Flickr

History

2025: Notice from Roskomnadzor on the removal of illegal materials

Roskomnadzor sent an official notice to Flickr photo hosting about the need to remove illegal materials. According to the press service of the department, eight pages of the flickr resource have been entered into the Unified Register of Prohibited Information. com on the basis of court decisions and orders of authorized bodies. This was announced on August 28, 2025 by the press service of Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications.

Among the violations identified are the involvement of minors in illegal activities, the distribution of extremist materials, the propaganda of suicide and the distribution of child pornography. Roskomnadzor noted that since February 17, 2025, the department has repeatedly sent notifications to the service administration, but no action has been taken to remove the prohibited information.

There can be no trade-offs when it comes to material involving minors, extremism, suicide propaganda and especially child pornography. Such content threatens not only information security, but also the life, health and moral development of people, primarily children and youth, emphasized Anton Nemkin.

At the same time, the administration of Flickr for several months ignored the notifications of the Russian regulator. This behavior demonstrates disregard for the laws of the country in which the service continues to work, and actual indifference to threats posed by illegal materials. International platforms are obliged to be responsible for the safety of published content, - said the deputy.

The inclusion of Flickr pages in the Unified Register of Prohibited Information is a necessary measure if the company continues to sabotage the requirements for the removal of dangerous content. The law is the same for everyone, and foreign Internet resources should not feel above the legal norms established in Russia, Nemkin added.

In the long term, such cases only strengthen the relevance of the task of forming a sovereign digital environment and developing domestic platforms. When global services ignore requests to protect citizens, the state is obliged to respond harshly and consistently. The digital environment of users should be built within those ecosystems that respect the laws and really care about the safety of people, the parliamentarian concluded.

2018: Smugmug bought Flickr

In April 2018, professional photo-sharing service Smugmug announced the purchase of Flickr. The company did not disclose the cost and other terms of the transaction.

About the takeover of Flickr in his Twitter blog wrote the founder and CEO of Smugmug Don McAskill. He noted that he does not yet plan to merge the two brands and services.

Flickr service acquired by SmugMug

Now Flickr is owned by Smugmug, not Yahoo. We are a photo platform focused on visual stories. Our history of relationships with photographers committed to self-improvement in the profession makes us an ideal partner for Flickr and its creative community, says the Smugmug website.

According to Don McAskill, the company hopes to "breathe new life" into Flickr. SmugMug will support the service as an independent platform for amateur photographers and professionals. He also called Flickr "an amazing community full of the most passionate photographers from around the world" and "a persistent service that laid the foundation for the internet."

For so many years, we have survived so many competitors. We were asked how we were going to compete with Kodak, and now this company is no longer there, "said McAskill, adding that Yahoo simply ceased to be interested in the development of the service, which he himself considers" one of the greatest treasures of the Internet.

The photo service was owned by Yahoo for 13 years. Unlike Flickr, SmugMug, which bought the service, does not have free accounts: the minimum tariff costs $4 per month and is intended mainly for storing photos.^[1]

Re/code notes that Flickr is unlikely to return to its former glory: for example, the Flickr mobile application is much inferior to competitors and is now not even in the top 150 downloads for the iPhone.

2017: Verizon bought Yahoo with Flickr

In June 2017, Verizon bought Yahoo, after which a period of uncertainty began for Flickr.

2015: Flickr expands list of image hosting licenses

On March 30, 2015, photo hosting Flickr announced an expansion of the list of licenses under which^[2] images can^[2] to^[2].

In addition to the usual Creative Commons license, images can be placed in the form of Public Domain or under the CC0 license, which mean a copyright waiver and provision for the use of content, not limited to any scope.

2014:92 million users

The audience of the project at the beginning of 2014 is 92 million users who share about a million photos daily, according to Flickr^[3].

2013: Free to 1TB for each user

In May 2013, the service carried out a large-scale update - all users were able to store up to 1 terabyte of full-size photos for free. Since the launch of this feature, the number of photos published daily has grown by 170%.

2011: 6bn images uploaded

Flickr remains a fairly closed, niche community. In 2011, the service reported that about 6 billion images were posted on it. For comparison, since the launch of the photo sharing function on Facebook in October 2005, social network users have taken over 400 billion pictures.

In 2011, a mobile version for Android was released.

2009: iOS mobile app released

The first Flickr mobile application for iOS was released in 2009 - most of the photos uploaded to the service are taken by the iPhone camera in 2014.

In 2008, the service introduced the ability to download videos.

2005: Yahoo buys Flickr for $35m

In 2005, Flickr was acquired by Yahoo!, according to unofficial data, for $35 million.

2004: Service Launch

Flickr photo hosting was launched on February 10, 2004 and was one of the first Web 2.0 user services.

Notes