Slashdot Mirror
Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy
sulli writes "Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily deleted their accounts, the vast majority of users did nothing. (New York Times, blah blah) So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Yahoo!" Sigh.
login: qwerty1 pass: qwerty first post?
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
I mean, really...
Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members?
A few thousand pasty geeks are not "everyone".
Fortunately, I'm pretty content with the fact that most people gleefully piss away their privacy and personal information. Means those of us who take even the most rudimentary steps toward avoiding giving it up are better shielded by easy targets.
--saint
. . . on /. wasn't able to find another service provider that would give them free email, free webspace, and customized content for free and that would also promise to hold any information about them sacrosanct. Imagine that.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I had one... just used it for junk, but they made some other changes around that time (I think it was no more forwarding to another address for free), so I stopped using it then. No big loss.
I don't imagine many Slashdot users were big Yahoo! mail users... heck, lots of Slashdot users run their own mail servers. The average user (and average person) just doesn't care about things like this. Just like they don't really care what the government does as long as they don't notice.
you have to give up private information to view a story on how people don't care about privacy.
"It's even worse if you're locked into a proprietary operating system." -http://www.wehavethewayout.com/scale.asp?rew=0
It was still Opt-Out, they gave notice about the change, and said the changes won't go into effect for 60 days. It took me two minutes to change my privacy settings back to what they were ("don't email me"), and the "postal mail" and "phone call" options were already set to "don't bother me".
I like what Yahoo provides and it's free. The article says that 1.1 million people went to the marketing preferences page, but that the company reporting the info couldn't tell how many changed their preferences. It's pretty likely that almost all 1.1 million changed everything to No.
Isn't there a law that... oh.. yeah, giants like Yahoo!(tm) don't have to worry about laws.. Then again, its probably in their agreement when you sign up. So in theory they aren't 'breaking any laws'.
Can all fish swim?
If my yahoo accounts had real data in them... and not "Bob Bob from Bob, NY 10005, (212)555-5555" in them, I may have given a damn.
perlgolf: the only place where shorter is better
if you did what I did and fed them a bunch of bogus information about yourself. In fact, I think I listed my neighbors' phone number and adderss (with a different zip code).
Uh oh.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
...finds the WWF and daytime talk shows engrossing. They don't give a damn about foreign affairs, either, just what directly affects their vehicles or immediate personal safety. I don't find the fact that they couldn't give a s___ surprising at all.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Despite what melted web servers around the world say, not everyone reads Slashdot.
After the original story was posted, I made it a point to tell everyone I worked with about it. Several of my co-workers made sure they opted out of things they didn't want. But I'm sure only a small portion of the Yahoo userbase were made aware of the changes in this context. I believe there was e-mail sent out by Yahoo explaining, in a very passive way, the changes made to their privacy policy. Most people probably just skimmed it (if at all), didn't see anything glaringly bad, and then just went along, business as usual.
In this case, I'd say it matters how you learned of this change. Obviously, Yahoo isn't going to paint themselves to look like bad guys in e-mails to their own users.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
All we have to do is wait for some catastrophic problem due to companies squashing on our rights.
*whisper*
Oh wait...the DMCA was passed already?! Oh crap!
But I don't find it difficult to ignore spam.
Especially when it's easily filtered.
Now, yahoo groups & messenger is very useful to me, and I won't simply throw that away.
Please explain why I should delete my account for you.
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Overly pessimistic? Perhaps. But so long as Joe Sixpack (to borrow a Monty Burns-ism) has 70 channels of pap to keep him pacified and everything is generally "ok", nobody cares about anything.
Government is passing laws that encroach and in some cases obliterate my rights? Who cares, as long as I get my MTV and my car still runs.
This is the most apathetic generation ever.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
I am just a mindless sheep ;o) As long as I get my daily dose of Slashdot and pr0n I am happy and I don't care about privacy ;o) I can't see far enough to comprehend complete consequences of my complete ignorance ;o) When shit hits the fan its gonna be too late, and I will blame everybody else but myself..
After giving me years of free email service they want to (GASP!) CALL ME ON THE TELEPHONE?!?!?!!?
Oh God No!!! What is the world coming to?! Someone call the New York Times! Forget about the wars being waged around the world, forget about starving children, forget about AIDS.. YAHOO MUST BE STOPPED FROM PICKING UP THE PHONE IMMEDIATELY!!!
-gerbik
Those who care to teach themselves enough about advertising, marketing, and computer workings to help them avoid being led around by the nose will still retain some degree of privacy.
Those who do not care will end up with their "consumer profiles" pasted all over marketing databases all over the country, if not the planet.
I can only assume that a great many people do not care what info about them is loose in the world. Those who feel that way will invariably get exactly what they deserve. Sad but true. Knowledge is still power, and that power can work both ways.
By the way, I'm NOT paranoid (who wants to know?)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Privacy is one of those things that geeks pay attention to because they're so acutely aware of how easy it is to lose it and how annoying the ramifications can be. The vast majority of people out there don't care about their privacy because:
a) They're mostly ignorant about what they're giving up, and
b) They're too busy trying to feed and house themselves given all the other shit they have to deal with.
Geeks, on the other hand, are intelligent and have enough free time to sit around and discuss about how they're getting royally fucked over...which, of course, they are. This is why it is our job to inform people whenever possible, and most importantly, supply the tools necessary to protect personal privacy (Ad-Aware, anyone?), and make those tools easy to use for the poor schmucks out there who don't have time to worry about it.
Personally, I think all of the privacy/security issues are heating up to a boiling point that will eventually make it a very hot topic. Yahoo! threatens to call me, big deal, most of us get 2-4 telemarketer calls daily anyways. Post my browsing history on the web demonstrating my perpensity for hardcore porn, then people start to care... its just going to take something really big to get the flame going.
Rather hypocritical if you ask me.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Slashdot's plans to implement Big Fucking Ads? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily boycotted slashdot for a week, the vast majority of users did nothing. So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Slashdot! Sigh.
You mean like that great Slashdot Blackout thing? Did anyone even notice it happening? I remember laughing at the links in .sigs on the first day (when they should have been blackingout instead of posting) but after that I never noticed.
So, was it a success?
I got a friendly email directing me to a URL, at which point I spent 42 seconds clicking "no thanks" and went about my business. Total sweat off my ass: none.
In the end, I've always been happy with my Yahoo service (== slackware mailing list), and while their initial behavior in this case was questionable, they responded well. I will be keeping my Yahoo account for the foreseeable future.
One note: when I first signed up for Yahoo, they told me "tps12" was taken, so I am "tps12tps12" (yeah, message me, and support Gaim). I have had "tps12" on my buddy list forever, and never seen hide nor hair. Anyone know how much inactivity it takes before a Yahoo username returns to "the pool"?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The problem is that the vast majority of users don't know anything happened. A free market relies on an informed base of consumers. If you were to call up each Yahoo customer (which, of course, would be ironic since this story is about the evils of telemarketing) and tell them what was going on, i'm willing to bet at least 95% of them would want to opt-out.
But by doing this quietly, nobody will notice. They'll just get another piece of spam, another piece of junk mail, and another phone call during dinner, and curse about all the scum-sucking direct markers out there. They won't realize that Yahoo was the one who stabbed them in the back.
There are consumer laws that force McDonald's to clean their kitchen, even though most customers wouldn't notice. There are laws that regulate how many bugs can be present in your peanut butter, even though they could grind up a few more and you wouldn't notice. There are laws that keep your doctor from sharing your personal information with your nosy neighbor, even if you would never know one way or the other.
There should be laws that prohibit Yahoo from doing this.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I don't get any telephone solicitations.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
a communal bath with nary a thought, why would they care if their personal *DATA* comingles?
Some people just don't care.
Why? Because it's convenient, it's much easier to ignore it instead of trying to find it. Look at what happened to PGP and look at Sony running wild with the DMCA yet every now and then, Slashdot treats us with articles about the Playstation, about movies, about music, etc. So no don't come and tell me that you care, your actions prove otherwise.
so we can take advantage of the apathy of the general population and make a ton of money off them :).
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Group 1 completely overwhelms group 2, but to further minimize any chance of making anything other than a moral difference, I'll bet group 3 overwhelms group 2 as well. The third group counts as votes in favour of, or at least ambivalent to the concerns of the second group since as far as yahoo concerns its a satisfied customer.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I followed one of the alternative suggestions for dealing with this. My acct info reads thusly:
Work/School Address:
TrustE Violations, Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94809
United States
Phone:
408-349-2000
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Something that needs to be taken into account is that most people that use Yahoo, AOL, MSN/Hotmail are not aware that this war is even being waged around them. They are usually people who probably don't know much about computers, or the internet, and use Yahoo because somebody told them it is "easy". Sure, i have been known to use free email services from time to time, but i don't use them for my primary mail services.
Sure, they don't like spam, or being monitored in various ways, but how are they supposed to find out that it is going on? Is Yahoo going to tell them that they are being monitored, and sent spam tailored to their interests? I don't think so!
Rather, they just sit there and obliviously read their email from dear aunt bertha and delete their spam.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
Any revolution is lead by a few who are willing to sacrifice anything for what is right. How many of the "privacy" advocates are willing to give up their job, risk harassment, and alienate friends in the quest to do what is "right?"
