Hello,
As a local guide, can you tell me who views your photos? I have a photo with over 1 million views, and it’s not particularly great. I suspect someone might be using it on their website. Can I get attribution for my images, or do I lose my rights since I posted them as a local guide? I will need to reread the Terms and Conditions.
Thank you!
I found this, but it doesn’t completely answer my question.
If your subjective content—such as a review, media, or place question or answer—is posted, it shows publicly and is attributed to you. Attribution may include:
If your Google Account is restricted from posting reviews or media, your content may be removed from public view.
Hello @hkmotte
Welcome to local guides connect forum is the starting comment from me and thank you for your contributions as a local guide. May I quickly present you with A welcome to connect card it’s a way of quickly giving you a brief orientation of the forum. Hope you’ll like and it as it may be of help.
That said it is not possible to view who and who gave you a thumbs up or who viewed your photos and contributions on the maps. I wish there was a way of viewing that too. Nevertheless feel free to propose that as an idea on the “How to section” of connect.
The next is your copy right thing,I don’t think you lose your copyright really. Although Google reserves the right to use it on their sites and product etc. I think it’s part of the agreement we signed as local guides with the team. If you feel or notice someone is using your photos/contributions wrongly please kindly report the profile or local guide as appropriate.
Happy guiding
Cheers
Hi @hkmotte . First of all welcome to Connect, and congratulations for your views.
There are several reasons for a specific photo to receive a lot of views. The most important are related to the ranking inside the listing and the popularity of the listing itself.
Your photo is featured, and it is immediately visible (in third position) for everyone who visit the business Listing in Google Maps. As the photo was captured on July 2021 we can say that approximately 600 thousands people every year visit the Winery on Maps.
Regarding copyright and photo attribution, laws are different from country to country, but as you think that you may get views because someone is watching your photos in some other website, let’s consider this situation, by analyzing it step by step:
Use on other website: “I suspect someone might be using it on their website”. This is possible, but if they are doing it and you get views from there it means that they are doing this in the correct way: through an API that is showing your photo including the attributions. What I mean is that they view the photo that you posted in Google Maps, not a stolen copy of the photo. That kind of use is permitted, and it is part of the authorization we give to Google. For more details you can read How your content is used : “Content you submit may show on and be used across Google services, including Maps, Search, and YouTube. Content may also show on third–party sites that use Google-embeddable widgets or the Google Maps Platform API. If you do not want to share your experience, imagery, video, or the location at which the imagery or video was taken, do not publish it with Google services.”
So, dont worry about getting views.
Does the Local Guide rules allow me to attach an URL to my website? I’m in the process of creating a local information website for my town.
Hi @hkmotte
The answer is no, as it would be considered self promotion (spam)
