Stolen Photo

I was notified of a friend that a photo of my wife was found on Adult Friendfinder. I saw the printed copy of her "ad" and sure enough it was true picture. It just so happens it was a picture that I posted on this forum about 2 months ago. After giving my wife the thrid degree, I called Adult Friendfinder and they pretty much told me to piss off. They ultimately agreed to take the picture down, contact the account holder and verify my story. Three weeks later, they apologized and deleted the users account.

Moral of the story: Be careful of what pictures you put on the internet, regardless of the forum.

A very famous sports person here had his photo used on a US based dating site.
Made a great humourus news story.

Unfortunalty it just shows that many internet users consider anything posted online as fair game and free to use. Its ablity to freely share information seems to give people the idea that they have the right to freely take it, and use it for thier own means.

I sure would have liked to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation

what a scary thing to happen, thanks for letting us know.

why would someone do that? its a dating site, what happens when she/he meets someone and looks nothing like his/her pic? What a bunch of knuckle heads we got on this here Internet!
-zacker-

Unfortunately I see this all too common. In nearly all ads I see for dating services both on TV claiming to be local and online services, a lot of the people involved in running the services are simply scam artists. They will mine the net for images from different types of forums and use them as if they were real customers of their service.

I won't even use Microsoft services like Hotmail and MSN to transfer pictures to my models or clients because Microsoft has a clause that they can take ownership of the image and use it however they see fit.

Link please. I would like to read that for myself.

Yes so would I, since I use MSN (hotmail) to send out pictures..

I am not sure I am allowed to link to thier statements as it says something about "any microsoft services linked to this statement" I didn't find anything specifically stating that I can't link to it, but it didn't matter. I have been unable to relocate the data statement.

Their newer statements have a lot of third party loop holes in it. After fighting off the required login attempts I managed to click onto their privacy statement but could not get ahold of the hotmail statement that I first saw this on.

The clause that I am referring to said something to the effect of "any text, data, graphic, audio, video, or any such content sent via Microsoft services through Microsoft Corp. servers gives Microsoft Corp. implied permission to collect, use, and display collected content for marketing or product enhancement of Microsoft software or services."

It was specifically when I first signed up to Hotmail back in 1996 or 97 that I first saw this. I was very upset and immediately quit using them. I switched over to Yahoo when they first came out with their 10 meg email space.

The current privacy statement on Microsoft Passport services is all I can get to even when going to www.hotmail.com All it mentions is use of a lot of third parties for data harvesting and advertising.

I do not find it feasable that Microsoft would drop this policy, as it has netted them plenty of new code and ideas before. If you go through all the new third party statments you will likely find it. Microsoft has changed their privacy statement a lot in the last couple of years to cut down on the lawsuits, so I am sure this part will be delegated down to a smaller entity company.

Just be aware of this and be cautious about what data you send through Microsoft.

There was a big stink about this about two years ago. MS softened their notice since then. Please note, I am not a lawyer.

Initially, it appears that nothing is illegal. If you post pictures on a MSN site, then their servers are copying it and producing it on other peoples computers (much like this site). But it gets weird after that. The sublicense at the end is probably in case they farm out to some of their servers. The part that gets weird is in bold below. The key words are "without limitation." Can MS use your images in bulletin boards (where you posted them)? The short answer is yes. But can MS use your images for a MS Brochure not affiliated with the bulletin board? The answer is not so clear anymore.
http://www.microsoft.c​om/info/cpyright.mspx

The question is, in order to perform the services provided, do they need to assert certain rights and privileges that could be used in other ways (not necessarily saying they will). And indeed, it has softened the language.

Here is the original language from two years ago, courtesy of the Register UK
Register Article

I see people on Craigs list complaining about it all the time that their photos were stolen after sending them in response to an online dating ad. A lot of these dating sites are being used by other sites to lure you to their porn site or whatever.

My guess is that is what the photo was being used for on Adult Friend Finder not to actually land someone a date. Too bad there are scumbags out there!

B Rubble wrote:
There was a big stink about this about two years ago. MS softened their notice since then. Please note, I am not a lawyer.

Initially, it appears that nothing is illegal. If you post pictures on a MSN site, then their servers are copying it and producing it on other peoples computers (much like this site). But it gets weird after that. The sublicense at the end is probably in case they farm out to some of their servers. The part that gets weird is in bold below. The key words are "without limitation." Can MS use your images in bulletin boards (where you posted them)? The short answer is yes. But can MS use your images for a MS Brochure not affiliated with the bulletin board? The answer is not so clear anymore.
http://www.microsoft.c​om/info/cpyright.mspx

The question is, in order to perform the services provided, do they need to assert certain rights and privileges that could be used in other ways (not necessarily saying they will). And indeed, it has softened the language.

Here is the original language from two years ago, courtesy of the Register UK
Register Article

A little to un-defined for my tastes, gotta love MS clarity. Now I guess I will read Yahoo's user agreement.

Thank you for that information.

That really sucks that someone used your wife's photo for that purpose. It'd been bad enough if it had been a regular dating site, but Adult Friend Finder? Hm, not exactly a "dating" site...