I've taken my third close look at it (see the original Fotolia thread). First time around I clicked on the Fotolia link and found it went to the site owner's gallery, Michel Piccaya. Second time I noticed that the images belonged to other members, so I dropped the issue. This time though I noticed that every single one of the images has his Partner ID attached, which means that he will receive a referral bonus for every image sold through his site.
Pretty clever way of digging up referral income, if you ask me, but I have a serious problem with it. Why? Because he's making money by using individual photos...yours, mine, all of ours...not just Fotolia itself...and he's getting buyer referrals from OUR photos, not just his own. It reminds me of those old spam letters with a guy's link to SS that claimed he made $30K a year.
I can't believe how dumb the folks are on Fotolia's board. This isn't something to get excited about by any means! Guess I'll post what I just wrote here and see if I can wake them up.
I'm also really surprised that Fotolia hasn't done something about it. I can't begin to imagine they think this is okay. Oh...that's right...we're talking about Fotolia here.
