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| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 |
| Legal structure | Public |
| Industry | Social media |
| Official website | pinterest.com |
Pinterest is a photo hosting service and company started by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp in December 2009. It was initially intended to function as a digital version of traditional catalogs, however it transitioned to being an image host shortly after.[1]
Consumer impact summary
User freedom: Absolute; content is rarely taken down unless mass-reported.
User privacy: Questionable; private boards can be accessed by staff.
Business model: Profits off of affiliate links and advertisements.
Market control: Dominant; overrides original sources in image searches.[2][3]
Incidents
This is a list of all consumer protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Pinterest category.
Training of AI based on user-submitted content (2025)
Further Reading: Nonconsensual scraping
In March of 2025, Pinterest updated their TOS[4] to include a new clause which states
Improve the products and services of our family of companies and offer new features. For example, using information to train, develop and improve our technology such as our machine learning models, regardless of when Pins were posted. This includes, for example, Pinterest’s body type technology, which is trained on images in Pins posted to our Services.
The vagueness of this new clause rightfully brings concern,[5] as Pinterest has been well-known to host stolen content.[6][7][8] This essentially means that the works any consumer has made can, and likely has been scraped against their request for the sake of training AI, which could train Pinterest's own AI models, or sell this content as training data to other companies that may wish to train their own AI models.
Exploitation of pinned images (circa 2012)
As content from creators are nonconsensually "pinned" to the platform, since 2012,[3] if not earlier, Pinterest claims rights inside its TOS[4][9] to
By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, *modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.
In layman's terms, this means any content uploaded to Pinterest can be freely used in any shape or form by the platform and anyone who happens to aimlessly scroll it. Connecting back to the nonconsensual posting of this content, this means that creators could and historically have had their content overridden[2] in search feeds and copyrights overridden for malicious purposes by other publishers.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ https://www.fastcompany.com/3001984/pinterest-pivot
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.dailydot.com/business/print-erest-printerest-pinterest-response/
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://discover.hubpages.com/technology/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy-preview
- ↑ Harrison, Maggie (Mar 8, 2025). "Pinterest Changes User Terms So It Can Train AI on User Data and Photos, Regardless of When They Were Posted". Futurism. Retrieved Mar 10, 2025.
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/vuns1z/people_are_stealing_my_photos_what_can_i_do/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Pinterest/comments/183gceg/help_how_do_i_report_stolen_pins/
- ↑ https://brandingforsmes.com/dealing-with-stolen-pinterest-pins-or-blog-content-a-guide-for-content-creators/
- ↑ Kalliopi Monoyios (March 19, 2012). "Pinterest's Terms of Service, Word by Terrifying Word". Scientific American. Archived from the original on May 23, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2025.