Pinterest has updated their TOS, Acceptable Use & Privacy Policies

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   Cardisaposted 12 years ago

   To all who were unsure of using Pinterest due to the open ended and unclear terms before, they have now amended their original TOS and Policies to be more user friendly.
   
   Here is an excerpt from my email:
   
   "Updated Terms of Service
   
   Over the last few weeks, we've been working on an update to our Terms. When we first launched Pinterest, we used a standard set of Terms. We think that the updated Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy are easier to understand and better reflect the direction our company is headed in the future. We'd encourage you to read these changes in their entirety, but we thought there were a few changes worth noting.
   
   Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.
   We updated our Acceptable Use Policy and we will not allow pins that explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse.
   We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.
   Finally, we added language that will pave the way for new features such as a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.
   We think these changes are important and we encourage you to review the new documents here. These terms will go into effect for all users on April 6, 2012."
   
   Here are the links to the new and updated policies and terms:
   
   http://pinterest.com/about/terms/?utm_s … terest.com
   
   http://pinterest.com/about/use/?utm_sou … terest.com
   
   http://pinterest.com/about/privacy/

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      Greekgeekposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It's much improved.
      
      They still have two fundamental problems:
      
      -- They've pushed Pinterest as a site for sharing things you've found on the web and discouraged self-promitonion. PINNING a photo uploads the work to Pinterest as a separate file. Other social bookmarking sites do not display bookmarked images in a form that's full-sized (copyright violation)..
      
      -- They continue to serve up pinned photos to any third party website that wants to use them with embed codes. This has given a lot of photographers headaches. I don't see any reason why they need to provide embed codes like an image hosting service, and I keep hoping they'll remove them.

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         Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         It seems to me that they started thinking that they could promote peoples work though sharing and have others use the shared photos which wasn't properly thought through.
         
         I use them for traffic but I am surprised that Hubpages would align themselves to a site that does not have a clear user policy, especially in light of the fact that we are a sight of content creators; articles, photos and videos.

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      Dale Hydeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      As a member of Pinterest, I got the notification as well. I have no problems with the policy.  People are focusing on Pinterest "using" their photos... well, Google does that with "every" image that is uploaded online. So it is nothing new. If you want to protect your images from others using them, do not put them online.  Google will make them available to anyone, anywhere, for no cost, lol.

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   WryLiltposted 12 years ago

   I already posted about this, but more particularly aimed at the fact they're updating their copyright enforcement... which has been a big worry to many online photographers and image creators.

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      Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Sorry WryLit, didn't see that post. I am not very good a searching the forums for previous posts.

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         WryLiltposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         All good. Was raising the point particularly that they are at least trying to address the copyright issue, although as GG said, not very well!

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   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   Thanks Cardia, it's good to know. I still haven't jumped on this trend yet, waiting to see more how it works and if it's really worth the time.

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      Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      You are welcome RebekahELLE, I suppose the terms they had before were ridiculous. I wasn't too fussy about my photos since I know that anyone can find and use your photos from Google images anyway.

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   Dame Scribeposted 12 years ago

   They're caught up in class action lawsuits along with a few other social sites so they would have to check and amend to ensure they are not infringing on others. I would think they prepared for such events prior to launch hopefully these lawsuits prove groundless but who knows

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      Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Dame, they had to amend their policies because one part stated that they retained the right to sell pinned photos, ludicrous if you ask me.

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   FloraBreenRobisonposted 12 years ago

   Thanks for the links Cardisa as well as Greekgeek's response about problems that still exist. I will look at this when my mind is more focused. I want to be sure I understand all of this completely. In particular, I want to know how this impacts photographs of Mom's paintings. 
   
   edit: I left out some words earlier. Had to add them.

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      Cardisaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Flora, my advice is to read for yourself so you know what you are dealing with. And if you are concerned about your and your mom's photos then I would still hold off using them until they have amended their TOS and policies enough to make you comfortable.

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         FloraBreenRobisonposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Okay, Cardisa. Thanks for the advice.

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