Google lost a suit for copyright infringement for using thumbnails without consent and making money off it: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060222/ts_afp/usinternetmediasexjusticegoogle_060222032100
I think google images is just a form of bandwidth theft, personally. As a user its cool, but as a webmaster, whats my motivation to get an image listed there. the person is just wanting to look at a picture (obviously), nothing else. Does me no good at all.
I like the idea. So what if it uses a little bandwidth. What if the surfer stays and looks around? What if that user then becomes a regular on your site and maybe even buys something, all in exchange for some bandwidth. If money is so tight you cant afford bandwidth, or even extra bandwidth then youre doing something wrong.
That’s a bit strange really, why would anybody be against the idea of been listed by google? If that’s the case why not add google to the robot.txt file. If I am not mistaken, (and I often am), the thumbnails are on Google servers, so they don’t even use any bandwidth. FFMG
lorien1973 gave a link in his post, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060222/ts_afp/usinternetmediasexjusticegoogle_060222032100 I think that those are most of the details available FFMG
Not the sharpest tool in the shed are you? Google images is an important source of targetted traffic. My second largest referrer is Google images, and that translates directly into increased revenue....... Which is why that Perfect 10 guy is full of shit. He could be using Google images to be driving subscriptions. Instead, content thieves are using Google images to drive content to their sites. So who does Perfect 10 blame? The thieves? No, Google. What a dumbass.
All the antagonism against google's Image listing is baffling. I get about 20% of my referrals from images. That more than makes up for any "bandwidth theft".
I think it's quite simple really. Google helps itself to resources all over the web, then replicates portions therof simply because it can. Irrespective of G's role in search, it has a responsibility as a company to respect the wishes of those who own and manage the resources on which G is capitalizing. As the ruling indicates, there is nothing wrong with linking to a resource, but making money from it while placing the owner at a disadvantage (reads providing free access to same while the owner otherwise charges for it) is obviously wrong. If it were your content, how would you feel ? You create images intended for sale to mobile consumers, only to find all and sundry have free unhindered access to them courtesy of Google. The one thing that seems absent from the editorial though is whether any attempt was originally made to communicate this with G, and how G responded.. Did G do it's usual "I'm too big to be bothered", or was there in fact fair and resonable recourse ? Who knows (but I for one agree with the ruling).. Cheers, JL
But those mobile users could conceivably get those images for free without Googles help, because if a googlebot can find it, then so can anyone else. It's not as if its a "members only" section that google is taking the pictures from.
I think the broader message being sent is the significant thing here. I have no idea what the context was, or how Gbot found the images, but it really only takes one pass from Gbot, and you've got these images available to all for as long as G cares to feature them. It might have been 5 minutes without access controls in place for the publisher, resulting in months of reduced revenue. It might have been some goose with a URL that included access credntials that Gbot followed, entirely beyond the publishers control. Either way, one pass by Gbot and you could lose for months. As I said before too.. the big thing is recourse for the publisher, did Google listen, or was there beligerence.. again, something the article failed to mention. Cheers, JL
Simple idea for google - all images shown have a line or watermark on them forcing visitors to the website.
Not obvious. From my experience, 80% of the time, the person just wants to USE the picture. Google images (mainly, together with Yahoo Images and MSn images, and all the others) is just an easier way of ripping someone of their graphics. It happend to me dozens of times.
I've yet to make a dime off of G image traffic. Most of my images end up on someone's blog or a forum where the thief is too lazy to download it - it keeps on sucking my bandwidth until I get mad enough to replace it with something obnoxious. It provides nothing for me but a huge waste of time and money.
i was printing of some coloring pages for my daughter direct from google images the other day and couldn't help but feel bad for printing the pages off the site and not actually visiting the site. but i being a webmaster know what's really happening here so i decided to bookmark the site and grab the free coloring pages directly from their html instead ... but how many do this? at the moment, i have an aws site that is getting pelted by google images traffic yet actual page visits are extremely low. google images is for content thievery and wasting bandwidth ... the thumbnailed image should link directly to the page where the image is ... and that's it. my images are to boost the quality of my content ... images w/o the content? please don't visit my site then.