Stealing, Spam, Pinterest, and You.

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If you've been using it, you already know that Pinterest is a great visual social network. It’s fun, it’s viral, it can be beneficial for businesses. I have nothing but positive things to say about it.


Until now.


This morning I received an email notice regarding a repinning of one of my pins; for now I have those emails turned on. This one happened to be about the board where I pin posts for this blog. 


I've always taken pride in the original photos and graphics that I use in my blog posts and was inspired to snap a photo of a 1964 / 1965 World’s Fair souvenir fan that I own. Included a watermark “groovyreflections.com” (one of my websites) on that photo; have been doing so mainly because of all the repinning activity on Pinterest. I don’t mind my pins traveling around the virtual world, but I want to retain acknowledgement for my photography (as good or bad as it is).


For the record, here’s what my pin looks like:

Notice the reference to my blog at the top. And this gent’s repin looks like this:

Suddenly, the link to my blog is gone and there's a "promotion" for increasing your followers with a demeaning statment and a URL (presumably his). Sigh. My guess is that this sort of practice will increase. 


Will you be able to catch doings like this? Probably not all of it, especially as activity on your account goes up. I will be shutting off the email notifications eventually and it’s likely that I won’t have time to scan all the activity every day. Clicking on all those notifications can be a drag!


Luckily, this one was caught. Not one to keep quiet; here’s what I did:


Commented directly on his repin requesting him to remove the pin, included the URL for my blog and an explanation he had removed credit for where the photo originated from. This way, others will be able to see my comment and his credibility will go down a notch (and hopefully more!).


Reported him to Pinterest. It’s easy! Directly on a pin there are several options on the right: Like, Tweet, Embed, Report, and email. Click on report and fill in the simple form.


Keep in mind that Pinterest is still a young social network. They’ve already revised their policies and there’s sure to be more changes down the road. 


Unfortunately, scammers and unscrupulous folks are here to stay. I hope that by bringing this issue to you that you’ll be just a little bit savvier. All social networks have their good and bad points, and we have to go with the flow and continue to educate ourselves.  


Steely Dan felt scammed in the 70's:

Feel free to follow me on Pinterest! Been busy there with 3 accounts:


My personal account that includes this blog, my Groovy Reflections account which also has a board with this blog, and my third one which is really my dog's endeavor where he helps other animals find forever homes.