IKEA is Swedish for "No photographs"

On Wednesday evening, my friend Trysh and I went out for the complete suburban experience. First, dinner at Swiss Chalet (for non-Canadians, it’s a chain of family restaurants specializing in roast chicken with dipping sauce) followed by a shopping trip to IKEA, the home of BILLY bookshelves, Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce…

…and a bizarre “no photos” policy.

We discovered this policy when we passed by a bin of stuffed animals. Stuffed ants, to be precise.

“Eeeeeeugh,” said my pretty companion, “you know, the last thing that I’d like to snuggle up with would be…”

“…a three-foot giant ant?” I said, completing her sentence. I grabbed one out of the bin and gave it a big bear hug.

“Give me your camera,” she said, “we have to take a picture of this.”

Here’s the resulting picture:

Apparently, this is some kind of violation.

Immediately after the picture above was taken, an IKEA customer service representative came up to us and informed us that photography is forbidden in IKEA.

Since it was only a half-hour until closing and since Trysh needed to get some picture frames, I decided not to argue the point then and there. She was, after all, someone who didn’t make that stupid policy and probably not aware enough of the decision-making process behind that policy to debate it.

A “no photographs” policy for a furniture showroom is silly.

If I were from a competing store attempting to undercut IKEA’s prices, I could just as easily take notes. IKEA gives you golf pencils and paper so that you can take notes.

If I wanted to copy IKEA furniture design, I wouldn’t photograph it; I’d buy one so could study it in detail.

If I wanted to get a better idea of how a piece of furniture would look in my home or whether it would match my current decor, I would take a digital photograph.

If I wanted someone else’s opinion on a piece of furniture, I’d take a digital photograph so that i could show it to them.

Many people take their kids to IKEA. What if one of those “important moments” happens while you’re there, and you want to capture it? (It’s not as ridiculous as you think — my friend Bryce’s kid started walking for the first time while we were at a Mexican restaurant at a big dinner full of people from the CodeCon 2002 conference.)

I really hate being treated like some kind of criminal by companies who then expect me to give them money. I don’t like being told that I can’t have a friend take a picture of me inside their showroom when I’m quite certain that they themselves are monitoring me through the store’s security cameras. I’m with Lawrence Lessig when he says:

…it is bizarre that we increasingly live in this world where every movement is captured by a camera, yet increasingly, ordinary people are not permitted to take pictures with cameras. This is yet another part of a growing obsession with control that seems to mark so much of this society. At a minimum, we have a right to take note of this control, and criticize it where we can.

I think it’s time for me to write to IKEA’s customer relations department.

And take my business elsewhere, say a nice Canadian company like EQ3, who have funky furniture and are just down the street from me.

Or organize one helluva flash mob.

Perhaps all of the above.

Who’s with me?

Recommended Reading

The Photographer’s Right. A downloadable flyer that explains “our rights when stopped or confronted for photography”. Written with US laws in mind, but it should work for Canadians too.

The Starbucks Challenge. Starbucks doesn’t have a “no photography” policy, but some of its managers don’t know that. here’s the original story, and here are some comments.