Taking Pictures Inside Stores... What Are They Afraid Of?
Posted by Greg Bulmash in SocietyWhen I was a teenager, a group from my high school was given the very cool opportunity to take a tour of Jet Propulsion Laboratories. During the tour, one of the kids pulled out a pocket camera to take a couple of snapshots. His camera was quickly confiscated and returned at the end of the tour. Now I can understand a "no photos" policy at a government research facility, but what about in the produce section at a grocery store?
A friend of mine blogged about his recent visit to Whole Foods. He found it ridiculous that they were importing snow peas from Peru when they were currently growing beautifully locally. He snapped a photo of the sign and was promptly accosted by a Whole Foods clerk who explained the no photos policy.
Huh? Wha? He can't take a picture of a sign in their store? Is the content of the sign a trade secret... that they share with any member of the general public who walks through their doors?
But then I remember about a year ago. My son was about 20 months old and he wanted to push one of those junior shopper mini-carts in a Bartell Drugs store.
It was too cute. I had to take a photo. I did. I was then quickly informed that photo taking inside the store was against store policy. They didn't try to confiscate my camera or try to look at what I'd shot to make sure that I wasn't going to be walking out with valuable Bartell Drugs secrets. Still although it seemed a bit of an overreaction, I could sort of understand it because they're a pharmacy (that sells lightbulbs, frying pans, and geranium seeds), and there might be patient privacy issues.
But in a grocery store? Uh-oh, someone caught a dyed-in-the-wool Republican buying organic food! The local vegetarian is buying meat! The community will never be the same! Oh, the horror, the horror.
I'm not buying it, but it's not limited to Whole Foods and Bartell Drugs. This article at The Consumerist discusses how to take photos in a store without getting caught, because so many stores prohibit it.
Although the store has the right to refuse service to anyone, it is for all intents and purposes a public place when it comes to a person's expectations of privacy. In fact, aside from dressing rooms and bathrooms, courts have ruled that one of the reasons video surveillance in stores is legal is because you don't have an expectation of privacy. If it's legal to publish photos of Britney Spears making a fool of herself in public, no one should expect that they can't be photographed thumping a melon at the market or browsing a wall of shoes at Footlocker. And since the stores are stocked with cameras anyway, it's a really thinly stretched argument that they're prohibiting photos for the privacy of their customers.
And unless you're at a book store or some place full of visual intellectual property where your photos essentially constitute a copyright violation (and a legitimate one, not one where the store is copyrighting their signs to try to use the DMCA to slience criticism - I haven't heard of it being done, but it could be), I really don't see what else they're protecting by refusing to allow you to shoot photos... unless what they're protecting is their butts.
Think about it... a lot of the incidents you read about are where someone ran up against a "no photos" policy are not "is this the one you want me to buy" or "oh, that's so cute" situations. They're "no one will believe me unless I take a photo of this stupidity" situations. And I honestly believe that's why so many of these stores try to prevent you from taking photos or get in your face if they catch you. It's not to protect other customers and it's not to protect someone's copyright. It's to keep evidence of something stupid they did from circulating around the net and becoming an embarrassment.
But with the proliferation of camera phones and pocket-sized digital cameras that actually fit in a pocket, it's getting harder and harder for stores to stop people from taking pictures inside them. And I think this is a good thing. Businesses do stupid things, and if they get away with them, they sometimes feel the freedom and security to do more and bigger stupid things.
So kudos to Daniel Gray's photo of a Whole Foods sign and all the other shoppers out there who find stupid stuff worth photographing. Your pictures help encourage retailers to be less stupid in the future. Of course, I'm not going to hold my breath while I wait for the end of retailer stupidity, but you guys are making a dent... I hope.
Entries (RSS)
Hey Greg, thanks ... great post and a fantastic photo of your son!
I have to say, I felt really weird when the produce guy told me to stop taking photos ... I had only taken one shot with my Digital Rebel ... maybe not the right camera for the job ... if I had a tiny pocket sized camera, rather than a SLR, I might not have drawn any attention.
Now I suppose I'll just have to wait for the takedown notice ...
When I worked for a large computer hardware and software retailer, we had problems with the comparison shoppers from our competitors. Twice in a one year period we caught people walking through the aisles with video cameras hidden in their shoulder bags, with a hole in the bag for the camera lens.
TofuForBrains, what's wrong with the comparison shoppers coming through your store and recording prices? It's smart business for them, and if you weren't comparison shopping them, that would have been stupid of you.
When I was a TV salesman at Circuit City in '95, we comparison shopped the competition, and they comparison shopped us. With the salesmen at Good Guys and Fry's Electronics, we had a gentleman's agreement and didn't hassle each other. We'd just give each other a nod and a wave and try not to be too obvious about it. But Best Buy always tried to be jerks about it. It didn't stop us from getting the prices. It just made us be sneakier.
