Yahoo PhotoMail Feature Refreshes Privacy Debate

Just now I wrote a testing Yahoo! Photomail to myself to see what the difference it might have from sending URLs of uploaded pictures. Rather than the privacy issue described in this article, I have another minor technical concern: when I clicked the thumbnail in the email, I was presented the bigger picture on Yahoo! Photo, where I can download and save the full size (the original and biggest) version of the picture that is stored on their server for free to my local machine without having to log in my Yahoo! account. However, if I use the Photomail tool "Save to: My Computer" in the email, I get to the photo list page where I cannot download and save full size versions of these photos to my computer without logging into my Yahoo! account. Access denied. This is inconvenient for email recipients who happen to have no Yahoo! account, 'cause if they don't want to bother themselves about getting a new account, they have to download the photos one by one with more clicks.

Is it just me or is it some kind of ruse Yahoo! used to attract more users, or a defect that needs further improvement in the Beta version of the free service? Nevertheless, the feature that allows only the email recipient to see the photos online even without copying them to the senders' Yahoo! Photo album is very cool.