Of course I'm cynical -- I've studied history, and I've worked the frontlines of various causes. Complaining that other people won't "fight the good fight" is a waste of effort. If the fight is worth fighting, then you must be willing to take the responsibility on your back to "do the right thing."
All about me
so this is what happens when the great goverment plan comes toghether:
1.) make the public apathedic by feeding them cookie cutter music and movies
2.) make small unimportant things illegal such as drugs so the kids can feel like they are rebelling while becoming more of a slave
3.) fill the public's mind with fear by shoving "reality" shows (cops, rescue 911, paramedics, etc) that show how horrible life in eveyone's face {quick aside: i used to deliever dinners to low income familes on Thanksgiving, adn the one thing i noticed is that all of these low income families had a TV and decent stereo system...interesting..and now the gov't want's to help put computers in every home... hmmmmm, just somethign to think aobut} to the point that people become afraid to leave the house.
4.) now that the general public doesn't give a damn, adn their scared to leave their homes taking away privacy ought to as easy as taking candy form a babie, oh and just to make sure why not let a couple o' jet lines take out a few buildings just to put iceing on this big ol' conspiricy cake.
yup it's a giant shit sandwhich and we're all going to have to take a bite
I was much more annoyed when Yahoo removed pop3 access. Now how am I supposed to archive old email?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The first couple times I read the article title, I thought it said "Your Rights Online: Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Piracy". :)
Which I guess is true also.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Mainstream Yahoo users probably just forwarded the spam to 50 people so that their crush would make out with them.
Here's what's wrong with it: It turns out that Yahoo was able to discover both my work and home emails - without me ever knowingly signing up with yahoo. The first two spams I got: from Yahoo, "Hey we're gonna start spamming you! follow this link to unsubscribe!"
I follow the links. It insists I tell yahoo my birthday and my zip code to unsubscribe - BUT I NEVER GAVE THAT INFO TO YAHOO IN THE FIRST PLACE!
I had signed up with some list services ("ThisIsTrue" for one) that (unknown to me) were hosted by Yahoo groups, and that's how yahoo misappropriated my email. I had to send nasty grams to Yahoo to get them to unsubscribe me, cuz the online auto system won't tell me what it thinks my Bday and zip code are.
By the way, the writer/moderator of ThisIsTrue was equally pissed that Yahoo took HIS mailing list and made it THEIRs without his permission.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
To respond to this point-by-point:
1. Yahoo! did something that some people mind and some people don't.
Yahoo did something that some people know about and most people do not. Virtually all of them would mind.
2. Yahoo! competes in a fierce marketplace filled with alternatives.
People aren't going to switch to an alternative if they don't know Yahoo is doing this.
3. The people who didnt like Yahoo!'s actions have stopped using the service and either (a) gone without the service or (b) switched to the competition.
The people who actually knew about Yahoo's actions have (etc)
4. The people for whom this is not a big deal continue to be happy using Yahoo!.
The people who don't know about this continue to be happy using Yahoo.
Tell me again why this is a big deal? Tell me again why this is news?
"Soylent Green is made of people!"
"Oh, come off it. People happily eat Soylent Green, and what they don't know won't hurt them. Soylent Green participates in an extremely competitive market. If people didn't like eating human flesh, they would switch to a competitor. Obviously some people care about cannibalism and others don't. The people who care have moved to another product. This is a free market: The people who don't will continue eating Soylent Green. Stop pouting."
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wonder if local spam laws apply...
The solution to telemarketing by Yahoo! and other online companies is not to delete your account, it's to make it unprofitable for them.
If Yahoo (or any other marketeer) cold-calls you, the best thing to do is not to hang up as quickly as you can, but keep them on the phone as long as you can. The telemarketing gig only works if they can complete so many sales in so much time, so by holding them on the line as long as you can, you decrease the profitability of the endeavor. If enough people do it, they may just give up the venture.
So what do you think, people? Can we Slashdot the telemarketers?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You are truly out of touch with the public. Most people don't give a shit. Most people aren't this paranoid and anal retentive. Hell, I know everything that happened, and not only do I use Yahoo, but I haven't gotten around to changing my settings. Why? I have a life. You should look into getting one, too.
Geez! The Yahoo mailing list I'm on, for women who like beading, was all up in arms over this. They were even more ticked off when, a few days after changing everything, Yahoo reset it all again, and we all had to go back in and change it once more.
Hmm, I guess they don't count, and they're not a representative cross-section of the Yahoo users.
Lemon curry?
Bzzzt! Wrong. Yahoo! sent out an email to every customer, telling them exactly what had happened, and giving explicit instructions on how to view and change the settings.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I started a thread on MacNN about the fact that any cocoa application can read a new Macintosh's unique serial number. I even wrote a sample program that accesses and displays it.
I thought that others might be as concerned as I was. Instead, someone confirmed that, yes-- the Mac's GUID is globally accessible, yes-- it's on the motherboard... but no need to worry because "As much as you feel that the serial number can be abused it won't. No vendor has shown any indication that they will use unique IDs in their programs and all we can do is hope that they won't."
Uh yeah right. Except for Windows 98, RealNetworks, Word for Mac, etc.
Why is that Intel's GUID problems were such a big deal and this barely gets a shrug?
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It sounds like you're pissed because too many see the trade, realize it, recognize its effects, and just don't care.
My whole point is that people do care. However, it becomes a full-time job and requires the skills of a lawyer and a computer scientist to keep up with all the scum out there. Most people can't handle this. They do care, though -- they fume about all the spam, junk mail, and telemarketer phone calls they get.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Slashdotter:
"Face it, the days of copyright are numbered. Information wants to be free!"
"We need really strong privacy protection, because I wouldn't want to live in a world that didn't have it."
Big corporation:
"Face it, the days of privacy are numbered. Information wants to be free!"
"We need really strong copyright protection, because I wouldn't want to live in a world that didn't have it."
So, my question is, what's the difference? Why do we require privacy laws but abhor copyright laws?
...the vast majority of accounts 'owned' by Yahoo are dormant. So many of them did nothing because many of them never do anything. They say there are about 100 million internet users in the US, but I doubt every single one of them has a yahoo account. But I WOULD lay odds that several of the ones that do have an account, have more than one.
You're right, of course. This is exactly how the free market is supposed to work. And it may be the best general solution to this sort of problem. But it probably isn't ideal.
:-) )
It's one of the underlying assumptions of capitalism that we are all rational agents. In particular, we have the quality to make a rational decision about every system that we take part in, and more importantly every dollar that we spend.
I am human. I am not a rational agent. While some of my decisions are irrational, more often I don't even realize I'm making a decision. Because the world is not transparent (and it would be impossible to make it so) I can't make the rational decision to support the shoe company that creates the best working conditions, and the fast food company that has the most efficient packaging (through the entire process, mind you, not just what I get handed.), and the beef company that treats its animals best, or the government that has the least corruption.
Now, it's important to note that on any particular issue (environment, corruption, labour standards, animal treatment, etc.) you can probably do enough digging to make the decision. However, there is not (yet?) a system that "lubricates" the effective decision making capacity of the citizens of a capitalist democracy.
Thus, while this is indeed working exactly as it is "supposed" to, it is still not optimal.
(It's no wonder I have a hard time placing myself on a political spectrum. They're *both* wrong.
-Rob Ewaschuk
She did lose her Hotmail account a couple of years ago when they adopted policies to protect childrens' private information, because she was under 13 and her parent didn't want to provide a credit card to verify age for a Passport login.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Seriously ... think about Divx. People got all up in arms about it, and it failed. Was it too expensive? Nope. Pretty convenient compared to renting movies, and reasonably priced to boot.
The problem was that the Divx folks would know exactly when and how many times you watched Naughty Nurses Do It on the Moon. Same reason VHS beat out beta. Never underestimate the power of combined horniness and shame.
And none of them read it, because it looked like every other piece of spam and crap they get from companies like Yahoo every day. I certainly don't remember getting a message from Yahoo, because it was lost in all the other crap i get in my mailbox.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Like I said in my post - I did email a real person there. The thing that's wrong with it this:
Humans now have a dual existence: In meatspace and in cyberspace. I own my own meat - I can clothe it the way I want, I can move it around the way I want, and by damn, if I want it hid in a closet, that's where I'll put it. My cyberself should be just as much my property as my meatself: I am that data that yahoo was misusing, my meat is attached to it and I should be allowed full consensual control over both my meatself and my cyberself.
Nobody decided for, or gave me the chance to vote, over whether or not corporate bigmoney should be allowed to enslave my cyberself.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Quietly?
Yahoo sent an email to every account I have through them, telling me that changes/additions had been made to my marketing preferences. I followed their instructions on how to change my marketing settings so that I wouldn't receive unwanted mail/calls. They made it very clear that this had happened, and told me what I could do to keep my privacy.
Quietly?
Your argument now might be "What about those people who don't check their email, or don't bother to read spammy looking mail that comes from Yahoo?"
This is my problem with the average consumer, people sign up for accounts, services that they don't need, but don't care since they're getting it for free. Then they get mail, calls, whatever, and bitch about it. It's clearly stated in TOS agreements what will happen in the future. Beyond that, if you're too lazy to check your email to read what yahoo sent you, or too negligent to think that a letter from them might contain something important, it's your problem when telemarketers start annoying you.
