If you’re browsing Amazon today, you might see that a lot of products on the online marketplace are missing product photos. It’s a similar story over at eBay and Etsy as well in addition to countless forums, websites, and blogs. All of it comes down to what has been described as a “ransom demand” by photo-sharing service Photobucket.
Photobucket has changed its terms of service and has introduced a new charge for allowing images that are hosted on its service to be embedded into third-party websites. What this means is that those who were hosting their images on Photobucket and then embedding it on Amazon, eBay, and elsewhere for free will now have to pay for it.
Photobucket caught many of its users unaware with this change in policy so they were not able to either decide whether or not they wanted to pay for it or move their images elsewhere. The service is asking them to pay $399 annually if they want their images to be capable of being embedded across the internet.
There has predictably been a backlash on social media against the company. Those who relied on its service for their online businesses are feeling the pinch as their Amazon and eBay listings have been left without product images.
Many Photobucket users are now shifting their images to rival services in protest as they have decided not to pay the fee.
Filed in .. Source: bbc