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View Full Version : Ebay soon allowing anyone to steal your photos


camarojoe
08-11-2009, 02:04 AM
Saw this on another forum:

Hey all,
I found this on another board, and just wanted to spread the word here.

Some might care, some not, but in any event it could be important to know. Check out this text, and accompanying instructions, that are making the rounds of the web right now. I've made the appropriate changes myself already:

Starting on August 31st, eBay is going to institute a new policy where photos you upload to any listing are put into a "catalog" of online images that any eBay user can then use for their own listings. The default setting for this is opt-in, which is a problem if you, like me, consider your photographs your property and want to control how they are used and by whom. A copyright notice is posted with a link to your user profile, but no additional information is given, and the link is quite small.

Since the default setting is opt-in, and eBay has not sent messages out about this, a lot of people are going to be caught flat-footed by this new policy.

Again, the default for this setting is YES, you have opted in. Meaning "Yes, I will allow eBay to make my photos available for anyone to use."

If you do not want eBay to make the photos you upload to all of your future auctions available to other users in a sort of catalog process, you need to go change your settings now, before August 31st. If you opt out after then, any photos you upload between the 31st and when you opt out will still be eligible for inclusion in their "catalog."

In order to opt out of this so-not-okay process, do the following. I've broken it down exhaustively. Hopefully your eBay pages look like mine.

1) Go to your eBay summary page ("My eBay").

2) On the left-hand side, there are three tabs that say "Activity," "Messages," and "Account." Hover over the "Account" tab.

3) A drop-down list will appear. Move your mouse down to "Site Preferences" and click.

4) You will be taken to a page with a list of site options for selling, shipping, and listing. About the sixth from the top is "Share your Photos." Click on the word "show" on the right hand side next to this option.

5) The box will expand, and if you are opted in, "yes" will appear. If you are opted out, "no" will appear. A small "edit" link will appear below the "show" link. If you want to change the settings, click "edit."

6) You will be taken to a new page with the following text: If you'd like to opt-out of this program, please do so by checking this box and clicking the "submit" button below.
(If you opt-out before August 31, 2009, none of your photos will be considered for inclusion in this program unless you opt back in at a later time. If you opt-out after August 31, 2009, any photos we select for inclusion in this program prior to your opt-out may continue to be used in the catalog)

7) If you want to opt out of the program, check the ticky box on the left-hand side next to the text, then go down and click the "submit" button.

8) You will go back to the settings screen you were just on, and there will be a green checkmark and a confirmation message. Go down to the "Share your Photos" option again and click "show." Your setting should now appear as "no."

I am sure that this will be a useful feature for some people, for some items, but the automatic opt-in is not okay with me at all, as I don't want my photographs used to illustrate someone else's auction for a different item, not for any reason whatsoever.

I hope that those here will find it useful and potentially head off some major head and heart aches!

300deluxeL79
08-11-2009, 02:11 AM
thanks for that info. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif
they(ebay)just keep shooting themselves in the foot. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hmmm.gif

old5.0
08-11-2009, 02:16 AM
It seems like ebay has decided that scam auctions are where the real money is.

Stitch
08-11-2009, 02:51 AM
Thanks for the heads up , kinda sneaky it didn't show in My Ebay on ebay.co.uk , I had to sign in on ebay.com to opt out .

Don_Lightfoot
08-11-2009, 03:19 AM
Thanks for the information Joe. I followed your directions to my "Site Preferences", but I do not have a "Share Your Photos" heading (lots of others there). Perhaps it is necessary to have some photos uploaded for this heading to show up http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

njsteve
08-11-2009, 04:06 AM
Mine doesn't have it either and I just listed some items yesterday.

Verne_Frantz
08-11-2009, 04:31 AM
Joe,
That's very good information and I appreciate you posting it. I do intend to list some items soon and I will try to edit that "sharing" feature.

But I'd also like to point out that all anyone has to do while viewing any auction is right-click on a photo and you can save it to your hard drive. I've collected MANY photos that way in my research endeavors, such as T-10 VIN stamping, block VINs, etc. My purpose is research, but photos of any auction were/are always easily available to be copied for ANY purpose.
As you know, "anything" on the web is fair game with a click of the mouse.

Verne http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

njsteve
08-11-2009, 04:57 AM
Me too. I have an archive of Trans Am and Mopar parts photos collected from ebay over the years.

It just pisses a guy off that they charge you to add more than one photo to your auction and then they want to turn around and sell those photos to others. (And you know ebay wont be offering them for free to sellers).

x Baldwin Motion
08-11-2009, 05:08 AM
Maybe PeeBait actually has worked out a way to keep people from lifting others photos for free. They don't like the idea of not making a buck off of it. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bs.gif

Xplantdad
08-11-2009, 05:57 AM
You can take photos from any website...even if the webmaster has disabled the right click function to protect the pictures http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

Remember...the pictures are stored in your temporary internet files on your hard drive...plus you can always do the PRINT SCREEN button and paste the image into paint and then crop the picture to the size you need... http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

jannes_z-28
08-11-2009, 10:26 AM
I can understand why they are doing this. For every person who is selling an iPod, Nintendo or Nikon Camera uploads the same images over and over, will load up the discspace. I guess this is a way to save discspace at eBay. And if you then want to sell a common item you can choose images from the library.

But for exclusive or unique stuff like special cars this is not good. Scammers would have a field day finding images to use for their ads.

Jan