They gave the public plenty of notice. If the public is too lazy to respond, it's their fault. Yes, Yahoo could've changed the marketing preferences and given you a chance to opt *in* for the new spam/mail/telemarketing--but think about it--they're a *business* they need to make money. Why would people bitch about a company that gives them something for free? They need to keep it running *and* make a profit. Would the people who complain about this be happy if one day their Yahoo accounts and services suddenly vanished without prior notice, only to find out that the company was so generous and noble that they refused to sell information and subject their freeloaders to the evils of marketing, that they went out of business, because they also decided to cut out those annoying ads? Would you say "Well, I lost a good, free service, but at least I didn't have to put in that extra tiny bit of effort that it would've taken to keep it...".
I know this is about privacy. The point is, they gave us the option. They also need to make money, that's why it was a negative option. Nothing is free, but if the price you have to pay for a service *and* keeping your privacy is just clicking a few more buttons, isn't it worth it?
There are laws that prohibit yahoo from doing this. That's why you agree to the terms of service. That's why they sent those emails.
When they ask for name you say something like: "William Gates"
When they ask for e-mail address you say some crappy e-mail address you dont care about (this e-mail address has to be valid and not a yahoo address, so just use one that is easy to get, is free of charge, and will never be used again): "wgates3@hotmail.com"
its just that easy...
Um... Complaining about privacy invasion, yet slashdot uses doubleclick for it's privacy invasion.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The response would be similiar.
People shouldn't have to continiously spend time and money in telling others that they want their privacy.
The default should be a respect for peoples privacy.
Everyone knows this so why isn't it?
For the people by the people??????
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I have a life. You should look into getting one, too.
Schiraldi's Law: As a discussion on Slashdot proceeds, the probability that someone will challenge another's social life approaches 1. At this point, the discussion is over, and they have lost.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Full argument on this Humorix Editorial.
they ALL get spammed...
i also have a ISP based email account that never gets any spam, plus i NEVER give that email address out on ANY website no matter the circumstances, that is what i use my yahoo mail for because it gets spammed anyway, besides what is the big issue web based email accounts when accessed with a web browser you can delete the spam unopened, not like a email client like Pegasus\OE\Eudora\Kmail\Evolution & etc...etc... where you have to download them first before deleting them...
Who in their right mind gives out their phone / address to web sites if they aren't shopping? Just *why* does Yahoo mail need my address -- I mean, are they going to snail mail my mail that can't get through?
Fsck. I just don't know who could be that dense as to give out their real info. All I know is that someone at 1234 Main St, Anchorage Alaska is getting tons of junk mail with the name Feely McNuts, and RealAudio is kindly informing me all about the wonders of their new media player.
That is the standard argument to explain away any bad behavior in the market. Don't like the policies of company X, well, simply *choose* to not be a consumer of their product and switch to company Y. Of course this breaks down miserably when *all the companies are equally heinous*. "When they came for my privacy, I didn't say anything because I didn't mind..."
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I had just closed my account at yahoo when I got the e-mail telling me they were selling me out, unless I opted out of 13 categories of abuse. . .I went to the privacy link in the e-mail - but I couldn't get there, 'cause my account was closed! So I've been getting spammed silly since.
Blah. The telemarketers should have to begin their phone calls with, "Hi, i'm calling you because Yahoo sold us your personal information. If you'd like to opt-out of Yahoo's database, press 1 now."
Then we'll see how many people want to stay on the list.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
What makes you think I gave them my real name and phone number just to sign up for the free email?
Replace "Yahoo" with "AOL" in your post, and it's an excellent response to your very own thoughts on AOL.
I couldn't delete it because when I tried to go through the motions of deleting it, it asked for some arcane information I had bogusly put in years ago and couldn't remember, so I couldn't delete my account!
I figured, in 4 months of not using it, it will lapse and disappear from Yahoo completely, so I'm not bothered. It's one less service I'm using.
I'm convincing my friends who use Yahoo Groups for mailing lists to switch to another provider.
-Fialar
The reason people don't care about this is that they behave as they always have: they don't care about something until it affects them directly. This is why we're slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) but surely losing our rights over time: the majority of people aren't affected by the loss. For instance, they don't have anything terribly earth-shattering to say, so restrictions on speech aren't an issue to them.
Should people care about their loss of privacy? Absolutely. The reason is primarily because of the ultimately evil things that can be done with that loss, namely the police state tactics that can be used to control the population once the data is gathered and accessible to those in power. But very few people think along those lines. Most people are sheep, and will therefore act like sheep.
Which is exactly why oppressive police states happen to begin with.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
You might want to shop around for some priorities yourself. "Time to find the Yahoo marketing settings (takes a couple of seconds if you do, in fact, know what you're looking for)? Nah, too busy. Time to mooch around on Slashdot and post a message about how I haven't found my marketing settings in Yahoo because I have a life? Of course!"
Meghan
Ask me about LOOM(TM).
Greetings!
.ch, not .com.
While these sites indicate that you must provide personal information, nobody stops you from hacking the system. Thus, my registration for NYT indicates that I'm a 50 year old, black Samoan lady living in Moscow, and my Yahoo! groups account identifies me by a fictitious name, as a male living in Zurich.
My 'public' email address is routed through a Yahoo! like service based in Switzerland. I seldom get any spam because the TLD is a
Cheers!
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
It could be the same reason that after three weeks from the start of moving my Yahoo! Group (EJB Developer) of over 2,300 members to SmartGroups, fewer than 200 have moved over so far. Inertia.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
hehe, a few years ago i was pissed off at an irc chan, and i was a lamer then. I wrote a little program that created about 7000 random yahoo accounts and then used each to mailbomb the people from the chan...
sadly being on a 33.6 at the time it was taking forever to send the mail so i ended up sending about 100 (between 15-20 people) emails, then gave up. but I still had the 7000 accounts, wonder if they still work... i know i have the login/pw file my app generated, and probably the app on a disk somewhere.
Ok, so not everyone decided to give up email addresses that they may have been using for years. I wonder how many people who were forwarding emails decided to pay up to keep using it? That would be a far more interesting statistic.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
In fact sometimes some of the spam from Yahoo gets filtered into the Bulk Mail by their own filters! Talk about shooting yourselves in the foot!
Video Game cheats, hints a
Really? Do people really get that many calls? Wouldn't you just unplug the phone at some point?
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
Use adshield!
:))
www.adshield.org
...although I'm not sure if it works with cgi-served ads though
is the way yahoo has started asking for data on their login page. "What's your zipcode?" "When do you next plan to buy a new car?" "Thanks for your input!" I guess it's no worse than the forms you get when you renew a magazine subscription, but still...
/s
They offer a lot of useful services.
I do not hesitate to get some ads from them, either.
Spam from yahoo is not as bad as anonymous stupid spam.
Moreover, I just can go settings and tune it.
So I found nothing really wrong with yahoo - especially not to that degree of boycotting it...
The message they sent to their users just says things like "We value your privacy," and "you may want to update your settings." It doesn't say anything about them changing users' settings against their will.
This is equivalent to Ford sending a letter to car owners saying "We hope you're happy with your car, you may want to get gas for it. We have a special web page you can visit if you care about gas." and using that to justify selling all their pertinent info to third parties -- that is, unless they went to the special "gas" page to click the "no, I appreciate the opportunity to be taken advantage of, but I'm gonna have to say no this time" button.
So, to summarize:
1. Email customers. Don't mention that you're screwing them.
2. Point to fact that customers didn't figure out that you screwed them as rationalization for screwing them.
Dicks.
And every single one of them read it and they all lived happily ever after. Now, for the next fairy tale...
They didn't opt-out. They didn't read the email Yahoo sent them (since they are usually not worth reading) And they are not conscious of why they are getting more and more junk mail and *very annoying unsolicited phone calls* during their family dinner. They think it's just a sign of the times, when in fact it's because Yahoo sold their phone number, mailing address and other personal information without their consent.
Even worse, the reason Yahoo has all this information like phone numbers and mailing addresses in the first place is because they require it when processing credit card transactions for Yahoo Wallet (ie. Yahoo is screwing over its own paying customers).
What Yahoo did is criminal. And if people understood that, there would be a class action suit, just like there were criminal procedings against DoubleClick and Alexis for similar violations of privacy. I'm all for free market, but what Yahoo did is fraudulent, and I have never heard of a free market that protects fraud.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
- It is possible to dehumanize man completely, and yet for life to go on.
That's an extreme form of what's wrong, but it's the same type of problem. Another similar situation: most people living under oppresive dictatorships aren't constantly crying out for help, they're not constantly on the verge of having a mass uprising to overthrow the government. The problem is that humans don't always recognize when they're in a precarious situation, especially if they're put in that position by someone they've somewhat trusted for some time, and there aren't any voices of opposition to make them pay attention. Generally, a lack of knowledge.1984
That's what this article is. It's a call to users to pay attention, consider for a moment why they might not want to remain in their present situation. It's also a call to those in the know to educate their peers.
That's why Slashdot readers should get all worked up about it, put some thought into it, post good arguments that common people will understand, and then tell all their friends about it.
The email service I use is at:
http://www.bluemail.ch
They offer the service in German, French, English, and Italian.
Cheers!
