Flickr Private Photos are not Private

I was using Yahoo image search option in the morning and came to know about a strange phenomenon. If you are aware Flickr images have been linked in with yahoo image search. So you will find many images from Flickr community in yahoo image search, which is good. Flickr users can save their private images such as nudes, family pictures, pets, Children etc. These pictures are private are not supposed to be viewable until you post them in some groups or give access to family and friends. All well until now but you will be shocked to know that these private pictures can be seen in yahoo image search. Let explain you how.

You can check it the way I did it

- I am using tabs in Firefox
- Logged in to Flickr through my yahoo id.
- A new tab and searched on "yahoo image search" with a keyword
- The result showed many Flickr thumbnails.
- A few thumbnails when I checked out were private. Remember I was logged in to Flickr on other tab so the link from search did not asked me Flickr login/password to access full page on Flickr.

Here is a link to a thumbnail of otherwise private picture.

Does that mean private pictures aren't private ?
Thankfully I don’t save my personal or private pictures on Flickr or internet. But question is how did Yahoo launched a feature without testing it properly.

Tags : Yahoo , Flickr , Bug , Image , Search