Submission + - Flickr accidentally deletes 4,000 pictures
An anonymous reader writes: Mirco Wilhelm, a German photographer, has had a Flickr account for five years, with about 4000 pictures in it, many of them directly linked to from various external websites. When he recently tried to login, he found it odd that he was prompted for his password, and then was asked to create a Flickr account. It turns out that Yahoo had deleted his account by mistake.
The confusion apparently occurred after a different user added Wilhelm as a contact. He quickly realized that the user account only contained obviously stolen material, so he reported it. According to an e-mail Wilhelm received, Flickr staff told him that the account would be checked for irregularities. When he asked if they had mistakenly deleted his account instead of the fraudulent one, it turned that his guess was correct.
The confusion apparently occurred after a different user added Wilhelm as a contact. He quickly realized that the user account only contained obviously stolen material, so he reported it. According to an e-mail Wilhelm received, Flickr staff told him that the account would be checked for irregularities. When he asked if they had mistakenly deleted his account instead of the fraudulent one, it turned that his guess was correct.