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
If only they would collect *more* data about me, they would know I always read my email in plain text mode, so it's useless to send me html email. My houses (main and vacation) are both paid for, so I don't need no mortgage refinancing. Since I have no debts, I don't need to consolidate them. I have no problems that could be solved by Viagra, bought on or off line.
Spammers are, really, a minor inconvenience. The problem would be the FBI believing they had trustworthy information about me and acting on the few, wrong, bits their stupid, pahtetic privacy-defeating software had managed to get.
However, this "pill that adds 1 to 3 inches to your penis" really got me interested. Do you think it would make mine grow to 10~12 inches?
In regards to the omnipresent quest for attention, I agree. However, that being said, I shall explain why this is in fact a problem.
.com's to choose from and you believe that those using Yahoo.com have made a choice. I see 1000 services, each less useful and more invasive than the last. It's not a choice, it's a lack of options. In the automotive industry, I have a choice; Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, etc. In the web services industry, I have Yahoo (underhanded, dirty tactics, spam-friendly), Hotmail (M$, poor security, restricted services, charges for something slightly better), and it gets even better from here.
The majority of people do not look at the consequences of policy changes (be they corporate or government) with regards to privacy. Much of the time, most people aren't aware of the fact that a policy change is being made. Ask 100 people on the streets of NYC what the DMCA is and I'll bet that less than 20 will answer with a remotely correct response. Ask what the SSSCA was and you're not likely to find 5.
Now let's look at Yahoo. Most of those reading slashdot know what Yahoo did. Most of us who read slashdot have at least some scrap of cognitive capacity and perhaps a few even read through most of the daily news here and at other websites. We knew what Yahoo was up to long before their policy changes went into affect. However - a great many people do not keep up with the news, nor do they read the little announcements on the yahoo pages. For these folks (probably a majority), they have no clue of the policy changes at Yahoo, and didn't have the common sense to not give real information to Yahoo. Thus, we have sheep going along with the flow while those "in the know" take full advantage of them at every turn. There is, in fact, something that is not working; and it's a combination of widespread apathy and big-wig sneakiness. Granted, no one expects large corporations to play nicely, but to disregard the choices of the general public because it doesn't fit your business model is absolutely wrong. There is a common misconception amoung large businesses that the public exists to serve the needs of the corporation, when it is of course, the other way around. One also sees this in government. Nowhere is this more identifiable than in the entertainment industry, where consumers are no longer enticed, they are coralled. When you combine this with the general apathy we see so much of these days, we see a system in which the government and large corporations "pull the wool over the eyes" of people who just plain don't give a shit.
Then you have us - the few who do care about ourselves and others, yet who exist in too small numbers to actually accomplish much. While our rights and freedoms are stripped away at an alarming rate by our government, our freedom of choice and quality of service is reduced to a dream while we, ourselves are reduced to a number by large corporations. We few who recognize this are helpless to defend ourselves. If we don't like what Yahoo is doing, we can certainly switch to another service; one with less features and more problems. You see 1000
For those about to complain that I want everything for free and am just another low-life freeloading Linux user, I will say this - I have no problem paying a reasonable price for a high quality good or service. I have every problem paying a high price for what could be dirt cheap if it weren't run by a bunch of money-grubbing gluttons. I just bought Red Hat Linux box set, and am about to order Star Office. These are both quality products offered at reasonable prices. $400+ for an operating system that causes more headaches than a radiation leak and crashes more often than a rich suburban drunken speed-freak is not reasonable.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
For what it's worth, I ended my relationship with Yahoo. I learnt ages ago that an email address with no POP3 access is of no use to me. Add to that the fact that I used to receive 30-odd peices of spam to my Yahoo account each day and there was no value left in the service. I now use sneakemail, spamcop and my private ISP account that never gets posted anywhere. I've had one spam come through on the alias I used for "GoogleGroups" since I posted something about 3 weeks ago. That alias is currently queuing messages at the sneakemail server...
Because copyrights protect information that is released publicly. The owner of the copyright doesn't care that you have the information, he just wants to get paid for it.
Private information is meant never to be public. The owner doesn't want you to have the information at all.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
that the reason there's so many lame stories like this on slashdot is that there's usually several new topics every day, and so to keep that going, they sometimes have to put this nonsense up, just to keep things interesting... you know, kind of like a lot of the liberal mass media in America, *OOPS* was that out loud? :)
So it's Yahoo's fault that people didn't read the mail? Try that with your boss sometime, tell him you didn't get a mail with him asking you to do something. I'm sure it will work well.
the average user is lame, the only one that care about these kind of stuff are the geeks, the average user likes to fill out forms with personal information, click on banners, read spam, open .exe attachments etc.. they have more important things to worry about in life.
I'm going to get calls from strangers because my name's on a list.
I'm going to get spam.
So what's the fucking news? So your hearts are broken by one of your own? Wake up and get your heads out of your Linux-compatible asses.
The pizza company sold my name when I was 13 and ordered for the first time. My university sells ghetto gold in the cafeteria and coddles near-scam 'societies' and sells my name and number to every jamoke with a badge and letterhead. Every online employment agency, e-publication, and merchant I've ever used has (judging by the spam) sold my information without a qualm. I can't even keep track of how many dozens of people have sold my name to hundreds of businesses.
Where's the news? Privacy is shot to hell, my pie-eyed friends. The world's not going to change. My social security number, phone, address, name, and email -- and yours, too, even the most paranoid among you-- are penny whores to anyone who's interested. It's too late to protest. It's too late to complain.
Let Yahoo make their dollar... standing on a golden standard won't change the other 38 pieces of spam I get or average 2 credit card offers in the mail every day. At least I like Yahoo.
. . . . . . . [awg] http://acidwriting.org
As they say at the end of the article, why would I cancel my yahoo accounts? I'll just stop using them.
Yahoo's announcement had a big impact on me. I was actively using seven yahoo email addresses, all accessed via POP, so I never had to use the bogus web interface. I might pay $20 for unlimited email addresses but not for one.
So Yahoo's announcement finally motivated me to receive mail for one of my domains directly on my home box. This is a better solution all around - now when using a webservice I use an individual email address for each of them: ebay.com@mydomain.com, nytimes.com@mydomain.com, etc. This makes writing my mail filters a snap, and allows me to track who is selling my email address to the spammers. (Interesting note: none of these new email addresses have shown up in spam yet. Maybe it was Yahoo selling those addresses all this time.)
Note: since my home box runs on DSL, it's subject to service outages - these are pretty rare, but I still don't want to lose anything. So I've kept my personal email address hosted outside - register.com gives you a single freebie email with each domain (or at least they used to).
The result of all this is that I went from using Yahoo regularly to not using it at all. Bye bye Yahoo. But of course, there's no reason to cancel the email addresses - as the article mentioned at the end.
Just about an hour ago during dinner we had a woman from Chase-Manhattan call. My step-dad picks up the phone and talks for a seconds, i let out a blood-curdling scream, then he swore and asked if she knew how to get blood out of carpet...
:)
The caller gasped for a couple seconds then hung up
YAHOO! made a pay service out of a "FREE EMAIL FOR LIFE".
1) WebMail is not EMAIL.
2) YAHOO! Wallet is not secure by their view. Why else would you require a user to "HOLD YAHOO! HARMLESS" if they happen loose your Credit Card?
3) Not all users have Credit Cards. Are you dumb enough to place a DEBIT CARD in their hands? Or if you are under 18 - you can not make a contract - but YAHOO! allowed to sign-up and then take away your service.
4) Over charging for EMAIL. Going rate is $5/yr per account. If you had two emails acounts with YAHOO!, it would be $60 per year - more than their family rate -- but a paying family still can not use POP/SMTP.
It's the best mail account that I have ever had for not getting spam. If you sign up for a hotmail account, you will have spam within a half hour. I've used yahoo mail for about 6 months WITHOUT ANY SPAM WHATSOEVER. and if you do get spam, they have spam filters (which haven't caught anything, as it tells you) My secret: DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR MAIN EMAIL ADDRESS ONLINE. keep a spam account for site registration purposes. No online service has my home phone and/or home address either.
As I recall, all it took was one visit to http://subscribe.yahoo.com/showaccount to remove myself from their marketing schemes. they sent me an email advising me to go there if i cared.
I'm not sure why slashdot keeps making such a big deal out of it. I haven't been forced into anything. I'm happy with the service. I'd actually recomend it as the best free email service I've ever had.
I'm sitting here in front of my computer with Friends on the tv next to me. I've been unemployed for months and I don't even think I got my shoes on the right feet. Do I care if someone knows this? Nope, but what i'd really like to know is who ate my last bag of cheetos!
If the rest of those people were like me, they didn't recive any notice from yahoo on the subject. I haven't seen anything at all about it from yahoo. I found out about it here at /., and then 10 to 20 minutes later in email from several mailing lists.
Also, I recently went to www.yahoo.com to see if I could find the opt-out page. I totally failed. The only reason I know its URL is messages from other sources. But yahoo has hidden it far too well for my meager brain to find, even when I know it's there somewhere.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Re:This may sound a little elitist, but...
Geeks, on the other hand, are intelligent and have enough free time to sit around and discuss about how they're getting royally fucked over
The fact that many geeks are currently unemployed gives them a lot of free time...
Nobody submits real information on the web anyways.
