This is a post for all submitters to every agency.
A quick search under Dale Hogan on any agency will bring up what I believe are infected files. My advise to you is if your files are infected delete them.
Not only has Dale Hogan been added to your files but every possibility that the original number given to your file as been changed. Mine was! I have been threatened by one agency for being a scare monger but this worm in the files
needs to be found and destroyed.
Every agency should make the integrity of our files there first priority unfortunately they do not, I have contacted all the main agencies except
stockxpert with this information and their files are also infected.
I know of one photographer who as been thrown off an agency for having
Dale Hogan in their keywords and it wasn't their fault.
You are welcome to use this post if you find yourself in trouble on an agency.
May I wish you seasons greetings
Peter Baxter

Is this a joke? I did a search for Dale Hogan worm and there is nothing. There is a photographer Dale Hogan so is this just to get at him?

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istock-Shutterstock-Bigstock-Mostphotos-Dreamstime-Stockxpert

I must be honest I find this all very hard to believe, if there were such a worm it would have to be a very clever one in order to select certain files and then be able to change file number on each agency, that would require it to self write itself as all agencies use different code algorithyms.

Isn't there some history behind this, I seem to recall a couple of years ago for some reason certain photographers added that name to their own files to enhance search engine ranking.

Maybe your accusations would bear some more credibility if someone else who has been affected by this was to come forward.

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Richard

I believe Dale Hogan is in no way involved in this and he is in fact a very ethical person. Whoever is doing this is using his name as a red herring. About the ability to change numbers I can assure you that mine was changed even though the site is denying it. I would like someone else involved to confirm or deny the number change. After informing the agencies about Dale Hogan I am not surprised they have removed the files. I will try Stockxpert I didn't tell them.
Pete

I have just checked stockxpert and Istockphoto Dale Hogan was still on both
however Istockphotos machine is converting the name dale to valley.
This is a very serious offense on Istockphoto and can lead to account closure
if you know any of these photographers please tell them. They will have no
idea. Pete

IS is probably converting the word dale to valley because that's what it is "hill and dale" is equivalent to "hill and valley", and few people actually use the word "dale" any longer. The keyword hogan also relates to a navaho structure (Definition of hogan - Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) and if you search that word alone you get quite a lot of images that fit the keyword (generically) - as a matter of fact, in the search I did, both keywords fit with roughly 90% of the images that were returned in the search.

In these two (IS & SXP) cases the keywords do not seem out of place.

The same search on Feature Pics brings up some of the same images that I got as a return for the search on the other two sites: FeaturePics.com - stock photography : royalty free, rights-managed photos. Buy Photos, Sell Photos.

I can't really see this as being caused by some sort of 'worm' since the keywords fit the images.

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Photography of Grace
Feature Pics
Photography Blography

Exactly! This 'worm' is at worst a bad job of cutting and pasting keywords

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My Site

True, but someone had their port deleted because of this.

So someone is placing a virus in images? And it just adds a name to the keywords? Right...



I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but this just sounds like someone got caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing, and is now trying to create a story to cover their tracks.

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openpathdesign.com Microstock - A Crash Course

That would be a good reply appart from I know of two photographers who have been thrown off sites for this problem. I have also had a private warning to keep quiet so I will be doing. Pete