I was doing as I normally do when I check email, replying to a few in my inbox, checking the recipe newsletters, reading some sales circulars from Amazon and a local grocery store, then went into the Spam folder to clear it out.
I always scan the subject titles and the addresses just in case something important has been accidentally flagged as junk when I saw one from Photobucket. At first I thought it was Spam, but it seemed to be from the website, so I opened it to find this:
WE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING
PHOTOBUCKET FOR 3RD PARTY HOSTING*
*What is 3rd Party Hosting?
Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the![]()
tag to embed or display a JPEG image from your Photobucket account on another website such as a forum, Etsy, eBay auction listings, a blog, etc. is definitively 3rd party hosting.
And some other crap, mainly that they wanted to charge me some insane amount to provide hosting for my graphics. Now, I use the Blogger albums they provide for any jpegs, but they don't support animations and I use some in posts in here, as well as the day-date calendar and border. I also use the service for forums that don't supply image hosting for non-paying users like me (read: cheap bastards like me)
I didn't get a notice until this one that they were changing their TOU (terms of use). Since they had always supplied the code, the HTML to embed images, I always thought it was OK, but apparently it's not now. My "library" with Photobucket is only 1% full and they used to show a bandwidth meter and it was always set at around 10% or less, so I never worried. I did keep an eye on it after having a few websites directly link to images and got a warning from Photobucket that I was over the limit, so I made it private and that was the end of the thieving.
There are lots of people complaining about it online and I don't blame 'em. Some people relied upon it for their image hosting, esp. people uploading them to Amazon for reviews and people trying to sell things on eBay. Now their entire websites and/or posts are affected and have this placeholder where their photos used to be:
So, if you see that in any older post or on the animations I use for things, then that's the reason. I've already signed up for a new free image hosting service and hope they'll not go the same route as Photobucket...which I predict is going to go out of business soon, because I think - as do many others - that they're in financial trouble and this is one last grab for some quick cash.
Anyway, I'll be doing the changeover soon, hope it works. If not, I suppose I can live w/out any flashing signs or animated GIFs. I'm sure the readership of this pathetic excuse for a blog won't suffer any...how could it? We're only something like the 12,784,987th ranked blog in the world, after all.
I always scan the subject titles and the addresses just in case something important has been accidentally flagged as junk when I saw one from Photobucket. At first I thought it was Spam, but it seemed to be from the website, so I opened it to find this:
WE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING
PHOTOBUCKET FOR 3RD PARTY HOSTING*
*What is 3rd Party Hosting?
Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the
And some other crap, mainly that they wanted to charge me some insane amount to provide hosting for my graphics. Now, I use the Blogger albums they provide for any jpegs, but they don't support animations and I use some in posts in here, as well as the day-date calendar and border. I also use the service for forums that don't supply image hosting for non-paying users like me (read: cheap bastards like me)
I didn't get a notice until this one that they were changing their TOU (terms of use). Since they had always supplied the code, the HTML to embed images, I always thought it was OK, but apparently it's not now. My "library" with Photobucket is only 1% full and they used to show a bandwidth meter and it was always set at around 10% or less, so I never worried. I did keep an eye on it after having a few websites directly link to images and got a warning from Photobucket that I was over the limit, so I made it private and that was the end of the thieving.
There are lots of people complaining about it online and I don't blame 'em. Some people relied upon it for their image hosting, esp. people uploading them to Amazon for reviews and people trying to sell things on eBay. Now their entire websites and/or posts are affected and have this placeholder where their photos used to be:
So, if you see that in any older post or on the animations I use for things, then that's the reason. I've already signed up for a new free image hosting service and hope they'll not go the same route as Photobucket...which I predict is going to go out of business soon, because I think - as do many others - that they're in financial trouble and this is one last grab for some quick cash.
Anyway, I'll be doing the changeover soon, hope it works. If not, I suppose I can live w/out any flashing signs or animated GIFs. I'm sure the readership of this pathetic excuse for a blog won't suffer any...how could it? We're only something like the 12,784,987th ranked blog in the world, after all.
5 comments:
I'm so far behind advancing technology I feel exhilarated to claim readership of the 12,784,987th ranked blog in the world. Stay cheap. You rock!
Cheap? I prefer the term "frugal", thanks. - wink -
Seriously, I can understand spending the money if a blog or site has ads, is "monetized". I've considered it and even set it up but decided against trying to make the .47 cents/day (if that much) that the traffic would generate.
For that much money Photobucket is going to charge, I don't see why people wouldn't just go ahead and get their own website and even if they didn't have a blog or site on it, just use the space for storage and host their own graphics.
Thanks for your comment.
Seems like everyone is out to make a buck everywhere you go now. Sounds like you found a way around their greedy little ways though. Frugal describes my life since I got laid off!
I've switched out the animations I use on my header and sidebar, but saw a couple of old posts the other day where I had used PB instead of just uploading them to my Google/Blogger albums (formerly Picassa) Not sure why I did that.
It was the pits changing out all the graphics part of the coding, and I made a few mistakes and will correct them when I see 'em or when I get time to pore over the code.
Oh well, that keeps you off the streets and out of the pool halls!
Post a Comment