Imgur has blocked the UK

cu3ed said:
Didn't they leave because we found them to have been illegally sharing peoples information and where about to be fined?
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The ICO were investigating reddit, tiktok and imgur over how they used childrens data regarding compliance to the OSA..

They were due to be fined because they don't fully comply:

The ICO had expressed concerns over the way these sites use children’s personal information, with its own analysis claiming that Imgur:
  • Did not ask users to state their age when signing up
  • Did not use any techniques to estimate or verify users’ ages during account setup
  • Did not ensure children’s profiles are high privacy by default
  • Did show adverts to children, including targeted ads based on age and location
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Not sure where it is now, but in 2023, IMGUR famously banned all NSFW content and AFAIK and IME I thought it was a very 'safe' place..

Seems a bit misplaced..
 
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Rroff said:
What it ultimately boils down to is the site can't be bothered with country specific regulations. But at the end of the day the OSA seems to have been the final nail in the coffin.
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It was not purely that. They were being investigated for breach of GDPR, by selling kids data. Caused by them not asking the age of people signing up.
 
Rob_B said:
I'm never sure how imgur made money anyway so I'm not so sure that this gap is hugely profitable especially with the new rules (i.e. why they have left the UK in the first place)
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There is little restrictions or rights on content uploaded to imgur, at least where people are sharing their own non-copyrighted content so they probably make quite a bit from feeding AI models, etc.

DIABLO said:
It was not purely that. They were being investigated for breach of GDPR, by selling kids data. Caused by them not asking the age of people signing up.
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GDPR is a country specific regulation (yes there is a EU variant), if you read the replies support sent people it seems like the OSA was the final nail in the coffin of them bothering with the UK.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
Ha, yes. But my point is still the same.

Even if we take raw numbers, out of 8billion people, we are 0.75% of the population. Yes I know not everyone in the world is online out of 8 billion but even if we make it to 1%....

A company would rather cater to the other 99% than the 1%. The idea that the 1% can dictate the 99%...that's rather narcissistic and arrogant. Especially the companies, the big tech firms are not UK companies.

Rather than we threaten to block them, they can cut us off. Pretend this island don't exists. They still have 99% of the market to make money out of.
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Yeah but they are not making much money out of India, China and most of Africa.. which is over half the worlds population.
 
DIABLO said:
Yeah but they are not making much money out of India, China and most of Africa.. which is over half the worlds population.
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I know that would be the obvious retort. My question is, is it 20x more than China (that is just to break even).

Neither of us knows the answer, but the fact remains that they blocked the UK because clearly to them, the juice is not worth the squeeze. If they, just a image hosting site thinks the same, I'd hazard a guess many many other companies would come to the same conclusion when push comes to shove.

If what you are saying is true, then they would not have blocked the UK at all and stayed for the money. But the opposite has happened.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I know that would be the obvious retort. My question is, is it 20x more than China (that is just to break even).

Neither of us knows the answer, but the fact remains that they blocked the UK because clearly to them, the juice is not worth the squeeze. If they, just a image hosting site thinks the same, I'd hazard a guess many many other companies would come to the same conclusion when push comes to shove.

If what you are saying is true, then they would not have blocked the UK at all and stayed for the money. But the opposite has happened.
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There business model seems to be selling data to feed AI, and I imagine they are awash with it. So as you said it wasn’t worth the squeeze. But the E.U could be next, for the same reason.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Everyone knows the UK will buckle on this one. Eventually.
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I wouldn’t count on it.

Many countries and regions like the EU are implementing very similar legislation.

As soon as the EU go live (and they will, this is right up their street and are probably upset we got their first), that will be it, they’ll have no choice but to do it or carve off near 50% of their most profitable market outside the US.
 
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Crezzlin said:
What site do people use to upload photos now? Ta
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S3ND.PICs was mentioned and I just tried it myself. Like IMGUR your uploads are posts so everyone can see them and comment. Didn't see any way to make posts private. Support did respond quickly to an email I sent them though.

Maybe not the site for just uploading yours pics and doing hotlinks etc.

IMGbb was another site mentioned. <Ignore this due to bad hotlink from the site>
 
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DIABLO said:
There business model seems to be selling data to feed AI, and I imagine they are awash with it. So as you said it wasn’t worth the squeeze. But the E.U could be next, for the same reason.
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If the same thing happens with the EU then the juice will start to worth the squeeze. Right now, we are alone.
 
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