dekstop: weblog

So regarding that upcoming + forced Flickr-Yahoo-ID merger... got the email a couple of days ago, read the Slashdot thread, and kinda felt unaffected by it all. I faintly remembered discussing this in some old Flickr group, but had forgotten the details; the whole thing seemed to have little real impact on my digital life. Will have to remember another login.

But seeing Anil point to Bruce Sterling's commentary on the Flickr Yahoo login merger reminded me of my original reason not to like being forced to switch, just when I was about to cave in:

• A Yahoo login is obviously stored in a Yahoo session cookie, i.e., written by a Yahoo domain. Accessible by other Yahoo services.
• If you keep logged in with you new Flickrhoo ID, you will leave traces of your Flickr identity every time you step on Yahoo property.

In other words: this introduces an ubiquitous session cookie, one of the reasons I don't like GMail, and one of my motivations for wasting time on that CookieFilter script (which I ported to Ruby btw, should upload that somewhere at some point).

Seems I'll have to cave, no matter what. But Flickr gets off my CookieFilter white list. Fuck convenience, Yahoo won't get to watch me browse.

Related Link

• Remaining worry: Yahoo collecting user behavior data, 1.5 year old thread on the "Flick off!" group.

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