Brad, early in this century, we had a SERIOUS problem with AOL Mail because THEY claimed a “right” to use any photo I’d sent in emails for their own purposes. So, when they created those “splash pages”, they use photos of ME or hubby, or our kids.
Without any other permission, OR renumerations. (“For $15 million a photo, sure, you can lease them for 3 days’ display.” That was my starting point for negotiations. Hey - I made money from my pix for 14 years!)
A class-action suit was underway on that very topic, though, and AOL eventually stopped this behavior (and never WOULD offer a counter for a negotiable lease! odd, huh?).
But the NOTION that they could take any file - graphics OR OTHERWISE - and use it for THEIR purposes should have created headlines around the computer world. Nope. Never a peep.
It’s sort of like sending the newspaper a letter to the editor - or a citizens’ arrest photo. You sort of hope it’s used, then you may wish it wasn’t!
We use GMAIL a lot and it’s SPOOKY to see REPLYs come back with keyword advertising surrounding the REPLY text. GMAIL has 'bots too that read not just Subject Lines, but scans entire email texts, and then feeds these to their advertisers for revenue-generating links.
I dislike that, but heck, it’s a free mail service - I know they’re going to prostitute us somehow. They have an Off-On Switch to allow users to stop that - but WHAT are we stopping? THEIR keyword scanning? OR simply their posting of vendor-links onto our REPLYs?
They’re not quite so convincing in THAT answer.
“It’s a free service - what do you expect?” is one attitude. But the 'bots exist for any email scanning, so I’d never delude myself that some central ISP couldn’t be doing that anyway.
My sweet toots Stormy mentioned, in another thread, “The law abiding innocents don’t have anything to worry about” and I sort of take that attitude. I drive on streets and people use their built-in eyes to see me all the time. I don’t object to that. I CAN’T. “Please - don’t pull out in front of me - don’t you SEE me?!!”
Now, back to SkyDrive… as I drive around all over the sky…