Photobucket

[TheCock]

They have new terms and conditions. This caught my eye

Non-US Users. Your information may be stored in the United States or other countries where the data protection and other laws may not be as comprehensive as those in your country (especially for users in the EEA). By using this site you consent to your information being collected, used and transferred as set forth in this Privacy Policy. Information transferred to or stored in the United States may be subject to access requests from U.S. governments, courts, law enforcement officials and national security authorities in the United States according to United States laws.

Is this happening to alot of sites?

 

[Naughty Thoughts]

Essentially, what this is talking about is that the laws governing a particular bit of data depends on where the computer it lives on is.

For computers in Australia, the police (or other authorised agency) need a court order (and preferably a reason) to get the company to supply the information that is on a given computer.

In the US, with the new anti-terror (and anti-anyone-having-any-privacy laws) it has made it easier for government departments to request information (allegedly in order to track terrorist suspects). For people who are concerned about their photos being looked at by US legal people, Photobucket is basically saying "stick it on a server outside the US".

Not that 99.99% of people would be affected or care, they just need to include it because their lawyers advised them to.

 

[TheCock]

Essentially, what this is talking about is that the laws governing a particular bit of data depends on where the computer it lives on is.

For computers in Australia, the police (or other authorised agency) need a court order (and preferably a reason) to get the company to supply the information that is on a given computer.

In the US, with the new anti-terror (and anti-anyone-having-any-privacy laws) it has made it easier for government departments to request information (allegedly in order to track terrorist suspects). For people who are concerned about their photos being looked at by US legal people, Photobucket is basically saying "stick it on a server outside the US".

Not that 99.99% of people would be affected or care, they just need to include it because their lawyers advised them to.

So when I upload photos, is that to a server in Aus? Or are they saying upload to a different site?

 

[Naughty Thoughts]

Photobucket, like other major sites such as Facebook and YouTube, use server farms. That is, they don't have one server, they have hundreds (if not thousands) scattered all over the world.

Generally, if they are set up and optimized properly then your data ought to be getting uploaded to a local machine. This isn't always the case, as it also depends on what is being done with that data. For a site like Facebook, it makes sense that most of what you upload would stay on local machines since most of the average users friends and such would be in the same country.

For a service like Photobucket, if your photos aren't being looked at by many people then again, they may stay on local machines.

However, if you run a popular site and have people requesting the photos in the US and Europe then the photos may copied to local machines in the respective countries for quicker access.

The reason that the first line starts with "Your information may be stored..." is because I don't think they have full control over where a particular file will sit at any given time. This is due to much automation making the service faster. If they pay attention to a particular file, then I'd assume they could put it exactly where they wanted it. But since there are thousands of photos being uploaded every minute, then it is much more cost effective to simply let the software handle it.

Is this happening to alot of sites?

This would apply equally to all sites that are hosted or based in the US, but not all may feel compelled to update their privacy policies.

As a general rule - if you don't want other people to see something, don't put it on the internet. If you do want to put something on the internet, then just operate under the assumption that someone, somewhere will look at it and you'll be fine.

 

[TheCock]

Thanks! My knowledge is not so great with the Internet.