I saw a post on Cheeky Sweetie's blog recently that really got me thinking. For some reason the Bing search engine is bringing up a photo of her daughter when searched by some pretty appalling search terms. MamaSpohr has been finding photos of her darling Maddie as advertisements on various sites. And it makes me wonder, how will I even know if someone is using my photos? I've always heard that if you post anything online it becomes public, and you have no control over it. Clearly that is true.
I always thought people were at heart ethical people. I may love a photo I see online (some of the bloggers out there are phenomenal photographers!) but I never try to save it. Not even so I can go back and look at it, I'd never even consider posting it as my own! So I always think other people are going to behave the same way I do. Sadly, that's not true.
I'm new to this blogging thing, and I have no doubt I'll make some mistakes. I don't know all the rules, and so I apologize if I break them. In life, no matter what context, some rules are pretty clear. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours, and we can share, but only if we both agree on it.
Cheeky Sweetie made a good point - is having your photos online more dangerous than taking your child to the park. That same pervert (though more likely a different one), may be sitting at the park. Or the grocery store. I don't keep my daughter out of view of the world, so should I keep her out of view online too? How much am I protecting her? The idea of perverts looking for images and finding my daughter makes me shudder. But is it dangerous?
What it comes down to is determining risk. I'm an auditor, so this is not an unfamiliar concept. Is it an acceptable risk? I don't have my address up, and while I do have location, it's the closest big city. And while I don't like the idea, if a perverted old man is looking at pictures of my daughter for his pleasure A) he could have found them anyways, and B) if I don't know, it's not really hurting me. Don't get me wrong, the problem with Bing NEEDS to be fixed. But I can't prevent/fix everything that could ever possibly happen.
So, I don't like it, but it's an acceptable risk. I registered for sitemeter, so I can see if anything usual starts coming up. Though since my blog is pretty small I figure I'm not likely to run into anything. I'll post some pictures, as it suits my blog postings, though I'll be very cautious. I'm not a fantastic photographer like many of the bloggers out there, but I still love taking pictures of my little one!
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One of the things you can do is start watermarking your photo's with your website url. That way if someone does steal it, it's easy for people to recognize it's a stolen photo and let you know. And people are less likely to use a watermarked photo.
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