Image sharing site Pinterest is now owned by Facebook, and that means it's now a money-making operation, despite appearing to be free at the point of use - just like Facebook.
Now Pinterest have updated their terms of use to give them the right to use any image shared on their site for their own commercial ends, without even notifying the original owner, let alone compensating them in any way.
This might seem a bit rich if you've used Pinterest to, say, promote your own photographic, design or marketing skills, but the 'right' to use members' images for commercial use extends to all users, including some as young as 13 years old. Now, Pinterest say that implicit in any young person's subscribing to their site is the understanding that they are doing so with the permission of a responsible adult (over 18).
That may be the understanding but it's unlikely to be the reality. This surely represents a potential abuse of privacy.
Anyway, if you do use Pinterest or were planning to, and you would like to promote your business by posting your own images, be aware that Pinterest reserve the right to use (you might say 'steal') your pictures at any time.
It could be the death of Pinterest as a commercial medium and the backlash could yet cause the new owners to backtrack. We'll have to wait and see.
We use Pinterest to a limited extent for marketing with
Cinnamon Edge and some of our clients, but some photographers and designers have literally hundreds of commercially valuable images on the site - not all of them watermarked for security.
So do please beware.
Roy
