Fotolia not showing buyer info anymore?

digiology

« on: March 17, 2009, 00:06 »

I can't see it Sad

Did they change this recently?


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Clivia

Premium Member

« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2009, 00:56 »

I have not got this any more. I like this aspect of Fotolia, but maybe people were taking advantage of it and pestering buyers.


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Danicek

« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2009, 01:10 »

Yes, I noticed yesterday that it is gone and not only on the new sells but on all sales, even those that had that info before. Did Fotolia announce this?


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goldenangel

« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2009, 01:13 »

Too bad. I always hoped I would find more of my images in use by looking at this info. This must have been result of buyers voicing their privacy concerns.


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dirkr

« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2009, 04:02 »

Quote from: Danicek on March 17, 2009, 01:10

Did Fotolia announce this?

That's a good one Grin

Did they ever announce anything... Huh


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null

« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2009, 04:36 »

Quote from: dirkr on March 17, 2009, 04:02

Did they ever announce anything... Huh

Fotolia always makes me think of the final line of Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman):
"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."


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madelaide

Premium Member

« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2009, 18:39 »

They are good at destroying good things! Angry

PS: Mat says people kept writing buyers. I wonder how many such occurences happened to justify this change (if FT would do a change only if justified...).
http://www.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=18147


« Last Edit: March 17, 2009, 18:46 by madelaide »	Ignore \| Logged

RacePhoto

« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2009, 18:53 »

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 17, 2009, 04:36

Quote from: dirkr on March 17, 2009, 04:02

Did they ever announce anything... Huh

Fotolia always makes me think of the final line of Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman):
"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

My all time favorite Microstock quote, comes from Fotolia:

Quote

We believe in free speech but we will not tolerate such discussions from people who benefit from Fotolia’s success by day and tear us down at night. We will not allow this to continue. If we believe a members actions or comments (on or off Fotolia) are detrimental to the growth of Fotolia we will not hesitate to take action and remove their account regardless of their rank or past success.

Feel free to speak out, just remember we'll close your account if you do. Grin

They probably removed it because some people abused the information and tried skirting FT to sell direct. I don't blame FT for removing it, when other sites don't risk giving out that information either. I'm sure we all know that there are some people who would sell out their Mother for a dollar download. No make that a 25 cent download. Angry


« Last Edit: March 17, 2009, 19:01 by RacePhoto »	Ignore \| Logged

WarrenPrice

« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2009, 19:21 »

They probably are justified in removing the capability. An explanation would probably have eliminated all the negative publicity that removal generated.

And, I think they removed the one capability that made them unique ... different from any other agency .... in a good way. Tongue


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digiology

« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2009, 10:09 »

Oh well... I guess there are Microstockers and then there are MicroSTALKERS!

Too bad as I really liked this feature. I also liked the idea someone mentioned on the FT forum to only reveal this info after a contributer had a certain number of sales. That way newbies wouldn't be stalking the buyers.

To be honest... If I was a buyer I wouldn't want my personal info shown either. We were lucky to have it in the first place.


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Nemo1024

« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2009, 10:46 »

Pity

This info was one of the reasons why I checked out my sales at FL. My all times favourite was Maltese Harbour Authority buying my panorama of Valletta Harbour...


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lisafx

Premium Member

« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2009, 11:12 »

Quote from: lclark on March 19, 2009, 10:09

To be honest... If I was a buyer I wouldn't want my personal info shown either. We were lucky to have it in the first place.

I agree completely. It was a nice feature but I understand why buyers wouldn't want that info going to the contributor.


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tan510jomast

« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2009, 12:53 »

Quote from: lisafx on March 19, 2009, 11:12

Quote from: lclark on March 19, 2009, 10:09

To be honest... If I was a buyer I wouldn't want my personal info shown either. We were lucky to have it in the first place.

