SmugMug, a well-known digital photography platform, just acquired one of the biggest image and video-hosting service on the web, Flickr. While Flickr is now technically under SmugMug, the two companies will still operate as separate entities.
The merger takes root in both companies vision to provide a platform for Photographers to do “visual storytelling”.
“Since day one our passion has been empowering photographers to tell the stories they want to tell, the way they want to tell them, and our investment in Flickr reaffirms this commitment,” Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug.
“We share SmugMug’s mission to cater to people—professionals, amateurs, and everybody in between— who invest time, energy and love into their photos,” said Andrew Stadlen of Flickr.
Even though Flickr will now be under SmugMug management, users of the hosting service will still be logging in on their native website. Images of uploaders will also retain the “flickr.com” URL, although accounts will shift to the terms of service of SmugMug from that of Yahoo. So, users are advised to read SmugMug’s terms of service. In line with that, users were sent an e-mail detailing the shift to the policies, which will take effect on May 25, 2018.
Users can opt out of this shift in policy, those who don’t will transition to the new terms of service. If the user wishes to opt out then they would have to delete their Flickr account. Another thing to take note of is that SmugMug and Flickr accounts will remain separate and independent. Flickr has promised that over the course of the next month, users will get more information on the changes and development that the merger will bring.
