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Want your images back? That'll be $5

lutr.dev

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Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#81

Post by echoangle »

swiftcoder wrote: post #64
echoangle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I would just try doing a GDPR request and see what happens. They first have to find out if you’re from the EU, and they probably will err on the side of caution and just fulfill it.

> They first have to find out if you’re from the EU Technically, you don't have to be from the EU. You just need to be in the EU (which includes Americans who are just vacationing in the EU).

Actually when reading up more on it, it looks like you don’t have to be in the EU at all.

If I understand it correctly, the GDPR applies to any company that does business in the EU and it doesn’t even matter where the data subject is located or which country they are a citizen in. So even if you’re from the US, you should be able to make a valid GDPR request.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#82

Post by lutr »

collinmanderson wrote: post #79
mbo wrote: post #68

Why are we complaining about this as a corporate greed thing? (I do agree that it's bad that there were no images preserved and that component of the post is justifiable) Obviously Photobucket completely failed to properly monetize, and was sold to Fox and then offloaded to some no-name startup called Ontela ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobucket ). The service could have been shutdown completely and the harddri…

https://xkcd.com/1150/

Life really is a series of xkcds, it turns out!

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#83

Post by mindslight »

sneak wrote: post #42
MarkusWandel wrote: post #24

You have to view all cloud storage - all free cloud storage anyway - as ephemeral. If you want your childhood pictures to survive, store them someplace you have control over.

People uploaded photos to Photobucket 20 years ago, before anyone knew this. This smug take is not the least bit helpful in this instance.

Many knew this 20 years ago, as well.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#84

Post by andiareso »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #16
petcat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't they only required to delete the data on request? They don't have to actually provide it back to you

IANAL. Article 15 says you have the right to request the data and they must provide it to you. Article 20 says you have the right to get your photos back in a machine readable format. Sadly, this only applies to those in the EU. Americans can keep taking it, which makes sense as it's an American company that's giving it. Sigh.

Minnesota and some other states have similar laws that basically mirror GDPR. States have forms you can get that you would submit to the company. I’ve done it for my Matterport data after they started making you pay to unarchive content (originally free)

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#85

Post by echoangle »

mbo wrote: post #68

Why are we complaining about this as a corporate greed thing? (I do agree that it's bad that there were no images preserved and that component of the post is justifiable) Obviously Photobucket completely failed to properly monetize, and was sold to Fox and then offloaded to some no-name startup called Ontela ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobucket ). The service could have been shutdown completely and the harddri…

Well one complaint is that the OP was told he would be able to get photos for $5 when they actually weren’t any there (which photobucket knew before obviously). That actually seems deceptive enough that I would try to get my money back.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#86

Post by inigyou »

collinmanderson wrote: post #79
mbo wrote: post #68

Why are we complaining about this as a corporate greed thing? (I do agree that it's bad that there were no images preserved and that component of the post is justifiable) Obviously Photobucket completely failed to properly monetize, and was sold to Fox and then offloaded to some no-name startup called Ontela ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobucket ). The service could have been shutdown completely and the harddri…

https://xkcd.com/1150/

Back in the 2000s there was an implicit social contract that websites would treat your uploaded data with respect. You weren't putting your stuff in Chad's garage, you were putting it in a professional seeming storage business that just happened to be free because none of us really understood how to monetize the net.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#87

Post by inigyou »

sneak wrote: post #40
equinoxnemesis wrote: post #5

Considering they explicitly said they had some photos of yours ("You shared them. We protected them."), this seems like chargeback territory.

The ToS is what binds. Good luck getting most card companies to allow you to do a chargeback these days. I’ve been sold counterfeit or defective merchandise on eBay thrice in the last year. eBay’s guarantees are totally worthless even with evidence, and it was like pulling teeth to get my bank to do a chargeback. In one case they wouldn’t at all.

ToS are rarely binding.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#88

Post by echoangle »

sneak wrote: post #40
equinoxnemesis wrote: post #5

Considering they explicitly said they had some photos of yours ("You shared them. We protected them."), this seems like chargeback territory.

The ToS is what binds. Good luck getting most card companies to allow you to do a chargeback these days. I’ve been sold counterfeit or defective merchandise on eBay thrice in the last year. eBay’s guarantees are totally worthless even with evidence, and it was like pulling teeth to get my bank to do a chargeback. In one case they wouldn’t at all.

> The ToS is what binds.

I don’t know where you’re from but this isn’t the case in any normal country at all.

People always treat ToS as some god-given mandate that’s valid just because it’s written somewhere, but in reality there obviously are limits to what you can enforce.

You can’t just circumvent customer protection laws by denying them in the ToS.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#89

Post by lutr »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #24

You have to view all cloud storage - all free cloud storage anyway - as ephemeral. If you want your childhood pictures to survive, store them someplace you have control over.

To be fair I'm doing that now, with Immich (= a "self-hosted Google Photos"). I was just curious to find out what things I was screnshotting as a kid.

Re: Want your images back? That'll be $5

#90

Post by inigyou »

lutr wrote: post #66
uberex wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can charge back months after. Best to ask for refund first (as in now, despite their legally irrelevant time limit) as the CC would expect you to do that first.

Huh, never did a charge back in my life (I'm not from the US, charge backs aren't a big thing here). I'll give it a shot, just for fun :). I use a debit card and I wasn't even sure you can do charge backs with them. But yes, apparently!

It's not an automatic thing. The bank has to review your case and decide if photobucket committed fraud. But the odds are higher than you think.
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