Photobucket and Picasa: totalitarian state and evil empire

I generally upload photos to Photobucket, which is my default FTP site. I have an account that allows me unlimited storage, for which I pay a medium-sized fee every two years (I've been on Photobucket since about 2004 or 2005). Unfortunately, the vile, scum-sucking henchmen who uphold the Photobucket Terms of Service don't look kindly on some of the visual content I upload to their site.

Today, for example, I saw that my Doctor Octopus photo (see below) had been blocked, and that the dreaded "This image violates our terms of service" icon was in its place. When that happens, I normally do an end run by re-uploading the photo to my Picasa FTP space, so that's what I did for Doc Ock. Picasa is owned by Google, and Google lost its morals right around the time it decided to collude with China in reinforcing the Great Firewall, so I know that Google will tolerate my naughtiness the way a bad uncle tolerates his nephew's drug habits. Unfortunately, Picasa's storage space is limited, so I don't do this sort of thing unless I have to. (People tell me that all I need to do to get more free storage space is to create more Gmail accounts. That's true, but it's a royal pain in the ass.)

So both Photobucket and Google/Picasa are evil, each in its own way. Photobucket is the repressive nanny state, looking out for our best interests because it assumes we aren't smart enough to do so for ourselves. Google, meanwhile, preaches "don't be evil" while rationing bandwidth and helping foreign governments fuck their own people over. Take your pick; you get reamed either way. I'm sure George Carlin had something to say about this...


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