Get $12 Amazon Credit for Backing Up Your Photos [YMMV]

BensonNV wrote: ↑ Just wondering with cloud photo backup.. Can Amazon, google etc have access to your pictures and can view them anytime or it’s complete privacy?

Amazon, Google, FB etc have access to your photos if you share and/or store them there. As part of the terms of service, you give them blanket permission to scan those photos for facial recognition, sell them to ”partners,” give them to the authorities, use them in ads, or for any other purpose in perpetuity (so even if you delete them and close the account.

Apple does not. Microsoft doesn’t either, as far as I know.

All these companies, Apple and MS included, will hash (not “scan”) uploaded photos and compare the hash against a database of known Child Sexual Abuse Images (CSAM). Microsoft actually invented this technology.

chasjunk wrote: ↑ Amazon, Google, FB etc have access to your photos if you share and/or store them there. As part of the terms of service, you give them blanket permission to scan those photos for facial recognition, sell them to ”partners,” give them to the authorities, use them in ads, or for any other purpose in perpetuity (so even if you delete them and close the account.

Apple does not. Microsoft doesn’t either, as far as I know.

All these companies, Apple and MS included, will hash (not “scan”) uploaded photos and compare the hash against a database of known Child Sexual Abuse Images (CSAM). Microsoft actually invented this technology.

Wow that’s crazy.

Cronos647 wrote: ↑ If I create a dummy profile on my computer with the only pictures being Evil Bezos memes, I would still get the $12 no?

It’s a target promo for people who got the email and linked to that account. So if you create a new account it won’t work. The credit goes straight to your Amazon account.

EmpressLisaSu wrote: ↑ out of all the mega corps, I feel the least need to give my photos to bald head space cowboy wannabe man child sore loser

uh. okay.

You're not "giving" your photos to them. You're using their services to backup your photos and, for that purpose, Amazon is an obvious choice since they're the leader in cloud services. They also likely have no ambitions of actually using your photos for anything since they don't have a social network or anything like that.

BensonNV wrote: ↑ Wow that’s crazy.

It's also wrong. Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. can't access your non-public photos. They're not allowed to sell them. And even if they were allowed to, they never would because that wouldn't make any business sense. These big companies don't care about YOUR photos. You're not that important. No humans working at these companies are allowed to look at your photos. These companies do use photo data in aggregation for things like ad targetting and development of image recognition AI though.

I hope the ones who are complaining about privacy and data usage dont have a smart assitants such as Google Home or Alexa in their homes. Those devices are even worse, youre essentially PAYING THEM to take your data.

coolwasabi wrote: ↑ uh. okay.

You're not "giving" your photos to them. You're using their services to backup your photos and, for that purpose, Amazon is an obvious choice since they're the leader in cloud services. They also likely have no ambitions of actually using your photos for anything since they don't have a social network or anything like that.

Not sure why my statement was taken literally but okay.

EmpressLisaSu wrote: ↑ Not sure why my statement was taken literally but okay.

I mean, this is an online messaging board. What else am I going to do with the words you typed? :P
I know hating on Jeff Bezos is in fashion right now (CEO, entrepreneur..Born in 1964... Jeffrey... Jeffrey Bezos!!) , but it's a weird take if that's the only thing that comes to your mind when you see "Amazon".

coolwasabi wrote: ↑ I mean, this is an online messaging board. What else am I going to do with the words you typed? :P
I know hating on Jeff Bezos is in fashion right now (CEO, entrepreneur..Born in 1964... Jeffrey... Jeffrey Bezos!!) , but it's a weird take if that's the only thing that comes to your mind when you see "Amazon".

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.popsci ... uit/%3famp

I think of the impediment of the progress of humanity into the space age, actually.

EmpressLisaSu wrote: ↑ I think of the impediment of the progress of humanity into the space age, actually.

Ma'am, this is a thread about Amazon Photos.

Homer001 wrote: ↑I backed up all my photos to a USB drive. Took a picture of a tree. Activated the service, uploaded the tree, got credit next day. Spent the credit, got my package and disabled auto upload and deleted app.

