month. Call it $10 a month for just that much disk and traffic. Then offer it that way to the PB users - $10 a month to host your pictures on Ebay and Amazon or $100/year up front. Way easier to swallow than $399/year.
7. Re:Can't Blame Them by mjwx · 2017-07-04 14:15 · Score: 2
  
  This.
  Its a classic case of a bait and switch. However the users have no recourse unless Photobucket uses their images without their consent.
  Whilst Photobucket are legally and ethically correct (and it's important to remember the difference between ethics and morals, you can be ethical and still be a complete arse-wipe) we're about to see the true power of the internet at work here, the ability to route around damage.
  Damage is effectively what this move is, its a form of poorly thought out extortion. Thousands of users are not going to pony up hundreds of dollars, I doubt even hundreds will, they'll just take their photos and move to another service, Photobucket will die and another service will take its place. Probably imgur. And should their successor start getting delusions of grandeur, the same will happen to them. This is the internet treating arseholes as damage and routing around them.
  
  --
  Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Re:Too much. $10 a month- folks would have paid by Luthair · 2017-07-04 04:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Its actually shocking that Amazon allows hosting images offsite.
Eh by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-04 04:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't have many issues with someone charging for what has effectively been free hosting. However, the last time I was there Photobucket looked like a giant clusterfuck. 'You need to enable javascript to view the image even though it's already been loaded in the background and we're just not showing it', etc.
If photobucket tries anything too extreme to make money, they're going to be dumped in favor of literally any other service that isn't completely awful.
Dumb Move Photobucket by WindowsStar · 2017-07-04 04:49 · Score: 2

Wow, dumb move. Bye bye photobucket. There are a billion sites ready to take your place for free.
Re:Your daily reminder of the risks of 'Teh Cloud. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-07-04 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

You don't have any idea what "no free lunch" means, do you?
Somebody, somewhere always has to pay for that "free lunch". The person eating it may not have to pay (be it money, time, effort, whatever), but someone always has to.
Just put an ad in the image by dfm3 · 2017-07-04 04:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

What's to stop them from adding a logo or ad banner directly onto the image so that, for example, the bottom 1/4 of the embedded image contains "Hosted by Photobucket, and sponsored by..."

If Ebay or Etsy have an issue with that, they can easily prevent embedded images from Photobucket in posts on their site and force their users to utilize another service.
'The Cloud' by geekprime · 2017-07-04 05:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Every time I hear or see someone talk about 'The Cloud', I make certain to remind them (or explain to them) that 'The Cloud' is literally nothing more than someone else's computer.
By putting your stuff (whatever it is) on 'someone else's computer' you are trusting that, they will respect your privacy, not mess with or copy your data, and when they eventually lose interest in keeping your data for you (and they will, someday) that they give you the warning and opportunity to get your data back before they turn off their computer.
1. Re: 'The Cloud' by HiThere · 2017-07-04 07:38 · Score: 2
  
  It's a little bit more than just "someone else's computer", it's "someone else's computer, and I don't know which one".
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
2. Re: 'The Cloud' by thegarbz · 2017-07-04 08:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately that other computer has a much easier to use interface than mine. Probably more redundancy than mine. They have a cool website where I can access data from anywhere... unlike mine.
  It's not just someone else's computer. It's the computer belonging to someone who is far better at working with computers than I am. /idiot user mode.
  Okay so I run Owncloud / Seafile on mine on a zfs zpool with an offsite backup. But I'm not going to pretend that it didn't take me a long time and a lot of learning to get to that point.
  My girlfriend on the otherhand just booted up Windows 10 and dragged some files into the folder called Onedrive. Those "other people's computers" sure sound tempting.
`Well, this sucks... by Travelsonic · 2017-07-04 05:18 · Score: 2

For non-eBay stuff, I just used a spare Google Blogspot/Blogger account to host my images, and never had issues, but somehow I can't picture that working so well for sites like eBay.

--
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Re:Your daily reminder of the risks of 'Teh Cloud. by tlhIngan · 2017-07-04 05:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

Be careful when choosing to host images via Someone Else's System. If you're not paying them, they've got some other business plan going on, and it may not be to every end user's advantage.
I believe eBay now self-hosts the images that show in the image side, but allow linking to external images in the listing itself. (So you have to post an image on eBay's system in order for the listing to have an image where people expect it).
And hotlinking of other people's images isn't an uncommon thing. I've seen many websites relink their photos because some idiot on eBay hotlinks the images. So what they do is simply replace the hotlinked image with something else and relink the image in their text with it.
And I've seen images changed from the item to clearly broken versions of the item (with the auction claiming "works!" but the screen is cracked, for example), to missing pieces (for "complete!" items, but now the image is missing a charger or other accessory), to goat porno and worse.
Believe it or Not by Comboman · 2017-07-04 05:51 · Score: 2

Believe it or not, advertising existed (in fact, flourished) before there were "clicks". Billboards don't have eyeball counters and attempts to measure exposure to print, radio & TV ads via circulation/ratings are primitive at best.

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Support Right To Repair Legislation.
actually billboards DO have eyeball counters by tech-law-ny · 2017-07-04 08:32 · Score: 2

... or a close equivalent. Nowadays, billboard operators identify the mobile phones that pass each billboard, and do correlations with mobile phones that are detected soon afterward in the advertiser's brick-and-mortar store: http://clearchanneloutdoor.com...