Firstly, I should point out that the following is in no way trying to represent itself as fact.
I've made these observations based upon my own experience and this post should only be treated as opinion.
The new flickr iPhone app was released a few weeks ago and it is vast improvement on the old version.
However, there is one part of the app which really disturbs me.
The new app, by default, will notify you if one of the people listed in your phone contacts joins flickr.
On the face of it that seems like quite a novel feature, it allows you to connect to people you know and view their photos all from the comfort of your flickr home page.
But how is this achieved?
Does the app scan a list of flickr accounts created since it was last run every time you start it up, comparing them with your phone contacts to see if they match? I sincerely doubt it.
I don't know what the enrolment rate for flickr is, but I cannot believe for one minute that the app and phone are capable of processing such a comparison of what would most likely be a vast dataset.
No, the more efficient method would be for the flickr app to regularly hoover up all the contacts on your phone and upload them to flickr central. Then when flickr processes a new enrolment, if one of the details matches one of your contacts, you would be sent a push notification to let you know a friend has joined the flickr collective, just like you would when someone comments on your photos.
This, as far as I'm concerned, would be a massive invasion of not only my privacy, but the privacy of those in my contact list, they haven't given flickr permission to collect their name, phone number, email address, D.O.B. or whatever data flickr are using to match new enrolments to their contact entry.
I can at least switch this option off, though as I mentioned before, it's ON by default, so as soon as you fire up the app for the first time this interaction will, i assume take place.
Being able to turn it off after the damage has already been done is of little comfort.
