Photobucket Sued Over Plans To Sell User Photos, Biometric Identifiers To AI Companies (arstechnica.com) 22
Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos -- including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans -- to companies training generative AI models. From a report: The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California by claiming it can't reliably determine users' geolocation.
Two separate classes could be protected by the litigation. The first includes anyone who ever uploaded a photo between 2003 -- when Photobucket was founded -- and May 1, 2024. Another potentially even larger class includes any non-users depicted in photographs uploaded to Photobucket, whose biometric data has also allegedly been sold without consent.
Photobucket risks huge fines if a jury agrees with Photobucket users that the photo-storing site unjustly enriched itself by breaching its user contracts and illegally seizing biometric data without consent. As many as 100 million users could be awarded untold punitive damages, as well as up to $5,000 per "willful or reckless violation" of various statutes.
Two separate classes could be protected by the litigation. The first includes anyone who ever uploaded a photo between 2003 -- when Photobucket was founded -- and May 1, 2024. Another potentially even larger class includes any non-users depicted in photographs uploaded to Photobucket, whose biometric data has also allegedly been sold without consent.
Photobucket risks huge fines if a jury agrees with Photobucket users that the photo-storing site unjustly enriched itself by breaching its user contracts and illegally seizing biometric data without consent. As many as 100 million users could be awarded untold punitive damages, as well as up to $5,000 per "willful or reckless violation" of various statutes.
"Untold punitive damages" yeah, right (Score:1, Troll)
Assuming they win, and I hope they do, the lawyers will get hundreds of millions, literally, and the class members will be lucky to get enough for a cup of coffee.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a lot of money- but it's not like it'll materially affect the amount received per class member... so what, really, is your gripe?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly what I said. I've been in the class of several successful class actions. Legal fees have ranged from tens to hundreds of millions, and not once has the amount for each class member been enough to be worth filling out the paperwork. Generally, less than $10, never more than $20.
Re: (Score:3)
Simple division is.
Removing the (high-end) 35% wasn't going to change the math for you.
Re: (Score:2)
And my point is, the legal fees aren't the problem.
Then your point is stupid, and at odds with reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's say your class has won a $20,000,000 settlement, and the class has a million members.
Without lawyer's fees, you're looking at $20/person.
After lawyer's fees, you're looking at between $13-$15 (25-35%) a person.
You're right though, that extra $5-$7 dollars really would have made a difference in your life. Fucking moron.
Re: (Score:2)
When the lawyers each get several orders of magnitude more than the class members, none of whom are within two orders of magnitude of the financial damage they suffered, yes, the legal fees are the problem.
If you believe otherwise, you need to be institutionalized for your own safety, because you aren't interacting with reality.
The only other possibility is that you know full well what you're shoveling, but have a vested financial interest in fucking over class members so the lawyers can each buy a new yach
Re: (Score:2)
When the lawyers each get several orders of magnitude more than the class members, none of whom are within two orders of magnitude of the financial damage they suffered, yes, the legal fees are the problem.
No, they're not, you dense fucker.
The legal fees are immaterial. The problem is that the payout is divided by the class members.
Even with no legal fees, there would not be a material change to the payout to the class members.
It is, therefor, objectively false that the legal fees are anything approaching "the problem.".
You can have a dislike of the fact that the legal fees exist- which is completely fine. But saying they somehow affect the outcome is stupid, and wrong.
This is the trade-off of a class a
Re: (Score:2)
The payout is negotiated by the lawyers, who care nothing about restitution for the class members. They negotiate for themselves.
If 1,000,000 people are defrauded out of $1,000 each, and the lawyers negotiate a settlement that amounts to $5 each for class members, but $200,000,000 for themselves, it is, in fact, the legal fees that are the problem, because they are the only thing the lawyers are negotiating for.
So suck your lawyers bosses' dicks all you want, you know I'm right. You admitted it when you res
Re: (Score:2)
The payout is negotiated by the lawyers, who care nothing about restitution for the class members. They negotiate for themselves.
The settlement is always negotiated to the maximum amount they think they can get.
This benefits all class members and lawyers equally, in terms of the delta between 2 arbitrary numbers.
If 1,000,000 people are defrauded out of $1,000 each, and the lawyers negotiate a settlement that amounts to $5 each for class members, but $200,000,000 for themselves, it is, in fact, the legal fees that are the problem, because they are the only thing the lawyers are negotiating for.
Wrong.
Let's do some math, here.
1 million people, $5 each.
$200 million to the lawyers.
That's $5 million for the class members, and $200 million for the lawyers.
That'd be legal fees of 97.5%.
Class action legal fees are capped at 35%, usually around 25%.
The real number for that real class action lawsuit would be 1 millio
The law is a mismatch for the tech (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The law is a mismatch for the tech (Score:5, Interesting)
We host nextcloud instances, mail/imap servers, storage space etc. for customers who have privacy concerns. Everything is hosted locally in the country and most sites access is geofenced so it can only only be accessed from the country, web app firewall and ip firewall insure this so at least you have to to use an hop inside the country to attempt anything but we monitor things closely and our WAF (web app firewall) and ip firewall have a bunch of tailored rules.
I guess the solution is back to local economy! Of course, our solutions are more expensive than the cheaper ones but our customers don't mind. Our commitment is no scanning, no selling to AI companies, no injected publicity, etc.
We only target corporate customers and just a few personal users well, most are small businesses without sophisticated bean counters, but still.
Business is doing amazingly well.
Re: (Score:2)
$0.05 USD to $1 per photo or video licensing to AI (Score:2)
Photobucket in negotiations to licence 13 billion images to AI companies - 9 April 2024 - Australian Photography
https://www.australianphotogra... [australian...graphy.com].
In an interview with Reuters, CEO Ted Leonard said Photobucket is in talks with "multiple tech companies" to license its database of material, with rates of between 5 cents and $1 US dollar per photo and more than $1 per video being discussed.
-
MOney (Score:3)
The new management has been trying to squeeze $$$ out of former customers for a while now, and this just stinks of yet another tactic to apply pressure. It's not gonna work on me. If they lived up to their promise and simply made my images available for download without a subscription that would be fine. Until they do that I'm gonna refuse to let them off the hook.
This can't be right. (Score:1)
It has a cute name, so that means it is friendly and good.
The need a new name (Score:5, Insightful)
"Botophucket" works for me, because they considered their users' privacy just long enough to say "phucket". I hope those phuckers die in a phire.
Re: The need a new name (Score:3)
A clinic in Phuket that administers Botox would probably sue.
All great (Score:3)
Biometrics (Score:2)
Hail to the cloud (Score:2)
SO convenient!!!
\o/ (Score:1)
Lawyers are reaching for tissues...