Photobucket's New $399 Fee to Hotlink Images Sparks User Outrage
Photobucket users are up in arms as the company slipped in a $399 subscription requirement to display hotlinked photos, replacing millions of hosted images with a message that "3rd Party Hosting has been temporarily disabled."
Users with photos linked to their Photobucket accounts now see an image that has been described as a ransom shakedown. The placeholder alerts everyone viewing the hosted image that "3rd Party Hosting has been temporarily disabled," and under what could be a meter pegged at 100 percent is a piece of advice which mentions how users can unlock their accounts.
Photobucket is one of the most widely used image hosting services, and it is used not just for recreational blogs and community forums but also for some online commercial retail sites.
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Users who have used Photobucket for these sites now only advertise Photobucket's error message instead of their photos, unless they pay a $399 fee. This hotlinking fee also happens to be a recurring annual fee for those who want to continue posting their images to third-party websites, according to The Verge.
The BBC listed e-commerce website Etsy as allegedly one of the notable sites affected by this change. However, an Etsy spokesperson has clarified that this is not the case, saying: "Etsy serves images via internally hosted web servers and cloud based hosting, such as Amazon S3. Photobucket's recent changes do not directly impact how Etsy is displayed to our visitors, as no images when visiting etsy.com are served via their service."
Photobucket started out in 2003 as a free, ad-supported service for users. The service has gone through a few changes over the years and has since started offering storage plans like an annual $100 package for 102 GB of online storage.
As a long-standing service, some bloggers and online sellers could have hundreds if not thousands of images linked to their accounts. With these surprise changes to their Terms of Service, posted on Monday, June 26, all non-premium accounts had their linked photos taken down and replaced with Photobucket's ad.
Also of note is how the new terms are indicated to be effective on June 20, when the blog post has been posted on June 26.
Photobucket's move has been compared to ransomware, as social media and online groups raged at this sudden change by the image hosting service. Meanwhile, the company merely brushes off these protests with an acknowledgment.
"Thank you for all of the recent feedback and questions. We are trying our best to respond quickly and thank you for your patience :)" the company posted on Sunday, July 2. The changes remain in effect as of this time.
