Category: General Support

When a person or organization posts pictures indiscriminately across dozens or even hundreds of newsgroups, it is called spam. Both individuals and commercial entities are guilty of generating spam. Posters may upload the same picture using different names and different descriptions over and over again to many different groups. Sometimes an individual picture will appear hundreds of times. Spam is unwelcome because it wastes bandwidth and because file descriptions often don’t match the file contents and are therefore deceptive.

Inappropriate posts range from posting pictures of adult pictures in general interest groups to posting pictures or messages deliberately intended to spark controversy (also called trolling) such as stating that XYZ computers are better than ABC computers.

Illegal postings are those which are in clear violation of the law (see Reporting Illegal Material).

We do not condone any of the material described above. However, we understand that laws vary widely from one geographical location to another. It is therefore incumbent upon each member to conduct themselves according to the laws to which they are subject to in their respective locations. At PictureView and Interactive Classifieds Network Corporation we are very careful to obey all laws in our jurisdiction and cannot be held responsible for the conduct or actions of our members.

Related Links:

• Reporting Illegal Material
• What is the Usenet?

NOTE: To avoid delays in the activation of your PictureView account, please read these instructions in their entirety. If you have any questions, please contact us.

If you do not wish to use a credit card, we also accept payment by check or money order.

Check and money order payments must be sent by mail. Our address is:

Interactive Classifieds Network Corporation
1592 Union Street, Suite 357
San Francisco, CA 94123-4505

The rate is $12.95 per month, or $155.40 per year (you can pay for as many months as you wish, but the minimum payment is $12.95).

Payment must be made in United States dollars, payable to either PictureView or Interactive Classifieds Network Corporation.

You will need to Sign Up for PictureView (this process is required) and type “Sending Check” where it asks for your credit card number (see example below). Select any card under Payment Type and any expiration date to pass the initial screening. Your account will be automatically declined, but this process allows you to create an account and reserve a Username and Password of your choosing.

Sending Check Sign Up Example

After you have created your account, mail your payment to the address above, making sure to include your name, PictureView Username, and e-mail address with your payment.

Will will activate your account on the same day that we receive your payment. We will send you an e-mail on the day your account is activated and indicate the date your account will expire.

Approximately 10 days before your account is due to expire, we will e-mail you a courtesy message reminding you to send another payment if you wish to continue your service.

Again, if you have any questions, please contact us.

Related Links:

• Privacy Policy
• Signing Up for PictureView Membership

If there is a group that you would like to see added to the PictureView service, please let us know (please be sure to include the exact name of the group).

If we are able to add the group, it should become available approximately 10 days after the submission of your request.

Related Links:

• PictureView Group List

If you find any child pornography or any other type of illegal material in any of the newsgroups, please report the specific file and location to us using the File Report Form. We are actively working to keep illegal material out of PictureView, and we need your help to keep PictureView safe for our law-abiding, adult members and guests.

As an automated service, PictureView does not post or create any content. At the same time, we have a firm policy concerning material which is considered to be illegal in our jurisdiction. Please read our policy carefully. If your request to remove material is consistent with our policy, please complete our File Report Form.

Please understand that while we do not moderate or edit any of the newsgroups carried on our service, we believe we are required by law to remove specific types of files when they are pointed out to us.

This is how the procedure works:

1. Our daily downloads are added to the PictureView service without any moderation, editing, or censorship.
2. If a member sends us a note identifying a specific file in a specific group on a specific day and page, we visit the page and review the file.
3. If indeed the file is child pornography (as currently defined under U.S. federal statutes), we remove the file. Our current understanding of U.S. federal law is that we must remove these files as we are notified of them, and any other behavior would put the PictureView service at risk of prosecution by law enforcement authorities. In addition, we have never intended, nor do we intend to be a source of illegal or forbidden material. We are doing everything we can to remain well within the limits of the law in our jurisdiction, which is not only in our best interests, but in the best interests of the vast majority of our customers who would not like to see our site shut down and our servers confiscated by law enforcement agencies.

