If they were smart, they'd replace the hotlink to the image with a link to their main website. Not a link to this "Oh no, you shouldn't have done that!" message. They have a right to protect their bandwidth usage. But doing it in this manner is a turn-off to potential customers. Myself included. Just turn hotlinks into links to the main website, it's very easy to do.

Well it looks like they fixed the link. The image in the OP's post now shows the proper product.

Well I guess I spoke too soon, the image is back to the original...

You do realize this probably means someone at tops that should be working is surfing the ETS site instead.....

The warning message costs them bandwidth too. Judging from the comments here, it costs them customers too.

They should embed their website link into the picture and write off the excess bandwidth to advertising.

If I were a retailer selling survival gear, I would be delighted to have a product linked to this forum by a happy customer. If I was the owner of Tops, I would be mortified by what is happening on this thread.

This is an example of Penny Wise, Pound Foolish.

Wow, sorry everyone; I didn't realize the hotlink would be a problem, I just wanted to showcase what I thought was an interesting idea. I've removed the hotlink to the image, but it showed up just fine the whole time on my browser.

Anywho, like many gear items that fit in a pocket or on your neck this mirror wouldn't be my first choice if I had to choose just one, but if it works decently and is always on my person then I think it would be OK. I put one of the Adventure Medical Kits signal mirrors in my wallet and it was way too thick.

Oh, I understand the too thick part about the mirrors quite well.
The ones I have are definitely pack carry items, not wallet or pocket.
I even hesitate about the glass ones when I weigh them against the Star Flash ones just because of the weight.

I would likely get two of these tag ones and see if I could signal between me and somebody else from a decent distance away.
If it works great, if not then why carry it.
Either way you are not out much by checking them out, and if they work you have a small piece of gear.

I was going to jump in here and give my great speech about copyrighted images. But then I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Since I am involved with TOPS, half of you would think that is my reasoning and not that I am a professional photographer. It is also common sense that some of you will love the TOPS products and some will not. My making a post in defense of them isn't going to change a thing. I will say that if you discount a companies product just because you can't an image off of their site, I'm not going to worry about it.
For those who are interested, the dog tag signal mirror is a nifty little item. I wish I could take credit for it but I didn't have a thing to do with it. A larger mirror will work better but for it's size it will surprise you. The idea is to always have one with you and if it is around your neck the chances of you leaving it behind are slim. The only testing I have done was at about 100 yds. I wanted to take a photo of it shining and at that distance, it totally faked out the auto function on my camera. (I should have known better than to shoot anything on auto)

Hi Terrill, and thanks for the update.

I wasn't really bothered by it. How you do things is up to you. What happened here was a fair use of the image by one of us got blocked because of other people who have abused access to your images.


I am still wondering a bit why you guys do not Put a link to Your pages on the image which you do post (your logo) that warns about the blocked image being a hot link?

After reading your company's answer to Big Daddy TX I think I see a possible reason in that you don't want a link on a cheap hijacker's page at all.
If that is a correct guess then you can hardly be blamed for that. I would likely do just the same now that the problem with Discounters has been explained and I have thought about it for a moment.

As noted, you didn't block the actual link to your page, just the image.

Sheesh, good thing for you I am a nice guy, you left a great opening there.
See you at PWYP in April
Stu

Sorry; I did a lousy job explaining what I was trying to say. Hotlinking is putting a tag into a web page (like the OP did) that causes an image to be displayed in your browser. The link in "hotlinking" is telling the website where to pull the image file from. In this case, it is not coming from the ETS webservers, nor the computer of the OP. It was coming directly from the tops website. Thus my comment on bandwidth. Also valid is the point in the email that tops sent on the matter, which is their image being used to bait-and-switch a knockoff product elsewhere.

Linking to their site, that is putting text or an image that links back to them, is quite OK and they like that stuff. When someone hotlinks an image, hosted on their server, on a website not under their control, they cannot create or change any clickable link to go to their site, or anywhere else. All they have the power to do is change the image (which is still being called by the outside website) to inform viewers that the image being posted is coming from their site. The admonishment is directed at the poster/webmaster that has inappropriately hotlinked their image; not at the viewer.

Sorry for the confusion, tech-speak, and long-windedness. I'm just trying to clarify the matter from an uninterested third-party perspective. And I'm still not sure if I've done it well...