How would you feel if you came across another surrogacy blog, another surrogacy web site with your personal photos of you and your family on them, using them to promote their surrogacy business without your consent? This is what happened to me today, as it was flagged to me that my photos were being used in this manner without my permission. I felt violated and hurt that me and my son would be exploited in this way and saddened more than anything else.
I have since scrubbed my blog of any photos of me and my son. Business and Marketing 101: if you want to use other people's photos, then ask for permission first. Otherwise, you're opening yourself up to a world of legal troubles. Most people with common sense would get a subscription to a stock photo bank to avoid legalities.
I had a new blog entry planned for this weekend as well with photos to share but of course, now, I have little motivation to post and am wary about sharing photos from this point on. Some people would have deleted their blog over something like this. I won't as I want to keep sharing my story with others, just not have my photos appear on other web sites without my knowledge. It's a shame that I will now have to be discretionary as to what photos I put up on my blog of my son and I since there are people out there that will use them for their own personal reasons.
***UPDATE: Since this post, they seem to have removed the photos of me and my son so as a courtesy, I've removed any references to them here. But they never once apologized, answered/acknowledged any of my e-mails/concerns, which I find questionable. This is not how I would do business. Hopefully though this post will still be helpful to some and make us be more mindful/cautious about the kind of personal photos we share online.
I have since scrubbed my blog of any photos of me and my son. Business and Marketing 101: if you want to use other people's photos, then ask for permission first. Otherwise, you're opening yourself up to a world of legal troubles. Most people with common sense would get a subscription to a stock photo bank to avoid legalities.
I had a new blog entry planned for this weekend as well with photos to share but of course, now, I have little motivation to post and am wary about sharing photos from this point on. Some people would have deleted their blog over something like this. I won't as I want to keep sharing my story with others, just not have my photos appear on other web sites without my knowledge. It's a shame that I will now have to be discretionary as to what photos I put up on my blog of my son and I since there are people out there that will use them for their own personal reasons.
***UPDATE: Since this post, they seem to have removed the photos of me and my son so as a courtesy, I've removed any references to them here. But they never once apologized, answered/acknowledged any of my e-mails/concerns, which I find questionable. This is not how I would do business. Hopefully though this post will still be helpful to some and make us be more mindful/cautious about the kind of personal photos we share online.