We believe in freedom of speech and are members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but believe that a position supporting the exploitation of children in the form of child pornography is indefensible.

If a link on this page needs to be changed or updated, please send us a message.

Related Links:

• File Report Form
• Spam and Other Inappropriate Material

The PictureView service employs the use of several cookies. The PictureView service does not use cookies (or any other means) to gather information about you or to track your usage of the service.

1. The Personal Group List (PGL) cookie is stored on your hard drive and contains a list of your favorite groups. Rather than access the full index including hundreds to thousands of groups, you may find it useful to create and access a Personal Group List of your ten favorite groups instead. NOTE: The new version of PictureView allows you to save your list to our server (using the Save PGL to server link) and then load it (using the Load PGL from server link) in case your PGL cookie is ever deleted, corrupted, or damaged.
2. Temporary security cookies, created by the service after you log in, are used to ensure that only one Username and Password combination is being used at any given time. Unlike PGL cookies, security cookies are not persistent; sometimes called per-session cookies, they are temporarily stored in your computer’s memory–not on your hard drive–as you access the service, and are deleted after you close your browser.
3. Temporary referrer cookies are used to determine the sites where visitors to the service originated in order to learn how members are hearing about PictureView.

NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with cookie files, please refer to the help file included with your browser software before making changes to your cookie settings.

If you would like to clear your PictureView cookies, click here.

Related Links:

• Personal Group List

The Personal Group List feature allows you to access a customized subset of the Complete Group Index. Rather than access the full index of hundreds to thousands of groups, you may find it useful to create and access a Personal Group List of your ten favorite groups instead.

The Personal Group List is stored locally, on your computer–not on any PictureView server–as a cookie file (see below for instructions on how to save your PGL to a PictureView server). As a result, in order to take advantage of the Personal Group List feature, you must have cookies enabled in the browser software that you use (e.g., Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, etc.) and any anti-virus, firewall, or security software that you use must allow for the Personal Group List cookie.

Creating and Saving Your PGL in the New Version

To see a short, informal video on how to create a Personal Group List, please click the link below (requires QuickTime). If you want to see an explanatory video of a certain subject or feature, please let us know.

You now have the option of saving your Personal Group List to our server (using the Save PGL to server link) and then load it (using the Load PGL from server link) in case your PGL cookie is ever deleted, corrupted, or damaged.

To create a PGL, you will need to select your groups. Groups can be added from the Complete Group Index by clicking on the checkboxes in the PGL column adjacent to the desired groups. (Groups can also be added from a thumbnail page using the Add this Group link in the PV2 style or the Add this group to Personal Group List link in the Classic style.)

Adding Groups to Your Personal Group List

Before you save your PGL to our server, be sure to review it first by clicking on the Personal Group List link from the Complete Group Index (after selecting groups for the first time you will need to refresh the current page or click the Personal Group List link in order for the Save PGL to Server link to appear). Once you are satisfied, click the Save PGL to server link.

Saving Groups to Your Personal Group List

Again, cookies must be enabled in order for the PGL feature to function.

Related Links:

• Complete Group Index
• PictureView Cookies

The vast majority of files available through the PictureView service are free of viruses and spyware; however, since PictureView is an automated service, it is possible for a dangerous file to appear in a group. To avoid dangerous files there are a few simple, common sense steps you can take.

If you restrict your viewing to images and videos that have a clear and discernable thumbnail, you should never have a problem.

Beware of files that do not actually end with a valid extension: one_hot_butt.avi is safe, while one_hot_butt.avi.scr is not.

If you attempt to play a movie file and are prompted to install additional software in order to play the file, we recommend that you cancel the installation, close your multimedia player, and delete the movie file (see Rights Required to Play Video).

NOTE: Some video files do require the correct codec in order to play properly. To install a codec we recommend that you download it from the source (e.g., get the DivX codec from http://www.divx.com/)

We recommend that you never download a file that does not possess a valid image extension (e.g., .JPEG, .JPG) or movie extension. Files ending with .SCR and .ZIP should be avoided (.ZIP files that are created by the PictureView service after you click one of the Get buttons are OK). Executable files (i.e., files ending in .EXE) should never be accessed.

