/metadata/link -> api v2 now forces user authentication?

[tim]

In API v1, my app enjoys the ability to call /metadata/link on a shared link to find out information about it, WITHOUT requiring the user to login. This is because the v1 endpoint only requires client auth & secret.

In API v2, the migration guide specifies to use /2/sharing/get_shared_link_metadata, which requires USER authentication. Now i'll have to force my users to authenticate. The problem here is: my users don't necessarily have Dropbox accounts! So this would force them to go through the whole sign-up process. My users are not going to do this.

Is there any way in API v2 to get shared link metadata WITHOUT user authentication, like we already have in v1?

thanks

-tim

[Greg-DB]

Hi Tim, this API v2 endpoint doesn't currently support app authentication like its API v1 equivalent unfortunately, but I'll be sure to pass this along as a feature request.

[tim]

That's a real bummer. I assume this is intentional (no way this would be accidental as it is quite a big change). There are only 2 reasons I can surmise -- 1) to drive sign-ups, and 2) further fraud/spam/leech protection. Neither seem reasonable to me, because the ability to quickly access a shared link's contents WITHOUT having a dropbox account has always been a major reason why I liked dropbox. The fragmentation of our digital identities is to the point now where forcing someone to create yet another account for something is foolish, even if you've been around for many years like Dropbox.