Up until now you had several options to create a Flickr account and sign in to the account afterwards. You could create a Yahoo account for that obviously, but also had options to sign up with your Facebook or Google account instead.
The last two options were a comfortable option for users who did not want to create a Yahoo account just for accessing Flickr but had no problems using their Facebook or Google account for that.
Flickr just published a message on the official website stating that the service will remove Facebook and Google sign-in options from the service.
What this means essentially is that Flickr users will not be able to use their Facebook or Google login information anymore to sign in to Flickr once the option is removed from the site.
As of right now, Flickr recommends to sign in one last time with the third-party account to create a Yahoo account in the process. This ensures that the data that you have uploaded and created on the site is not lost after the change goes live on the site.
The official help forum is already filling up with user questions and issues about the change. The official announcement thread has 555 replies at the time of writing.
Yahoo ID
Here are a few points about the change:
- If the update page takes you to Flickr directly, you are not affected by the move, likely because you are already signing in with Yahoo account credentials. You can also find out at the top on the account page. If it reads that you are signed in with your Yahoo ID everything is good.
- You will need to create individual Yahoo accounts for each Flickr account you are using. This is only a issue for Flickr users who maintain multiple accounts on the site, for instance a business and private account.
- Some users have reported that they did not see any of their old photos and information after the migration. If that is the case, you need to contact support to get them to link the accounts.
- You can alternative try to transfer the account manually. Sign in with your Google or Facebook ID, and visit the transfer page afterwards. Select Use an existing Yahoo ID or create a new one, and follow the steps afterwards. This connects your old Flickr account to the new one using the Yahoo account.
Flickr is owned by Yahoo. I think the removal of the alternate sign-in options are for reasons of competition, since CEO Marissa Meyer is trying to make Yahoo more competitive than ever.
Do they say anywhere why they are removing those login features? I've been going through the annoyance of using the new 4.0.x php api for facebook and they are removing theirs. Makes me wonder if there is something else going on. Are they being bought out?
I am not sure why they are doing this, but I know their social login has always been buggy. It won't let me login via google as I already had a yahoo account with that same email address (which most companies will link but Yahoo's linking system doesn't work). And it's still a better login platform than Microsoft's, so I have to give them credit for that.
Doesn't yahoo require a cell number now for all new accounts being created? Does this apply here if you don't already have an existing yahoo account? Sorry yahoo, I don't want to give out my cell number to every website and data collection point on the web. Yes they probably have it, or will acquire it at some point in the future but I'm not going to help.