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Pinterest is the absolute worst. They're basically plargists at this point. I really don't like rehosters.

nullc 8y ago
I've just blocked them on my host... too many times have I fallen down a well of trying to find the origin of some image there. It's just not worth it.
- nightfly 8y ago
  I've had the same problem... It's super frustrating because sometimes an image on Pinterest is _exactly_ what you're looking for, but you need the related context to actually use it...
  - armagon 8y ago
    TinEye reverse image search is fairly useful in this scenario. Go to https://tineye.com/ https://tineye.com/ , upload an image (or paste in a URL), and it'll show you other copies of that image all over the internet. This doesn't always help you get to the bottom of things, but it is a next step to take.
    - nullc 8y ago
      I've never had that work for a Pinterest image that was giving me trouble.
l33tbro 8y ago
I don't understand how they haven't been penalized.
- Jerry2 8y ago
  They probably have some kind of a deal with Google. Same kind of a deal that LinkedIn has with Google... you can't view most of the LinkedIn profile pages that Google indexes without being logged in. If I served a different page to Google's search bot from pages that everyone else can see, I'd be banned from Google's index. But these big companies have special rules...
  - JonathanMerklin 8y ago
    Currently I'm not near my computer to verify myself (I am on my phone, before bed), but can you get into walled-but-indexed LinkedIn/Pinterest content with "Googlebot" UA spoofing? I'd want to assume that their systems are more advanced than that (or if they're really in cahoots, maybe Google crawls them with a unique, secret bot UA to prevent this sort of thing), but I just got done with another thread where an ex-Tumblr dev said all user content was in a single S3 bucket without MFA delete so my gut feeling is lending a bit more weight to the "everything is held together with rubber bands and duct tape and it's only a matter of time before the jig is up" parameter than the "large, powerful companies tend to hire smart people that communicate and design robust systems effectively" one.
    - oarsinsync 8y ago
      Based on my experience in the nautical industry, where most things were quite literally held together using velcro, metaphorical rubber bands and duct tape seems quite likely for relatively younger web industries.
- dageshi 8y ago
  You might look at pinterest as a giant image classification system, essentially adding more meta data to images for free. That's perhaps the kind of thing google would find quite useful.
  - buboard 8y ago
    at this point neural classifiers outperform humans
    - dageshi 8y ago
      I'm assuming those classifiers have to be trained on something in the first place?
      - buboard 8y ago
        sure but its not like there is a lack of huge image datasets
fredguth 8y ago
Why is Pinterest plagiarist and Google is not? From your text it seems that Google owned that images in the first place.
- jackyinger 8y ago
  The distinction is that Google (usually) is a useful tool; you can get to the source of the image from it. It’s less about plagiarism, more about a dead end vs. a stepping stone.
  - danpalmer 8y ago
    Is Pinterest not a useful tool? I would say that it probably generates a lot of value for its hundreds of millions of users, and that value does not come from the source of the image, but of the image itself, and its relation to other similar images.
    - thatoneuser 8y ago
      It's not one bit useful for people busy searching an image that they SEO their way above other images, only to be met with a login wall I'm not gonna fill out.
    - dazc 8y ago
      Pinterest is useful for the purpose you describe but what seems to have happened is they are dominating organic search for images in contravention of google's own guidelines. All things being equal, Pinterest should have been penalised into non-existence by now?

I've just blocked them on my host... too many times have I fallen down a well of trying to find the origin of some image there. It's just not worth it.

nightfly 8y ago
I've had the same problem... It's super frustrating because sometimes an image on Pinterest is _exactly_ what you're looking for, but you need the related context to actually use it...
- armagon 8y ago
  TinEye reverse image search is fairly useful in this scenario. Go to https://tineye.com/ https://tineye.com/ , upload an image (or paste in a URL), and it'll show you other copies of that image all over the internet. This doesn't always help you get to the bottom of things, but it is a next step to take.
  - nullc 8y ago
    I've never had that work for a Pinterest image that was giving me trouble.

l33tbro 8y ago

I don't understand how they haven't been penalized.

Jerry2 8y ago
They probably have some kind of a deal with Google. Same kind of a deal that LinkedIn has with Google... you can't view most of the LinkedIn profile pages that Google indexes without being logged in. If I served a different page to Google's search bot from pages that everyone else can see, I'd be banned from Google's index. But these big companies have special rules...
- JonathanMerklin 8y ago
  Currently I'm not near my computer to verify myself (I am on my phone, before bed), but can you get into walled-but-indexed LinkedIn/Pinterest content with "Googlebot" UA spoofing? I'd want to assume that their systems are more advanced than that (or if they're really in cahoots, maybe Google crawls them with a unique, secret bot UA to prevent this sort of thing), but I just got done with another thread where an ex-Tumblr dev said all user content was in a single S3 bucket without MFA delete so my gut feeling is lending a bit more weight to the "everything is held together with rubber bands and duct tape and it's only a matter of time before the jig is up" parameter than the "large, powerful companies tend to hire smart people that communicate and design robust systems effectively" one.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    Based on my experience in the nautical industry, where most things were quite literally held together using velcro, metaphorical rubber bands and duct tape seems quite likely for relatively younger web industries.
dageshi 8y ago
You might look at pinterest as a giant image classification system, essentially adding more meta data to images for free. That's perhaps the kind of thing google would find quite useful.
- buboard 8y ago
  at this point neural classifiers outperform humans
  - dageshi 8y ago
    I'm assuming those classifiers have to be trained on something in the first place?
    - buboard 8y ago
      sure but its not like there is a lack of huge image datasets

fredguth 8y ago

Why is Pinterest plagiarist and Google is not? From your text it seems that Google owned that images in the first place.

jackyinger 8y ago
The distinction is that Google (usually) is a useful tool; you can get to the source of the image from it. It’s less about plagiarism, more about a dead end vs. a stepping stone.
- danpalmer 8y ago
  Is Pinterest not a useful tool? I would say that it probably generates a lot of value for its hundreds of millions of users, and that value does not come from the source of the image, but of the image itself, and its relation to other similar images.
  - thatoneuser 8y ago
    It's not one bit useful for people busy searching an image that they SEO their way above other images, only to be met with a login wall I'm not gonna fill out.
  - dazc 8y ago
    Pinterest is useful for the purpose you describe but what seems to have happened is they are dominating organic search for images in contravention of google's own guidelines. All things being equal, Pinterest should have been penalised into non-existence by now?