I've been using yahoo mail since MS bought hotmail. They are a good service since they give 6MB of email space compared to other free services and have low graphic, high speed interface that works in any browser just fine.
and when it comes to spam, the Bulk Mail folder takes care of almost all junk, and if it doesn't you can block addresses completely.
But what is the funniest thing about Yahoo is that even Yahoo's own emails about new features, special deals etc etc, also get sent to my Bulk Mail folder!!! that's just hilarius to me.
My Yahoo account no longer is my primary account now that iTools now gives webmail, but for the years that it was my only service, it was quite good and i never had a spam problem like i did with hotmail.
Kenny Sabarese
www.kennysabarese.com
So yahoo supplies you with an e-mail account and stuff for free. They want to sell stuff to you, big deal.
FFS who cares if gumbo7454@yahoo.com's inbox get more spam... Actulay I can't be bothered finishing this the whole thing is of such little consiquence to whats happening in the real world, that no wonder it raised a big collective "meh" the world over...
I just love the "We're more informed than thou" attitude this artical seems to have dredged up. I'm a Yahoo Email user. Did I give them any legitimate contact info when I signed up? No. Do I subscribe to their assnine "trusted partners" emailing lists, helping to build a retail database on me? No. The only thing I get is their stupid little cookie-cutter ads they send to everybody with an account and my box isn't exactly flooded with them either. What do I do with these? Throw them away. There. That wasn't too hard now, was it? Maybe, just maybe worth the price of a free email account? Nahhhhh.... Could that be why people just don't care? Because it's mostly a good deal? What!? Never.
And while all the elitists out there are focused on their online privacy, when was the last time you used your Visa? Mastercard? Gee, no privacy issues there. Nobody is building a retail database on the things you purchase and selling them quietly to anybody willing to pay, are they? Or how about those of you with some form of "smart savings grocery card"? Don't get that physical spam IRL, do you? I could go on and on, but the net is sexy and controverisal. Don't pay attention to the fact your privacy is leaking like a sieve in every other area of your life.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What experiences did you have with this?
That is also incorrect. The message I got was highlighted in bright blue, unlike any other message I have ever gotten though the Yahoo service. It also had the Y icon by it like other messages from Yahoo. It was pretty evident to me, and I was cleaning out about 500 emails worth of spam at the time.
I've used Yahoo! since day one. I use a lot of their services now (mail, auctions, shopping, bill pay, weather, etc...) and find it to be convenient. I was angry when they pulled the old "presto-chango" routine by setting all my preferences back to "YES".
I went in and switched them all back to "NO" and then wrote a couple of angry messages to Yahoo! and bitched them out for messing with my account settings. I was annoyed with them for changing the settings. But, it wasn't enough to over-ride the convenience of the services that I had access to. In the end I decided not to cancel my account.
If you read the email that Yahoo! sent out they told people that they were doing it and they gave you 60 days to change your preferences. If you were too lazy to go in an change them -- then you get spammed. Of course, this being Slashdot, everyone went into *rant* mode. What Yahoo! did was bad. But, at least they told you they did it and then they gave you a chance to decide.
If only other companies would be so nice! I get barrels of spam all the time from people who "opted me in" but, forgot to tell me about it.
Anyhow -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The majority of computer lusers are too stinking lazy and apathetic.
Some people care. Only a small percentage are actually vocal and an even smaller percentage of those are actually willing to do something about it.
Let's face it - spam is easy to bitch about because it is an annoyance, but only that. It's like traffic noise - it's there, people bitch about it, but no one really does anything about it, and wouldn't notice it if it was gone.
People like to bitch and spam is an easy target.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Ya know.. for all the nerds and super geeks on this site (all you 37337 linux kernal ppl) you really dont know sqwat about the real world.
work techsupport, with windows, and see how even the basic of all users can stumble around blindly trying to save a file.
yes.. thoes of us in the know care about things like this (privacy, DMCA, SSCA bla bla bla) but the little ppl that buy computers on mass to play solitare and minesweaper dont know dont care.
winston said it best in Orwells Brave New World "with out the support of the proles" meaning without mom and pop wintel-aol users.. nothing is going to change..
long live big buisness, long live the telemarkets
(by all means mod away)
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Is there anyone who actually gives their real phone number on these web forms anyway?
Video Game cheats, hints a
I didn't do the blackout thing because I hated the Big Ads. I did it to see if a web community could engage in a dialogue with its providers about how to run that community. Slashdot seems to be falling apart at the seams some days, and I thought perhaps by starting a dialogue, we could change that. The dream of a community telling marketers how it should be marketed to seemed worth the sacrificing comments for a week.
But it didn't work. Which sucked. Maybe when Slashdot hits harder times, we'll try again. Something different next time. Without parentheses in it.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
What are you talking about? Everyone i know -- even, say, my parents or non-techinal friends, complains about spam. I bet if i asked them to name one complaint about the Internet, it would be spam.
no one really does anything about it
What would you suggest they do? Should i tell my mom to use procmail? Should i tell her to try to opt out when spam offers the opportunity? (Hell no -- spammers use that to verify the address, which means you'll get a lot -more- spam)
No one does anything about it because they have no idea how. All they know is that they and their ten-year-old are inundated with ads for porn sites, and they can't make them stop.
You can be damn sure that they would notice if it was gone.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Really? Do people really get that many calls? Wouldn't you just unplug the phone at some point?
I used to get 3 or 4 a week. Then I started signing up for everything using my cell phone number. Now I don't get any.
If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.
That's a bad attitude that the vast majority of the world has. Suppose I offer to screw some guy over. Now let's say he accepts. Is it my problem if I proceed to screw him over?
To you unfortunate people who think, `No': you may own that hot dog stand, but during all the time you are not selling your food items, you are a consumer, just like all your customers, and you have to deal with all the nasties out there who pray that you represent one of the poor `dupes/idiots/uninformed'. You should help this poor guy without giving it a second thought. Unfortunately, the world doesn't think/work this way, but is that to say that it ought not to?
Being a money-maker does not preclude one's moral obligation to be an honorable individual. People mourn the end of the old HP, because we lose one of a few good honorable firms to a ruthless corporate world that has successfully legitimized commercial deception and contractual robbery through the power of material persuasion.
You had better reconsider the price of your hot dogs, because the intelligent moral crowd among mankind will refuse to do business with you, let alone have anything else to do with you.
I don't get it. Why not? Are telemarketers not allowed to call cell phones or something? If so, that's a pretty good idea.
The problem is simple to understand. It just takes a different perspective. Here goes:
Given these two premises, here's two problems right off the bat:
The fact is, Yahoo could tell everyone that marketing is a trade-off for the free services and go fsck yourself if you don't like it. Then people could either deal with it or cancel their account. (Is it possible to cancel your MyYahoo account?) However, they aren't doing that. Instead, previously expressed wishes on the topic have been tossed; and many registered people aren't even being notified.
For anyone who created a MyYahoo account and either doesn't use their email or has abandoned the account, their notification efforts are not unlike those experienced by Arthur Dent at the beginning of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"The plans [to demolish your home] have been on file at the planning office. They're stored in a file cabinet, in the basement, in a dis-used lavatory with a sign on the door that says 'Beware of the Leopard'"
I'm all for 'free markets', but they should be closer to 'fair markets' not 'free-for-all markets'. Yahoo has done the bare minimum their lawyers can defend. That's not the same thing as doing what's right. They could have put the same notification in front of every active account and considered anyone who acknowledged it to be fair game until they followed-up to opt out. However, it's much more profitable to use your entire list (active, inactive, duplicates, etc), even if you know many will never read the notice.
See the problem?
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Is this guy joking? I blck-holed doubleclick, so I can't tell.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
I believe that telemarketing is not allowed to cellular phones, at least in California. Perhaps they know by the prefix? I never get sales cales on my cel phone...
I'm in the same position-- on a list that got transferred to Yahoo, and thus I can't even find out what my "ID", email, password, etc is supposed to be. So I couldn't "opt out", and of course they don't have a customer support email, only their impenetrable labyrinth of useless help wizards.
I even emailed their webmaster to try and get it forwarded, it failed. It's tempting to sue them for misappropriation of info (if only I had the free time!)
If you ever find a way to find out who we ourselves are (i.e. find a clueful techie at Yahoo), let me know (hcaulfield@ghostlibrary.com)
A.
Oh, by all means, Mod thy parent up! That was probably the best analogy I've seen on display here... Hypocrisy at it's best.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Wow! I can make up a law too!
Dr. Eldarion's law: The first person to bring up a retarded made-up law is a complete idiot.
Fun!
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I'm with you all the way buddy.
Yeaaaaah Haaaaaaa
I just changed my yahoo account contact email to abuse@launch.com
on what's in that $5.00 hot dog.
Hitler! did something that some people mind, and some don't.
Hitler! competed in a fierce marketplace full of alternatives. (Yes, he was elected)
The people who didn't like Hitler!'s actions left the country (those that could).
Look around... There's a hell of a lot in this country that doesn't work, and people who only look out for themselves are making it more difficult to fix what can be fixed.
I guess I see part of the point you intended. It isn't a big deal, just a free e-mail account. But they kept on changing the rules, and eventually went too far for anyone who cares about their identity being bought and sold like... used cars, or something. And a great deal of what passes for business in this country has that same sort of stench about it.