And then I guess you disconnected all your devices from the internet and went to the convenience store to get your newspaper which btw you paid in cash....oh but here you are, in RFD where you click a deal and has a referral on it. Irony

chasjunk wrote: ↑ Amazon, Google, FB etc have access to your photos if you share and/or store them there. As part of the terms of service, you give them blanket permission to scan those photos for facial recognition, sell them to ”partners,” give them to the authorities, use them in ads, or for any other purpose in perpetuity (so even if you delete them and close the account.

Apple does not. Microsoft doesn’t either, as far as I know.

All these companies, Apple and MS included, will hash (not “scan”) uploaded photos and compare the hash against a database of known Child Sexual Abuse Images (CSAM). Microsoft actually invented this technology.

Can you cite where Google has "blanket permission to scan those photos for facial recognition, sell them to ”partners,” give them to the authorities, use them in ads, or for any other purpose in perpetuity (so even if you delete them and close the account." Or were you just talking out of your ass? If you publish a review on Google, then their TOS does gives them the right to use it because you've made it public. As for facial recognition, you do realize that you must give Google explicit permission to scan for faces, right? And your claim that Google sells photos to "partners" is also bullshit as Google does not sell data.

Also, your claim that Apple and Microsoft do not give information/photos to authorities is also categorically bullshit as anything can be obtained with a court order.

It's a win-win.
They get their data, we get free storage.
If you have sensitive information, just don't upload it.

'Everything' you do and don't do, every link, every search, every purchase, etc... is data to someone.

ceredon wrote: ↑ Yup. When trying to train their AI, they need data inputs. The more the better. They might have to pay to acquire so much data or they can ask people to just give them them all of their data for free and convince them they are doing them the favour.

Google and Facebook do the same. No reason to expect Amazon to be different.

nbking74 wrote: ↑ It's a win-win.
They get their data, we get free storage.
If you have sensitive information, just don't upload it.

'Everything' you do and don't do, every link, every search, every purchase, etc... is data to someone.

It’s all down to personal preference. If one is ok being tracked for everything in exchange for free stuff, great. If you want to try to minimize the exposure, that’s fine too.

For photos, what turned me off was that story about the private facial recognition service that was being beta tested a couple years back. A billionaire investor was bragging about how well it worked. He’d run into his daughter at a restaurant while she was on a date. He had a waiter snap a quick pic of the date and had guys entire bio in minutes afterwards. The service uses photos from various services ( mostly Facebook I think) and then ties in as much other data it can harvest from various sources.

That’s a company that only has access to whatever public data is available. The surveillance potential for the giants that have direct access to all that personal data is immense. China does similar harvesting, analysis and application on their population. So, my personal preference is to try to minimize, where I can, how much data I choose to give way for trinkets.

Got this offer and took advantage of it. I didn’t allow access to auto backup but rather chose a handful of photos, via the iPhone settings of the Amazon photo app, of random screen grabs from my phone and still got the credit a couple days later.

luckylucass wrote: ↑ Got this offer and took advantage of it. I didn’t allow access to auto backup but rather chose a handful of photos, via the iPhone settings of the Amazon photo app, of random screen grabs from my phone and still got the credit a couple days later.

That's the way to go.. I did the same and it works!

Sorry, you are not eligible for this offer.

no love

JustinK29893 wrote: ↑I'm surprised this wasn't as popular as I expected...

If I recall this was wildly popular the first time it was offered and posted here. Most RFDers would step over their mother to save a nickel let alone get $12 of Jeff's billions

EmpressLisaSu wrote: ↑ out of all the mega corps, I feel the least need to give my photos to bald head space cowboy wannabe man child sore loser

Leave his bald head out of this!

Last I looked, it simply wasn't as smart as Google Photos, so for that reason, I dropped it.

I can't recall for sure, but I don't think it pulled location meta data, or didn't recognize people well or some such.

With Google Photos, I can search for "Chris Frank in a suit" And it'll show me all the times I played grownup and changed out of jeans.