If you are in the habit of downloading large batches of files as a single zip file, be sure to delete all non-image and non-movie files that are included in any batch.

Lastly, since you are online, we strongly recommend that you install current anti-virus, firewall, and adware software and be sure to take advantage of any available updates.

Related Links:

• Codecs and Multimedia Files
• Miscellaneous Files (PAR, RAR, 001, etc.)
• Pop-Ups, AdWare, and SpyWare
• Rights Required to Play Video
• Zip Files and the PictureView Service

The PictureView Complete Group Index displays a table containing a list of all of the usenet newsgroups carried by the PictureView service. The complete index also provides a search box and links to the Advanced Search feature, Personal Group List, and the Category Index.

Clicking on a group will display the first page of thumbnails for the most recently updated day of that group (however, if the groups are sorted by popularity, either by Most Pictures Viewed or Most Pages Viewed, clicking on a group will display the most popular day).

By default the groups are listed in alphabetical order. However, you can sort the order of the groups by clicking on the different labels at the top of the table (i.e., the row with the green highlight). In addition you can use the index to add groups to or remove groups from your Personal Group List.

Following the image below are descriptions of each element on the Complete Group Index.

PictureView Complete Group Index

Save PGL to Server

Use this link to save your currently displayed Personal Group List to our server. Please note that this link will not appear if you no PGL currently exists (either because one was never created or your PGL cookie has been deleted). In such cases, you will need to refresh the page in order for this link to appear.

Load PGL from Server

Use this link to load your Personal Group List from our server. Use this option if your PGL cookie has been deleted or corrupted in some way.

Save Page Prefs/Load Page Prefs

These options will be implemented in the future.

PGL (Personal Group List) Column

The Personal Group List is an index that you create. The Personal Group List is stored locally, on your hard drive as a cookie file, therefore your browser software (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) must be set to accept cookies in order for the Personal Group List feature to function.

Clicking a checkbox under the PGL column will add the adjacent group to your Personal Group List. Click again to remove the group. Please note that when adding groups for the first time, you will need to refresh the page for the Save PGL to Server link to appear.

Group Name Column

Clicking the Group Name link will sort the list of groups alphabetically (0-9 then A to Z).

Top Column

Groups with a significant number of files posted will have a WM in this column. Clicking on the W will display an index showing the 50 most popular for the group in the last week. Clicking on the M will display an index of the 50 most popular files in the last month.

Total Files Column

Clicking the Total Files link will sort the list of groups according the total number of files (i.e., image, video, and miscellaneous files) posted to each group, with the most populated group at the top.

Pics Total Column

Clicking the Pics Total link will sort the list of groups according the total number of pictures (e.g., bmp, gif, jpg, jpeg, png, and tif files) posted to each group, with the most populated group at the top.

New Pics Column

Clicking the New Pics link will sort the list of groups according the most recent update and then the number of pictures that were posted, with the group that was most recently updated and with the most pictures posted during the update listed at the top (thus it is technically possible for a group with the most pictures to be listed below other groups if the group was not updated recently).

Vids Total Column

Clicking the Vids Total link will sort the list of groups according the total number of videos (e.g., asf, asx, avi, mp4, mpeg, mpg, mov, ra, ram, and wmv files) posted to each group, with the most populated group at the top. Clicking on the linked number in the Vids Total column will display the first page of video thumbnails for the most recently updated day of that group (image thumbnails will not be displayed).

New Vids Column

Clicking the New Vids link will sort the list of groups according the most recent update and then the number of videos that were posted, with the group that was most recently updated and with the most videos posted during the update listed at the top (thus it is technically possible for a group with the most videos to be listed below other groups if the group was not updated recently).

Last Updated Column

Clicking the Last Updated link will sort the list of groups according to the most recent update and then alphabetically within each day.

Related Links:

• Personal Group List
• Micellaneous Files
• Thumbnail Pages Explained