I have studied economics, and learned that a successful free market involves free information, free access, freedom to organize, and a commitment to at least level the playing field at the start. (That's free as in software, not beer) Most large companies, such as Yahoo, and even a lot of the smaller ones won't do any more than pay lip service to ideas like that. More often they hide behind the ideas, and do what they like anyway.
Enron's trashing of the California power system and the subsequent damage done to the national economy is a great example of what can happen in a "free economy". Free as in "free" to loot.
And he got modded to 5?
He is telling us that something that We Don't Agree With is NOT turning the world into 1984, which we all accept as Gospel.
And I bet if you sent out the same email in reverse: IE... we wan't to telemarket you, please respond if you would like to be called.
That 95% would also have not responded at all. This is simple social engineering. about 95% of the population are apathetic toward most anything you ask them about if it would require any action on their part other than an immediate oral answer.
Using that opt-out email as evidence that most people don't mind the marketing is just bad science.
Yahoo used apathy to send out a notification with a specific wording to get the maximum number of "opt-ins". Had they made opt-in the reason you had to reply or visit the preferences page, they would have had no-one to call.
I'd like to see an experiment:
Send an email, or a letter to every subscriber to some service: Yahoo, Good Housekeeping, Driver's License lists, etc...
In the notification state that unless the recipient calls a certain toll free telephone number and enters a code in the letter, that their bank account will be charged a $500 "profitability guarantee" fee. I bet a HUGE percentage would never respond.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
This would be like your hot dog stand sell hot dog with only 20% meat, while the next hot dog stand has maybe 30% meat. This isn't about the price you have to pay but the CONTENT of what you sell.
yes its ridiculous and no the guy has a social life. but he's a religious type nut and reasons if he doesnt read the great mail from yahoo spammers, he's not doing HIS bit to pay back yahoo for all the great email he recieves. honest. in fact i'm tempted to give his email...but no let the sod live in peace.
danheskett wrote:
> 4. If you are ignorant, its your fault. If you cant read a privay policy,
> and understand it, then get off the Internet.
This whole incedent involved Yahoo violating its own privacy policy, opting in all their members who had opted out, selling their information, then telling them that they might want to check their preferences. You could have taken their privacy policy to your lawyer for minute examination before you signed up, and still have not seen this coming. Privacy policies that are ignored by the company who wrote them are worse than useless: they give a false sense of security. Yahoo has proven two things in doing this:
1) Their users' privacy is worth exactly the sum they can get from the direct marketers for their users' private info.
2) Yahoo has no honor, they are just another greedy shark. Do not feed.
> 2. Ignorance again. Who cares about ignorant people. If you are
> ignorant of the world then you should have been eliminated by natural
> selection already. If you havent, well, chances are you getting screwed
> on a daily basis. Once again, it is up to individuals to safeguard their
> privacy in this case.
Real compassionate there. Not very in tune with the reality of the net, though. There are lots of ignorant (or at least innocent or naive) people on the internet. Check out the following:
1) School children. Whether on the net to get their homework done, chat with their friends, play a game, or check out the web site of their favorite TV show, their presence is a fact that is not too likely to change. There are laws protecting them from sites that want to run off with their private info. I wonder how many children had accounts on Yahoo that got involuntarily opted in and sold to the direct marketers or whoever.
2) Business people. Corporations may require their workers to use the internet for communications and access to corporate web services. Home internet accounts are often used to take work home, and perhaps for some surfing in ones free time (the two seconds between work and bed, and perhaps during breakfast if there are no children to get off to school). These people are skilled in their jobs, but not necessarily in computers or the net. If they are always busy, and burning the midnight oil every night, exactly when are they going to find the time (let alone find out that they need to find the time) to keep up to date on every privacy policy of every site they visit or account they use? Yet they *have* to be online to make a living.
3) Everyone in the world. Not everyone online is from the same country as Yahoo (or any other site). Not everyone online speaks the same language. More than one country might think it has some sort of jurisdiction in anything you do online. If you need to hire a dedicated professional just to understand a bit of legalese in your own country, what chance has someone from another country who has to consider two or more sets of laws, and may need some translation first? Multiply that by the number of sites you visit or whose services you use, and then consider keeping up to date on all the changes that can occur, and almost everyone is ignorant or misses something, even slashdot geeks and lawyers.
> The user entered into a presumably binding contract.
Yes, a presumably binding, yet ever changing (at least on the other end), contract. Which might have not been in one's native tongue. The user could have been a minor (really iffy on the binding part if that was the case, IANAL), or not well enough educated to understand it. How many governments want to jump in and claim jurisdiction here?
> Therefore, if you don't like it, screw.
If I was the parent of one of the users, and my child's information was sold, I'd sue (I don't like censorship, but a child's privacy should be absolutely protected).
"Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
Torahata, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964
Time and time again I see a good many of the people on this site show their paranoia. As if big brother is watching them specifically. News flash: you're not that important. Randalls tracks my purchases and I end up getting a free razor, many of the people who post here act like that's horrible. You talk about how Microsoft can monitor what you're doing and how certain other programs can spy on you, as if you're someone to be spied on. I would love a camera in every entrance of my neighborhood because I bet you anything there would be less crime around here. And if im not doing anything wrong I dont have anything to worry about. God forbid some government agency or faceless corporation knows my eating habits, lets see what it ever does except get me free samples of the things I like.
is just a spam receptacle, thats all it is. And in the past couple months the amount of spam it has been picking up has vastly dropped off from the time before. So I see nothing bad that has come from it...
But only 73,000 users, comScore projects, considered ending their relationship with Yahoo by visiting the page (https://edit.yahoo.com /config/delete-user) that actually cancels their Yahoo accounts, which can include e-mail and other services. That was fewer, even, than the month before, when 114,000 users went to the page.
/config/delete-user doesn't work. How do I delete my userids?
I went looking to delete my Yahoo accounts back befor e Yahoo started abusing peoples privacy(because of the dhtml ad's, damn that crap is annoying) and I couldn't find it. When I saw the link in this article I was very happy to click on it now and get rid of them but the link https://edit.yahoo.com
lunky> c++; lunky> do{;}
No bet there. For the last three years, the number one online consumer concern in study after study has been privacy. The last one I read had 85% of the people polled rating the loss of control over their personal information as the top issue.
Yet you know what? The simple fact is that privacy is (or at least has been to now), an issue that people talk about, but don't do anything about.
No one does anything about it because they have no idea how.
It's a red herring to claim user ignorance here. There have been numerous attempts to solve the privacy problem -- with technology, with policy, and with law. But none of that changes the simple fact that for all the talk of concern, all it takes is a $0.20 coupon off a hamburger, and people will share their entire life's history. This isn't a problem of technology, policy, or law. It's a social problem... and the problem with social problems is that they depend on everyone agreeing -- through their actions -- that it is a problem. Talk isn't enough.
A few years ago (and yes, this is turning into a ramble, so what?), I and many others were waiting for the (next) big "Privacy Chernobyl" to hit, because surely that would be the one to make people wake up. But folks never did.
Until individual consumers stop giving up their personal information for a free toy or a discount on an item they may never use, the situation simply won't change. Privacy is a personal responsibility.
Okay, off the soap box.
--ZK
I do...
:-) (please state the nature of your emergency..)
It's 9-11-555-1212
cmon, dial it
So who has ever given real data to any of these "free" (read: you pay with your valuable data) sites? I'd consider this a stupidity tax.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There is no such thing as privacy in this modern world. If you want privacy, get rid of all your credit cards, bank accounts, house, driver's license, cell phone, landline and quit your job. Did I miss anything? Become a beggar. Pay with cash. Live in a cave. Wear a tinfoil hat. They'll never find you.
This poster's name secretly replaced with Folgers Crystals
they have lost some of my good will. Before it was like "Hey! Thanks for the free service!!"
Now its "Err, yah, thanks for the free service, or whatever." Good will may not be worth value in an annual report (as it actually was in the 90s) but its absence is still a cost. Hooray for Yahoo, sending a huge amount of surplus brand respect down the pooper.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
Telemarketing is just a variant of port scanning in this view ;)
Welcome to the tarpit, Yahoo calls !
Thought police don't need to resort to such primitive tactics. The reason that police states have always broken down is because there are too many cracks. There are too many places to hide, to slowly spred sedition, to slowly build a resistance to the oppressors. It's a simple matter of resources; you cannot track all the people all the time. Or can you?
With the vast increases in computing power, suddenly the ability to manage the raw data created by people on a daily basis is within reach. Suddenly using all of the cameras spread through the cities to track people's movements is completey possible. Suddenly an agent can go through credit receipts of millions of people and use a profiling system to weed out the people that are potentially unsavory for the government.
No need to take them out in the night and torture them. That's clumsy and builds hatred by the masses. Label the person an extremist, a terrorist, a pedophile. Talk abut all the terrible things the person's done. Some of it may be true, some not, but with all that data floating around out there, you can probably find a few juicy tidbits to destroy political opponents.
A police state is now, more than ever, a viable possibility. With all of this information out there and, more importantly, the increasing ability to do something useful with that data, it becomes very easy to track the unsavories. It may even be made easier because the unsavories cover their tracks leaving obvious information voids in their wake.
Maybe this is a tad paranoid, but tell me that this isn't technically possible...
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"A few years ago (and yes, this is turning into a ramble, so what?), I and many others were waiting for the (next) big "Privacy Chernobyl" to hit, because surely that would be the one to make people wake up."
