Consumers Can Be Stuck When Web Sites Change Terms

DEBORAH YAO

NEW YORK (AP) — A recent e-mail from Eastman Kodak Co. didn't lead to a Kodak moment for Vanessa Daniele. It got her angry.

On May 16, the company's Kodak Gallery online photo service will delete her picture albums unless she spends at least $4.99 by then and every year thereafter on prints and other products.

That's the new rule for people whose photos take up less than 2 gigabytes of space on Kodak's servers — enough for around 2,000 1-megabyte photos. People over that limit must spend at least $19.99 a year. And customers who signed up under the old rules won't be given a pass.

"I don't ever think it's a good idea to change terms of service on customers after they've signed up, and demand a new storage fee or threaten deletion of photos," said Daniele, 26, who lives in Chicago. "That action doesn't value the customer or attract new ones."

Kodak Gallery, once known as Ofoto, said it wants to focus on its best customers, not folks who merely want to take advantage of free picture storage. And its new rules are hardly unusual in the online photo business.