Be advised, Smugmug looks at your private, unlisted galleries

txtelevision

I recently installed an IP tracker in order to see where visits were coming from on my site. I have an unlisted, password protected gallery that has all search and links disabled that I use for viewing by me and my wife only. Much to my surprise, i found the there are frequent visits to this gallery by the Smugmug IP in Mountainview, California. I emailed support and received replies as to why they would view the gallery, but none of those reasons applied to my gallery. It is not public, links are disabled, it is not searchable, it is unlisted. You users can draw your own conclusion as to why this gallery is receiving frequent visits from the smugmug "heroes".

Andy

Hi, I see you've chosen to make this public, so I'll do the same. First of all, we have the right (and responsibility) to look at any galleries or photos or videos on SmugMug - whether they are in public or unlisted or passworded galleries. We may need to do this if photos are brought to our attention which may not be family friendly or are against our terms. We get emails all the time from customers and visitors, advising us of photos that may be best kept in unlisted or passworded galleries, with searching turned off. And this is exactly what we did with one of your photos in the past. As to the visits recorded over the last three weeks, I'm investigating. There could be any number of reasons, as I've explained, but we don't go "looking" for photos in passworded galleries - we have lots and lots of customers, and over a billion photos online. And we're busy. I can assure you there's nothing nefarious going on as you are charging us with, and I ask your patience on this while we look at what's going on.

Thank you very much.

Kiwibloke

Seems a bit strange to me why you would put photos on photo sharing/storage site if only you and your wife would be looking at them, why not just keep them on your pc/iPad/iPhone or whatever, unless of course you live apart some of the time.


KB

txtelevision

Kiwibloke wrote: »

Seems a bit strange to me why you would put photos on photo sharing/storage site if only you and your wife would be looking at them, why not just keep them on your pc/iPad/iPhone or whatever, unless of course you live apart some of the time.


KB

You are correct, Kiwibloke. I have galleries that are for sharing, and I have a gallery that is unlisted and locked down. Travel is the reason. I posted here because the incident that Andy is referring to happened in September of 2010, and has nothing to do with my issue today. Back then, an image that I felt was ok for a public gallery did contain some very artistic partial nudity. Many images with much more nudity can be seen via a simple search. the problem came when the image made it to the most popular images of the day. What has frustrated me today is that Andy keeps referencing that, and has not addressed my question or my issue. That incident was my fault for having a borderline photo in a public gallery. My question today is Why has Smugmug been accessing my private, locked down gallery (9 visits in the last 3 weeks). While I appreciate Andy's quick responses to my emails, my question remains unanwered (other than the "we have the right to access anything" comment. While that may be true, it certainly brings up the question whether it was nefarious.

Andy

txtelevision wrote: »

You are correct, Kiwibloke. I have galleries that are for sharing, and I have a gallery that is unlisted and locked down. Travel is the reason. I posted here because the incident that Andy is referring to happened in September of 2010, and has nothing to do with my issue today. Back then, an image that I felt was ok for a public gallery did contain some very artistic partial nudity. Many images with much more nudity can be seen via a simple search. the problem came when the image made it to the most popular images of the day. What has frustrated me today is that Andy keeps referencing that, and has not addressed my question or my issue. That incident was my fault for having a borderline photo in a public gallery. My question today is Why has Smugmug been accessing my private, locked down gallery (9 visits in the last 3 weeks). While I appreciate Andy's quick responses to my emails, my question remains unanwered (other than the "we have the right to access anything" comment. While that may be true, it certainly brings up the question whether it was nefarious.

I have answered you. By email from the help desk. And I will continue to answer more from there. I see you've replied back, give me a few minutes to finish up a meeting I'm having and then I can get back to your case. Thanks.

SpiderF1

Thank you OP, this is very important information to know.

Kiwibloke, I can't speak for the OP, but I'd want to keep personal images as a potential backup to what's on my hard drive. I also wouldn't want family/friends/kids using my computer to be able to see some pictures and thus would lock them up in a "personal SmugMug vault."

Regardless of the reason, it's important to know that hidden/password protected/unlisted/etc. really doesn't mean nobody will see it. Not asserting that SmugMug employees would go browsing through my pictures, but knowing that they could makes me uneasy and is important to know.

mbrady

I don't work for Smugmug, but the terms of service here http://www.smugmug.com/aboutus/terms/ appear to indicate that certain types of content are prohibited and I don't see any distinction being made between public, private, or password protected galleries (see section 13).

It also says this:

Although SmugMug has no obligation to screen, edit or monitor any of the User Content posted on the Site, SmugMug reserves the right, and has absolute discretion, to remove, screen or edit any User Content hosted on the Site at any time and for any reason without notice. You are solely responsible for creating backup copies of and replacing any User Content you host on the Site at your sole cost and expense.

But on the other hand, if some bored employee is just poking around in people's password protected galleries for no good reason then that would raise some eyebrows with users (and hopefully smugmug management as well).

Andy

mbrady wrote: »

But on the other hand, if some bored employee is just poking around in people's password protected galleries for no good reason then that would raise some eyebrows with users (and hopefully smugmug management as well).

It would and we don't do this. I've explained what we might do, in posts above. Thanks.