That's an interesting bit of speculation-- what exactly would we have to do to make the next Privacy Chernobyl? Something legitimate, that pissed off millions of people and made them feel totally violated. And of course, make sure they knew we got all of their information from, say, yahoo.
PART I The rant:
The data means nothing. The NYT article states that it counted people who actively looked at the "delete my acct" page.
I (used to) have an acc't over at hotmail. When they went evil, I just abandoned it. Why be bothered cancelling it so someone else can use my login name? I assume after 6 months or so of non-use it would die anyhow.
Additionally, it would be a lot more telling to know how many ACTIVE accounts visited the reOpt-Out page, rather than just number of registered users. I'd guess 2/3rds of the acc'ts are abandoned/unused.
Bad premise; meaningless statistics.
PART II The trap:
There is no way to retrieve old Yahoo mail off of their servers. I have 2+ years of emails I should burn to CD-R for reference, but there is no way aside from downloading each msg individually. I wrote to Yahoo support asking how, and they came back with: use Yahoo! Briefcase to transfer off large attachments, which works beautifully BTW, but no mail folder compress and download. I'm trapped keeping the acc't alive, even if I abandon using it for incoming mail.
I have emails from friends who have since passed away. I don't want to lose them to the whims of Yahoo's success or failure as a business.
[POP3 wasn't up and running over there when I looked into that. Can I now log in and download (all) my mail that way?? (temporarily upgrading to the pay service would be annoying, but possibly worth it)]
EPILOGUE:
You mean you actually used your real personal data to register in the first place????
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Thanks for pointing me to the fucking delete page! I could not FIND that fucker.
Your account has been deactivated and scheduled for deletion.
You no longer have access to this account, which will deleted from our user database in approximately 90 days. This delay is necessary to discourage users from engaging in fraudulent activity.
Click here to learn what information may possibly remain in our archived records after your account has been deleted.
Fuckin Punks ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.
No, there is certainly no legal or ethical obligation to tell them squat. You shouldn't be too surprised, however, when angry customers who just rounded the corner come back and try to tell everyone else in line that they're being ripped off.
And to speak more candidly, I find your attitude disgusting. As people who are more informed of these issues than the general public, some of us feel a responsibility to try to impress upon them the importance of online privacy, among many other things. People don't deserve to be deceived simply because they are dupes/idiots/uninformed. If they choose to forfeit their privacy, so be it, but it should be an informed decision. And like it or not, we all must rely on one another to make informed decisions.
I stay abreast of privacy violations, corporate arrogance (*AA, MS, Enron, Sony, etc.), government arrogance (DMCA, SSSCA/CDBTPA, John Asscruft, etc.) as much as any Slashdotter, i.e. moreso than 95% of the general population, and the truth of the matter in fighting this lunacy is exactly what you posted.
Nobody cares, because nobody thinks it affects them, but more importantly, people don't fight because they think they are (or really are) too busy with their personal lives to do anything. I see it in friends/family all the time - I email them something about how John Assfuck wants to take away our civil liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism," and what do they say?
"Well, I'm sure it won't last. Besides, gotta catch those terrorists, dontcha know?"
*sigh* Just like Parsons in 1984...
Same deal with stuff like the then-SSSCA... Says my dad (a post-graduate in a fundamental field of natural science): "Of course it matters to me..." But were any letters written? Any further discussion between us? Any sign that he *REALLY* cared?
No.
He was too busy watching "Survivor," "Everybody Loves Raymond" (or some other equally-lame sitcom), and the day's football games -- like any other beer-swilling American, this PhD. scientist spends his free time letting the TV tell him what to think, what to do, and how to act. Unwinding from the daily stresses of the corporate environment.
And I can't say as I blame him... He works 50-60 hours/week+ and spends another 10+ hours/week just commuting to/from work. He doesn't have enough time to help take care of the house, let alone fight for principles that he might actually believe in. He has only time to help a large company make money and put food on our table.
And if that's how much a PhD from a well-respected engineering school - i.e. somebody who is very highly educated and intelligent - cares (or is able to care), imagine how much the rest of the nation cares. Precisely - not a bit.
People aren't going to care until the govn't or the MPAA/RIAA starts kicking down doors without a warrant in search of pirated material (which is legal for the FBI/CIA to do, now that John Asshole passed his USA Patriot Act - no longer is a warrant needed to search your home)... And by then, it's too late.
Advice to the rest of us: Use crypto - lots of crypto. Use multi-pass disk wipe programs. Avoid sharing files of "questionable legality" with people you don't know (or do it as anonymously and securely as possible). Lie whenever possible (use info about somebody you hate if necessary). Be as inspecific as possible (as I was about my dad's line of work). Think like a spook - what would the CIA or KGB do to keep from being detected by the enemy?
And for $DEITY's sake, don't be yet another hypocritical
while(slashdotSheep == TRUE)
{
}
In OS9, in the Computer about box, control clicking the OS name hyperlinks you to Apple's MacOS X site.
Had no problems, and I'm getting no spam. So at least some of the time it seems to have worked.
Relax, homeshot. Fifty cents. Don't be a tard.
Who, Hitler!?
I think one reason people are not bothering to change settings on their yahoo mail accounts is that they're often used as a trash account anyway, and rarely if ever checked. I use one for this purpose and only ever check it if I need to confirm receipt of an email. Same with hotmail. So I've never botherered changing it, if it fills with spam, who cares?
Anyone sending me mail from a yahoo, hotmail or msn.com account goes straight to the spambox.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Chris, you might not want to put a direct link to delete the current yahoo account into the story. It probably asks for some confirmations, but people can still get confused.
Slashdot no longer controls the ads. That is all done by OSDN's marketing department who (it is claimed) in turn have no editorial influence. Slashdot editors have mentioned that they dislike Doubleclick, but its not their choice.
As for me - I filter out all Doubleclick ads. I leave ads whenever possible. I generally don't mind them. But when a company tries to use tracking cookies or stupid java / flash tricks (which can also be used for user tracking now), they get no "views". Filtered. Goodbye.
I would advise you do the same.
This strikes me as interesting. Since there is no fee to Yahoo's service... I would assume the vast majority of users would simply abandon their accounts. There is no penalty to do so. And it is by far the easier method.
While I wouldn't be suprised if a vast portion of the public wouldn't move based on this issue alone, I find this stat pretty suspect proof of it.
> Obviously not, because an e-mail was sent and 95% didnt respond.
Not everyone was sent one of these emails, e.g. I've got a Yahoo account and I didn't receive one. Presumably because I use the web interface (as well as POP), so I see their ads.
Which seems fair enough to me - they provide free email service, in return for which I let them advertise at me. Fine. I know how to find the delete key.
Guys, there are some people out in the world doing truly bad things to other people. Some sense of proportion about the 'evils of telemarketing' versus, say the evils of child slavery, or world poverty, might be in order?
I'm keeping my Yahoo account because I use it solely for chatting using their chat protocol via Gaim. I don't care at all about what they do with their e-mail service, as I never use it, and Google is the only search engine i use, so I don't care what they do with their website. So, I'm a Yahoo account owner, and nothing they do bothers me. I guess a few more people will be in this position, and will also not want to delete their account.
Follow me
How does that example have anything to do with this situation?
I don't think anybody is demanding Yahoo advertise "Use honestmail.com instead! They HONOR your marketing preferences!"
In the hotdog stand scenario, the "informed consumer" wouldn't involve the vendor posting signs like "100% Beef! - well, its actually sawdust and unknown meat byproducts" or "Our employees never wash their hands and routinly cook our hotdogs after they fell on the floor!"
Yes, consumers should make informed decisions. However, some issues are beyond the means and expertise of the average consumer. That is when watch-dog groups and (unfortunately) government regulation comes in.
Where did you get that stat? Granted - it could very well be accurate. But it could mean people either accept the situation, are silently abandoning their accounts, or are left scratching their heads in confusion. Or the Yahoo PR folks put a real nice spin on the email.
I do partially agree with you there. The sad thing about this case is that it proves that no matter how reputable a company seems, it is unlikely they can be trusted with your personal information. And it seems that it will take privacy laws to force companies to comply with their own promises.
And that is the key point here.
We do NOT have a situation where a company said "OK! We want to trade something for info and permission to start an invasive advertising campaign!" and the customer clicking on "Sure! Take advantage of my naive greed!" The situation here is Yahoo asking "can we advertise to you", the users selecting "no, opt me out" and yahoo (after some delay) replying "OK, we'll opt you in anyway".
If this exchange involved an ad banner, it would easily play out as "deceptive advertising".
If everybody knows what everybody does, then we would care as much as if nobody knew nothing about anybody.
It's no joke.
Reading the mail that yahoo sent you is your problem, not yahoo's. Besides sending you an email informing you of the changes, what else do you expect them to do?? Call you up? Oh but then everyone will get even more pissed. All the people here complaining about yahoo being irresponsible, are just being self-righteous bigots. They don't seem to know how to look at their own actions before blaming everyone else.
And about the yahoo junk filters filtering out its own mail, isn't it a good thing? To me it shows that they are being rather transparent with regards to their policies about spam. If you don't want spam, they'll do their best to filter it from your inbox, even if its means filtering out their own spam, which they stand to lose money from. If they really are the big bullying megacorporation everyone likes to believe they are that doesn't give two hoots and a fuck about peoples' privacy, I think they would have already rigged the filters to allow only their spam mail through, doncha think so?