I agree completely. It was a nice feature but I understand why buyers wouldn't want that info going to the contributor.

well but sorry... first time i must disagree with you lisa. and iclark too, as i think highly of you both.
i prefer fotolia showing the buyers. that's what makes them unique. it's good because say, if lonely planet buys one of my photos, i can look for that issue to get a tearsheet.
also, say if my images tend to be downloaded by european companies , i may find that i have a niche and can concentrate on that.
without these info, it could just be tom, dick and harry, or MR SCAM X , who is buying your images
and then reselling it on cd, like we know it's already being done.

so, knowing who bought your images DOES make a difference.


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digiology

« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2009, 13:29 »

Quote from: tan510jomast on March 19, 2009, 12:53

Quote from: lisafx on March 19, 2009, 11:12

Quote from: lclark on March 19, 2009, 10:09

To be honest... If I was a buyer I wouldn't want my personal info shown either. We were lucky to have it in the first place.

I agree completely. It was a nice feature but I understand why buyers wouldn't want that info going to the contributor.

Don't get me wrong tan510jomast, as a contributer I also prefer Fotolia showing the buyers info. For all the reasons you already mentioned, I too found it to be a valuable feature.

But on the other hand... if I was a buyer I would prefer my info not be available. Kind of hypocritical of me, but I am just being honest.

How about you? If you were a buyer would you mind your personal/company info being displayed?


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tan510jomast

« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2009, 15:45 »

Quote from: lclark on March 19, 2009, 13:29

Don't get me wrong tan510jomast, as a contributer I also prefer Fotolia showing the buyers info. For all the reasons you already mentioned, I too found it to be a valuable feature.

true. i am guessing that buyers perharps complained to Fotolia because some of the contributors are contacting them directly, which is a no no to say the least, and bothersome at worst.
as for me being a buyer hypothetically, would i want to show my personal info? i suppose it's no difference from us showing our real identity as a contributor. some like it, some don't.
i wish there were a win win situation where we can agree NOT to use our buyer's info for anything other than reference of who bought it. that way, we can still benefit from knowing who likes our images.

another reason could be this. if i get XXX buying my images, and they also happen to be a producer of some service i use. i would be more bias to buy their product BECAUSE they bought mine.


« Last Edit: March 19, 2009, 15:46 by tan510jomast »	Logged

digiology

« Reply #15 on: March 20, 2009, 22:38 »

the official word posted on the fotolia forum...

Quote

Hello All,

We apologize for the inconvenience in regards to the removal of this feature that has let you view the source of the sales, however, if you take a look around and check out some other major microstock sites, you'll notice, no one offers this feature

We did, because we're nice! But after too much abuse of our rules stating that you can not directly contact buyers and harass them, we finally decided to remove it.

We try very hard to be fair to everyone! But we have to protect the privacy of our customers in the same way as we do our best to protect our sellers as well.

Thanks for the understanding!

Daniela
Manager Fotolia UK / EU

The microstalkers have ruined it for everyone.


« Last Edit: March 20, 2009, 22:46 by lclark »	Logged

tan510jomast

« Reply #16 on: March 20, 2009, 23:17 »

Quote from: lclark on March 20, 2009, 22:38

The microstalkers have ruined it for everyone.

yes, i agree , the microstalkers ruined it all. even after signing the agreement that you can not directly contact buyers .


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Pheby

« Reply #17 on: March 22, 2009, 22:23 »

I don't really care much about knowing who bought one of my pictures, except for it being interesting for me to know from which country the buyer was. But: fotolia like other sites strongly encouraged amateurs to join, and there must be another way to react to amateurs behaving like amateurs than to stop giving that information to all contibutors without notice. Before that happened, instead of emphasizing the fact that it is forbidden to directly contact buyers, one moderator on fotolia Germany asked us to please "spread the word". That's the fotolia communication we know.


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Moonb007

« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2009, 13:07 »

Its a shame, but I could see why they did it.


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Calamity_John

« Reply #19 on: April 02, 2009, 15:29 »

hmm ... they don't shut down their forum because some people "abuse" it .. they seem exceedingly able to shut those individuals out of the forum (or more) .. I would think if certain contributors violate your terms of service you simply take action against them .. the explanation that we want to be just like everybody else is kind of ridiculous as well. I always thought you were typically better positioned if other people were following you instead of you following them ..


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