And what has it done for Best Buy? They've gotten bad press almost every year because they end up mistreating some average shopper and in general, the public considers that blue Best Buy uniform shirt to be a big sign flashing "I'm an idiot."
According to an evening news show I saw once, one of the things they are trying to protect is their "Format". The layout of the merchandise. The distance between the shelves. Etc...
According to this show many of these store spend a lot of time and money researching formats that promote more sales. For example having impulse buy items near the checkout. Or having sales items just inside the door.
[...] Greg Bulmash did a good piece on this via Brain Handles. Find it here. [...]
theres a group on facebook about this
I tried to take a picture of a coupon on a product and was told that it was illegal to take a picture inside the grocery store. come on PUBLIX! I was going to send it to my friend who would have came in and bought the product! you just lost money. fools.
Carmen,
AFAICT, it's not illegal to take photos in grocery stores. You are, however, on private property, and the store can prohibit the taking of photos. If you violate that policy, the store has the legal right to ask you to leave the premises. Some stores say they prohibit the photos to protect the privacy of their customers, some say it's to protect trade secrets, some say it's to prevent copyright infringement. All-in-all, it's to cover their butts, even if half of the time the photo benefits them, because they'd rather err on the side of caution.
[...] the store and they get copied and implemented somewhere else, the business can pursue legal action. This article sums up some of my thinking, but this goes deeper for me. Later in the day I asked a barrista at a [...]
Owners of small retail establishments work very hard at selecting/creating merchandise and building elaborate displays. I speak from experience when I say that it is not their intention to anger anyone with a no photo policy, we are just trying to protect our business. Not all photo takers have the best of intentions, many are trying to copy/steal ideas. The business owner is merely trying to safeguard their ideas. Be respectful to small businesses, they are doing the best they can in an extremely cut throat business atmosphere. No photography on private property is such a small request.
I know that the author was referencing a different scenario, but I thought this viewpoint would be valuable too.
@Courtney: The opposite side of the coin is that your customers often want to send a photo of something to someone and ask "should I buy this?" or take a photo of it as a visual reminder. When you're aggressive about the no photos policy, the customers don't care that you're trying to stop some competitor from stealing your merchandising ideas. They just know that you're not being accomodating, not being helpful, and you're telling them "no".
In a world where interpersonal communication and personal reminders are increasingly visual due to the proliferation of cheap digital cameras and camera phones, people use photos to communicate and remember more things. You need to adapt to the wants and needs of the customers. If your merchandising designs are so amazing that they need to be jealously protected, give the customer some other options. Give them a photo card of the item they can take home. Put a barcode on it and have a terminal near the register where they can scan a handful of cards and send the collected photos to the e-mail address of their choice or get a custom URL with their wishlist on it.
And then you have the issue where they're taking the photo to prove you did something "not so smart" and any conflict with them is only going to help them look more heroic in exposing it while you, conversely, look less smart or more evil.
[...] Greg Bulmash did a good piece on this via Brain Handles. Find it here. [...]
"Deceptive Sales Signs in Stores" - I had to get a manager's help twice while grocery shopping last night because items came up with the wrong price (the sub rolls actually had the correct price on their wrapper, the water was just stocked wrong-a wrapped six pack that should have been individual bottles). In running back twice with the mgr. I missed watching the food getting rung up. At home I checked the receipt and found we had paid $4.89 and $3.69 for cereal we thought was $2.00. After all the sign said "General Mills Cereal 2 for $4. Back to the store I went-the cereals we bought were on the end cap-the sale cereals were side-ways next to them with the sign. The end-cap cereals had NO
PRICES on the shelves. DECEPTIVE, MISS-LEADING, SHAMEFUL. I was angry, I took a picture, "You
can't do that" the young manager said, "this is private property." Well there should be policy to prevent DELIBERATE confusion IMO. It truly is stealing. My bank is in this store, hope they let me in.
Sometimes shoppers put things back in a wrong place, often stockers don't pay attention, this was just plain trying to steal.
In the end it's private property and they have a right to have policies that prohibit picture taking regardless of your opinion. Also employees and customers should have a right not be filmed,photograph by strangers
@InTheEnd: I already made the point of it being private property. I also explained about the "expectation of privacy" legal concept and how you don't have one when you're out in public.
I never met the manager or the corporate officers behind my local Walmart. They're effectively strangers, but they're allowed to film every moment of my visit to their store from the minute I turn into their parking lot. No one going to Walmart has an expectation of privacy and legally they *don't* have a right not to be filmed or photographed by strangers. You're just defining strangers as their fellow customers, while faceless corporate entities are... what?
If you are really that considerate to your friend to show him a useful product just tell him to goole it. Normal people just don't like strangers taking photos in their working premises end of story.