Thousands of listings from online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are now filled with unsightly error images by Photobucket after the photo hosting site quietly introduced a $399 annual fee to users who want to embed images on third party websites. Users are now accusing Photobucket of extortion, as the service failed to make the update to its terms of service abundantly clear.

Users are accusing Photobucket of extortion

It all began last week when Photobucket announced in a short blog post that it had updated its terms of service that had begun taking effect from June 20th. Nowhere in the blog post did Photobucket highlight the most important change, which was that it will now cost uploaders $400 a year to insert their photos on another website using direct image links.

Photobucket, which launched in 2003, was previously free for all users to upload and embed images all over the web. It was a popular image hosting service of choice for early 2000s bloggers (think Xanga and LiveJournal) until the likes of Facebook and Instagram came along. Since then, it remained widely used by small businesses selling items through online marketplaces, offering 2GB of storage for free or $100 a year for 102GB of storage (the most popular paid plan, according to the service). The update to Photobucket’s ToS, however, means users are forced to upgrade to the most premium tier if they wish to hotlink.

You can imagine, then, the outrage that ensued. It appears some users can’t even download their own photos out of their Photobucket accounts without upgrading.

you are a DISGUSTING company @photobucket this is 100% blackmail. I have years of blog content on your platform, now forcing to pay 400/year — Julia (@Contour_Affair) June 27, 2017

A little heads up with time to get my photos out of your site would have been appreciated. And $400 a year is ridiculous. — Elena LaVictoire (@mrsL) July 1, 2017

And I can't even download my own damn images?! Are they being ransomed? This is fucking ridiculous!! — Miz Erie (@Temp0raryW0unds) June 29, 2017

@photobucket is literally holding my pics for a $400 ransom! Keep 'em! pic.twitter.com/G6p67cNi8w — Erica Bunker (@EricaBunker) June 27, 2017

Photobucket’s response so far has been a short acknowledgement on Twitter, with no apology to be seen.

⚠️ Thank you for all of the recent feedback and questions. We are trying our best to respond quickly and thank you for your patience :) — Photobucket (@photobucket) July 1, 2017

Sigh. It’s like Angelfire all over again.