As much as I appreciate the effort to create a technological solution that avoids big tech like Google, I find the best way is still prints. I'm usually 'the photographer' in the family and after an event I just order prints to the house of the relevant family members (or bring them over myself). Nothing can really compare to holding the physical product in your hand.
Additionally, due to the small cost of prints, there's a real incentive to only show a few of the best so that it doesn't devolve into endless scrolling.
Have you checked the privacy policy of your photo lab/printer? It's possible that they're collecting digital copies of your pictures, selling them (or just information about them) to third parties, as well as selling them/turning them over to the police and other government agencies.
Yes, I do. I read the privacy policy of all the websites I sign up for. In fact, that is the exact reason why I never got a Facebook account. When I read their privacy policy when it first came out when I was an undergraduate student, I was horrified and never signed up.
Of course, that doesn't guarantee everything in this deceptive world, but it's the best I can do certainly.
It should be your default assumption that any and all data you hand over to a company will be collected, used by that company in any manner that they feel will be beneficial to them, sold/leaked to others, and ultimately used against you.
At a glace, it appears that the privacy policies of walmart, CVS, and walgreens allow for it. I imagine that's where most people these days take their photos for development and/or printing
I worked in a Walgreens photo lab circa 2004. At the time the mini lab kept a scanned copy of all images for at least 90 days. I think it was set to use rolling storage, so the time frame wasn’t definite.
On another note, the photo techs will be looking at your photos - at least, the good ones will, so they can adjust for color balance and exposure. The really bad ones will too, so they can keep a copy of any “interesting” photos.
When I worked there, I called the police about once a month, for exactly the reason you might expect.
Are you suggesting that all photo printing labs secretly keep copies of their clients photos (including professional photographers selling prints worth thousands) and reselling them as their own? I don’t think that any website terms are going to make that okay?
I understand this in how Instagram and Facebook terms read, that they can sublicense your images, and I’m not a lawyer, but sublicense doesn’t mean resell as their own? It’s still your copyright.
They don't have to "resell" the photos "as their own". It's the data you hand over to them, including the data in your pictures, which is theirs. I'm sure if Facebook decided to sell a book with one of your pictures on the cover, or if they put your personal photo on a mug and those mugs were then being sold at walmart their terms of service and privacy policies would allow for that, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be lawsuits and bad press as a result, which makes those kinds of scenarios unlikely.
More likely they'd sell your photos to third parties who wouldn't make products out of them. Those third parties would just extract as much information as they could out of them and then use that data.
You would never see it happening so you'd never know who to be angry at or when to be upset by it. That data would later be used to manipulate you, take more of your money, assign you into specific categories/castes, etc. but even if you were aware those things happened, you'd never be aware that facebook or your photo was a factor. Facebook gets an extra income stream and you're totally unaware.
I used to think like you do... up to around 2015 or so. Then I had to answer the question "how can this possibly be happening?" over a hundred times since. I now ask, "why wouldn't it be happening?" Uncle Sam has the deepest pockets in history.
Every piece of commercial software is indeed hoarding anything it can get on you. Your employer is probably selling your pay stubs. The world has changed.
Anyway John Oliver had a funny piece on data brokers if you'd like a ten-minute primer. United States of Secrets by PBS Frontline is a two-hour extravaganza.
I know my employer is selling my data to all kinds of third parties. Microsoft is collecting my info through my required use of Outlook and Windows. Confluence has my data. Salesforce has my data. My company even uses linkedin for certain trainings which means they are getting some of my data. I've explicitly avoided some of these companies because I didn't want them to have my information, but my work insists of handing out my data like candy, often before I'm made aware and can even object to it.
My company isn't even always paid directly for it, but it's factored into the costs of the software and services they pay third parties to provide. Many businesses are willing to give my company a deal in order to make sure that employee data gets into their hands/databases.
It wouldn't surprise me if you personally know an individual with some shred of integrity. It's be very surprising if you knew of even one large corporation that did though.
Additionally, due to the small cost of prints, there's a real incentive to only show a few of the best so that it doesn't devolve into endless scrolling.