Webshots Photos Deleted and Smile Account

[nigelpugh7]

Hey Guys,

I previously had a webshots account that I used for sharing my photos of my cars and builds etc.

However I have not used it for ever, and i have only just found out that webshots has gone and is now replaced by smile.

My problem with this, is that I got no notification of the webshots account being closed, I checked my email accounts, and all of the spam boxes too, but there was no email notification stating the account would be closed and my files deleted.

I know I may have started only had a free account, but I do also think I had a pro webshots account, but I dont recall if I paid for it or not.

My question is really, was it reasonable of them to delete my files with notification, and then if possible can I get the photos back some how.

Thanks in advance.

Nigel.

[Brian_M]

No-one got any notification unless you happened to go to their Desktop in the month or so before they closed down Webshots!
I was lucky and got all my pictures downloaded in time, but many didn't. There was a period before ??December?? when you could still see your pictures but I think that now they have all gone.
There are several groups on Facebook, "Smile by Webshots Sucks" is one of the active ones and there is talk of class legal actions where refunds have not been made and there are also copyright issues.
I am now working through old posts on several forums, replacing the photo links to my new hosting service.

[mmm-five]

Surely no-one would trust their only copy of a prized photo collection to an online service - you both must have had local copies, as it's not like local storage is expensive (e.g. a 2TB HDD can be got for £50 and can hold about 200,000 10MB photos).

[nigelpugh7]

mmm-five said:

Surely no-one would trust their only copy of a prized photo collection to an online service - you both must have had local copies, as it's not like local storage is expensive (e.g. a 2TB HDD can be got for £50 and can hold about 200,000 10MB photos).

Thanks and no I dont have just one copy, they are stored on my MBP Harddisk, and then copied across to my 4TB NAS drive on the home network.

The PITA was not recalling what I had uploaded, and how many sites I had linked to the webshots site!!

I am sure I will work it out in the end!!

[mmm-five]

nigelpugh7 said:

Thanks and no I dont have just one copy, they are stored on my MBP Harddisk, and then copied across to my 4TB NAS drive on the home network.

The PITA was not recalling what I had uploaded, and how many sites I had linked to the webshots site!!

I am sure I will work it out in the end!!

Does sound like a right PITA - good luck!

[Pvapour]

had the same problem & had to renew all the links on our thread 'our build'

luckily a had catalogued them as I'd uploaded them, still 1100 links and 2 weeks work though

good luck with it!

[nigelpugh7]

Pvapour said:

had the same problem & had to renew all the links on our thread 'our build'

luckily a had catalogued them as I'd uploaded them, still 1100 links and 2 weeks work though

good luck with it!

Thanks for that, I suppose we can all learn that you dont get something for nothing these days.

My challenge will be the 1000+ photos of my previous R500 Build.

Perhaps now is the time to finally finish the website that i have purchased the domain for!!

[Brian_M]

My webshots were a public library of Classic Safari Caravan photos that I run a forum for. I had them all on my hd and off site back-ups.

But from Webshots being a free service for everyone, Smile wanted to charge anyone £15.00 a year to subscribe to look at MY pictures, even if I subscribed myself.

My website items achieved 250000 "views" and so I would have thought had a small value for advertisers.

I accept it was a free service that could be withdrawn at any time, but more notice would have been appreciated.

[nigelpugh7]

Brian_M said:

My webshots were a public library of Classic Safari Caravan photos that I run a forum for. I had them all on my hd and off site back-ups.

But from Webshots being a free service for everyone, Smile wanted to charge anyone £15.00 a year to subscribe to look at MY pictures, even if I subscribed myself.

My website items achieved 250000 "views" and so I would have thought had a small value for advertisers.

I accept it was a free service that could be withdrawn at any time, but more notice would have been appreciated.

I agree, I think they are missing a trick, I had 10's of thousands of views too, and many people who contacted me around the world to ask if it was ok to share the pictures and link to many other people too.

My main gripe was just the fact that no email notification was sent to me, at least if it was I never found it, and did not see it I. Spam filter either!