Update on the "creeps"....

After my last blog post, I am happy to announce that I haven't had any traffic from Brazil on my website or blog since last Wednesday.   My curiousity lead me to research if this has happened to other photographers/mom's.   Apparently, this happens A LOT....  So much so, that there was a group on Flickr to complain, resolve, and just find more information about these strange messages. 

Basically, these are kids taking photos to create fake profiles on what used to be Orkut (Google's version of MySpace before it got huge).....but I think they're using something else now.  It has become a popular game amongst children in Brazil to try to create as many profiles as you can.  A profile gets full when it reaches 1.000 friends.....and of course, the more "friends" you have, the cooler you are.  They keep taking photos to update their "scraps"....the more "scraps" you share, the better.  They all know they are fake profiles, and try to steal from each other.  To them, it's all just a harmless game......

I have not found my fake profile yet, but luckily put so much on private, that they were unable to get much more.  I have deleted the Flickr account and am confident this will stop any more unwanted traffic.  Regardless if they feel it's "harmless", these are still MY images of MY kids.  It's really frustrating for me, because I do love to share my photography, and I have a lot of my favorite images are of my family.  The business side of me wants to say screw it and continue to post as I was before, but the mother side of me wants to protect my children in every way possible.....even from 'harmless' games.

It seems they already have forgotten about me and moved on to the next photographer.  Let's hope they stay away....