Q: I heard about Twitpic commercializing user-uploaded photos and became curious. [...] Is there any service that isn't my own website that won't commercialize my photos?

You're correct about Twitpic commercializing user photos: the company recently announced that it was the "exclusive photo agency partner" of the World Entertainment News Network (WENN). This agreement allows WENN to sell images uploaded to Twitpic and to pursue copyright action against parties who try to use those images commercially without authorization.

Theoretically, this means that a photo that you upload to Twitpic of your cat wearing a Poptart box as a hat could be sold by WENN to the Nyan Cat Empire for marketing purposes without them asking for further authorization from you. In reality, the company is unlikely to be interested in photos taken by plebes by us—WENN wants paparazzi-type pictures of celebrities, not whatever you ate for lunch today.

Still, it's a good question, and increasing numbers of Internet users are becoming more conscious of the terms of service (TOS) on sites that they use regularly. So, I looked up the TOS for all seven of the image services that Twitter's native app recommends when you first begin using the app: Twitpic, yfrog, img.ly, Posterous, Mobypicture, Lockerz, and twitgoo. (Yes, Twitter has announced that it will begin using its own image service, but plenty of people are still using third-party services for a variety of reasons, and not just for Twitter.)