Flickr is Allowing Users to Disable Pinterest Sharing
SEO headlines have been ablaze with news and controversy regarding Pinterest, the hot new image-based social media site that has been growing very quickly and is now competing with Google and Twitter in terms of referral traffic despite its beta status.
Pinterest’s first pitfall came a couple of weeks ago when it was discovered that the site was making money by covertly adding affiliate links to the various images that their users were posting. Although this type of issue could be considered a no-harm-no-foul practice by some individuals, it’s not Pinterest’s sole problem.
Others are becoming increasingly concerned with how Pinterest fits into an online environment that’s becoming increasingly sensitive to copyright infringement, particularly when Pinterest makes it so easy to repost any image you find online with no regard for its source. Now, image hosting site Flickr is delivering another blow to Pinterest by making it easy for its users to disable Pinterest sharing.
Bringing a Web Developer Feature to Average Users
Interestingly, Flickr’s announcement comes in the immediate wake of a new Pinterest feature that allows all content producers to prevent their work from being shared on Pinterest. With the feature, any site owner can simply add a “nopin” code to the head section of any page. If a Pinterest user then tries to “pin” an image from that page to Pinterest, they’ll be met with an error message stating that “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest.”
Pinterest’s “nopin” feature is great for site owners and more tech-savvy individuals who regularly code on the backend of their sites, but what about average users? This is where Flickr comes in.
Cutting Off Pinterest’s Supply
Flickr is making it much easier for users to disable Pinterest sharing by installing an option directly into their Privacy Settings. By turning sharing off, all of the content you upload to a Flickr account will be restricted from pinning on Pinterest.
Why should Pinterest care? Although Flickr is just one of many image hosting sites online, it also happens to be the third-largest source of content for Pinterest. Once Flickr users begin to discover the no-share option in their Privacy Settings, a large amount of Pinterest’s content could disappear instantly.
If you’ve done everything you can to block your content from being shared on Pinterest (although, given the amount of traffic the site is moving, that wouldn’t necessarily be recommended) but you still find it floating around on the site’s pin board, you can submit a Copyright Infringement Notification directly to the company.
