[OpenID] Flickr users can now login with a Google account via OpenID

[Allen Tom]

Yes - native non-browser Flickr applications like iPhoto and the Flickr
Uploadr can be authorized using Google's OpenID service!

One of the interesting things about Flickr is that due to Yahoo's security
policies, the Flickr service never had access to the user's Yahoo password.
In order to get around this issue, Flickr had to develop a browser based
auth scheme, so Flickr clients have always had to pop open a browser for the
user to authorize access. Because Flickr clients have always had to open a
browser for authorization, it was possible to add OpenID support for
existing clients without forcing clients to be upgraded.

It is possible to support OpenIDs in general, however we had a business
requirement to get the user's verified email address when logging in. The
email address is necessary in order to send notifications to the user and
also for the user to identify themselves out of band (such as when
telephoning/emailing customer care).  We were also hoping to use the email
address to determine if the user already had a Flickr account and to
automatically log them into their existing account, however due to lots of
messy edge cases we decided to defer account linking until after we've
proven the effectiveness of OpenID logins.

Given that we had a business requirement to get the user's verified email
address, it's not really feasible to let a new user login with OpenID, then
force the user to manually verify their email before continuing. The user
probably would be better off registering a traditional YahooID instead.

Allen


On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Nat <sakimura at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are many flickr clients such as iPhoto. Could they be used in
> conjunction with Google ID?
>
> Also, is it possible to support OpenIDs in general?
>
>
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