iVillage cannot claim rights for an image just because someone inserts a link to it here. My photo is a simple link to an image which appears on another website and the iVillage TOS does not apply to it. The text of my message, on the other hand, is hosted on iVillage servers and they can do anything they want with it, or probably anything short of actually claiming they wrote it. This aspect of the internet has been tested in court in a number of different ways. There is nothing to physically stop iVillage downloading my photo and uploading it elsewhere, but that would be theft of my intellectual property and as a company which could be taken to court they couldn't afford to do that too often. There are many "dodgy" TOS statements on the web, try Yahoo for a good one that sounds OK until you read it very very carefully. They may even be necessary to the extent that, for example, iVillage wants to display advertising on a Hortiplex page where the intellectual content was created by "us" but they don't wish us to be able to have any claim on that revenue. I'm less clear on some of the possibly retospective rights that they might be trying to apply (to existing content). It seems like they are sailing pretty close to the wind on that, but they might have just enough legal wiggle room to get away with it.

Check the tomato forum. There was a discussion over there and someone listed how to get rid of the ads. I can't remember the exact post but I'll try to find it. It worked for me!! Found it- Try this: I don't know if there's some additional mozilla thing that will get rid of the ads you're still getting, but this will block them: (copied from another thread here) "The Universal Solution: (if you have a PC) This will work on Windows systems for all browsers; IE, FireFox and Netscape. The Windows operating system provides a system-level method to block specific IP addresses before they even get to the browser. To effect this solution you need to edit a Windows system file called "HOSTS". This file is located in the directory: Windows XP: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 2K: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 98: C:\WINDOWS Open the file in Notepad. Cut the following from this post and paste it to the end of the file. 127.0.0.1 amch.questionmarket.com 127.0.0.1 a820.g.akamai.net 127.0.0.1 iv.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 i.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 m.2mdn.net 127.0.0.1 tste.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com 127.0.0.1 ads.vmirror.com 127.0.0.1 cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com 127.0.0.1 ads.pointroll.com 127.0.0.1 xml.ivillage.overture.com 127.0.0.1 cmls.overture.com 127.0.0.1 cm.ivillage.overture.com Close and re-open your browser and all the ads will be gone. Unfortunately, iVillage may in the future buy ads from a new source. In this event the new ad source will have to be added to the list. " o

Please do not abuse it.Every one enjoy the forumn as it is intended to be used. A garden Friend Louisiana girl

Hello Spike; I know I have not been paying as much attention as I used to but I think this is still run by Spike and fortunately it appears that it is no longer strictly a labor of love but might even be a career. Let us know if you are still out there Spike!! Yes, I also want to thank you for all you have done over the years and I would encourage anyone who reads this to at least become a contributing member. The cost is minimal and I believe it kept this alive at least for a short time. Merry Christmas to all. diene