Next, how else do you expect them to make money off you? Yes free stuff is nice, as in like free beer but that's just a pipe dream. Income -has- to come from somewhere. if you aren't willing to make some sacrifices for the free service they offer you, then bug off; no one's forcing you to use their services. I think this sentiment has been echoed many times by many other posters already.
And lastly, I believe the reason they changed the default settings and sent an email notifying users of the changes and how to change it back if they wanted to, was to cash in on the large number of users who either don't care about the spam they get, can't be bothered to change the settings and don't care as well, or those who can see the tradeoff they're making and try to appreciate the service they're getting. Is anything really wrong with that in the business world? They saw an opportunity to generate more revenue, so they took it! Again, what did you expect them to do? Pretend they didn't see it and go into denial about the morality of it? I suppose the next time Ariel Sharon gets a chance to bomb Yassar Arafat, should he stop and ponder about the morality of it, and then pretend he didn't know about the opportunity?? Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying morality is wrong; just that for the most part in politics and business, its no different from free beer, in that its a pipe dream. I would find it nice as well if everyone wanted to just be a nice guy and shoo customers from his $5.00 hotdog stall to the $0.50 one down the street cos he felt bad. But do you think that's gonna happen? Me neither. So quit whining about it unless you have a better idea.
Here's the problem Dan: As a large corporation, I have your name, address, social security number, your email address, and access to many of your purchase records (even some of your cash purchases) through Costco, Safeway, Kroger's grocery store chains, and many other consumer outlets that engage in consumer tracking at the individual level.
I have lobbyists spend a lot of money as insurance that it will remain legal for me to buy and sell a lot of this information about you, and to use it just about any way that I want. The information is sharable across industries, and it is just as easy for me to find out what your monthly mortgage and car payments are as it is for me to find out what brand of bread you buy and how much beer you go through a week. You are aware of some of these violations of privacy, but you are unaware of most of them. I only have to tell you once if I'm a bank, telephone, or insurance company. If I'm an ISP or a retailer, I don't have to tell you much of anything.
Sure, it's a free market, but since virtually all large corporations are doing it now, your only option is to stop buying food and gasoline and travelling anywhere if you don't like it. Big business has grown to the point where it can use its sheer size to deal with the problems posed by annoying and difficult-to-control consumer choice and supply/demand issues. Large scale mergers, acquisitions, and buyouts are effective tools in the fight to utterly dominate markets and to maintain precise control over what a large population consumes. It's so pervasive that you really don't have a choice. You only think you do. If you doubt this, take an inventory of all of the stores and online sites that require some sort of registration. Try to live for 30 days without providing any kind of personal identification to anyplace where you either spend money or receive money. You will discover that it has become much, much harder than you think, and that's not even counting telephone, water, electricity, sewage, garbage, and Internet service - all of which require trackable personal identification in order to obtain.
And it's going to continue to get even more difficult.
It hasn't always been like this. Twenty years ago, the networks that would permit your local hardware store to verify your annual income and monthly car and mortgage payments as you waited at the counter for loan approval on the washing machine did not exist. It's been evolving, and technology has been lowering all sorts of barriers. Things have gotten to the point where it is becoming very inexpensive for the keepers of all sorts of databases to share that information amongst themselves, buying and selling it with little oversight or limitation. The motivation for them to do so is profit, and in a capitalist society, that is THE motivation for businesses to do things.
Yahoo is but one of many, and sure, you can just choose to not use Yahoo. However, if Yahoo is successful at this, and discovers that something that happens to invade their user's privacy increases their profit, then it's only a matter of time before whatever place you ran to WILL begin to do the same.
Enjoy your run.
Very true .. but can the optimum (assuming it can
even be determined) be reached? It's easy to point
out that humans are fallible and make mistakes
like giving away too much of their privacy. But
what is the solution? Passing some law that
controls exactly how much privacy people are
allowed to give up?
Hard as it may be for you to imagine, there will
be people who are willing to give up all their
personal details in exchange for a free email
account or whatever, and preventing them from
doing so will actually make them worse off.
I'm not surprised if you get added to spam lists, seeing the way you just posted your email address here. Can you hear the spambots scuttling around already? doh....
Whenever I stay home from work, I don't answer the phone. I'll get 6-8 calls on an average day that just hang up as soon as the message starts. I assume they're all telemarketers. I probably pick up the phone 4-5 times a week at night and get a telemarketer. With an unlisted number, no less.
I am totally serious when I say this, but what ever happened to being responsible for your own actions and your own protection? I'm not talking about protecting yourself against crime (the violent ones anyway) but the plain old simple protection that is the result of common sense. That word is an oxymoron but must still be heeded.
For example:
1. Get Caller ID and some sort of answering machine/voicemail.
You know, if I don't recognize the number I don't answer it. If it is important, they will leave a message. If it isn't then you can forget about it. I mean, if someone was in an accident then I'd expect the caller to leave a message, don't you? Besides, you might be in the shower and unable to answer the phone. How is that any different than simply refusing the answer the phone when you don't recognize the number?
I can tell a telemarketer a mile away with Caller ID. Their number rarely displays since they are trying to hide. I don't know about you but most of the people I know who might work at a place that shields their number at least have a cell phone, which does show its number.
Suffice it to say I do not answer the phone but once or twice a night anymore. The rest are JUNK!
2. Go ahead and give your mailing address and phone number.
See number one. And when they snail mail you, it will be obvious. I mean, take a good look at your postal mail and you will know what is legit and what is not. Recycle if it makes you less angry about the paper being wasted. I am amazed at how much money has been spent trying to get me to sign up for more credit cards.
3. Hit delete in your email program.
I do not hate spam. I laugh at spam. I am curious about spam and how it works and I do think it is a problem, but I do not evangelize about it. It is so darn easy to handle. DELETE! Oopps...I accidentally hit delete on that one. DELETE DELETE...doggone it. I did it again. I don't know what happened Mr./Mrs. Spammer.
I also recognize the cost of SPAM, but until we reform the SMTP method of delivering email and ISP's filter out rogue SMTP servers, we will be stuck with the problem. The issue here is that it still costs too much to weed them out and no one has time for the chore.
So I know this is a trollish post and sets me up as elitist, but my method works for me. My family swears I screen their calls, but I almost never do unless I am simply unable to answer the phone. Just because I may be at home when they call and I don't answer doesn't mean anything. Unable to answer the phone is being unable to answer the phone.
4. But my privacy has ben violated!
Not it hasn't. You gave them all that information the first go round anyway. And besides, who ever said you anonymity was a right? If you circulate among the living then someone is going to notice you eventually. Your home sale is public, your credit report is pretty much public, and if you use anything other than cold hard cash then you are being tracked. Honestly, if knowing how much I like Booberry makes them happy then great! Maybe they'll put it on sale.
All I am saying is that all you have to do is put forth just a smidgen of effort. All of this privacy invasion everyone screams about is rarely anything of the sort. The earlier message from 5/13 here on Slashdot concerning Flash 6 is much more disturbing and invasive than simply using information I gave for a FREE service. Give bogus information if it makes you feel better. Just do something, don't assume that getting upset is all you need to do. A little effort goes a long way really and if that is not good enough then become politically active (not protest, get into politics) and help change it.
----------
Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
OK, so you part with a hot dog and your patron parts with five $. We have a clear change of ownership here. So what the fuck has that to do with my data, which I own in the first place, which is infinitely copyable (including all errors introduced) and which will be used against me, be it by annoying telemarketers or by spammers?
I believe that the EU has a far better grasp of the problem and far better instruments to protect the individual, while the US approach is to protect the "right" of businesses to make money, with something they don't own.
In essence:
I own my data
You may only collect and store data, which is pertinent to the transaction(s)
You may not sell or provide access to my data to third parties without my explicit agreement. And no! some lawyerese on page 49 of the EULA is not considered explicit agreement
I have a right to see what you stored about me and I have a right to get it corrected
Special protection applies for medical and (partially) financial data.
You are liable for criminal and civil penalties if you don't obey the data protection directives. This goes for business as well for government entities.
If you believe, that personal data is a tradable commodity we can stop right here. If we can agree that I'm the owner of my personal data (same as I'm the owner of the hot dog, for which I just payed 5$), then there's no way in the world, why the eu guidelines don't make sense.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
>Still, Christopher M. Kelly, who was a privacy lawyer with the
>Internet service Excite@Home, which is now defunct, says the seemingly
>low number of users who actually read Yahoo's policy or considered
>changing their options understated the effect on its reputation.
>
>"People will keep their e-mail addresses at Yahoo," he said, "but they
>will just stop using them if they feel Yahoo doesn't take their
>privacy seriously and doesn't protect them from spam."
>
And this says it all.
Thats correct I STILL use yahoo, and I saw the original story. Why do I use it when I have my own postmail server running at home. Well I use it to give to all the online stores I register with. I however do buisness at reputable places. I am happy to say I don't get spam from them. You know what, I opted out of all the spam options from yahoo after the story and I never got one piece of spam. I don't agree with them not telling me that they opted me into spam, but at least they respect my choice when I opted out, unlike some others *cough* hotmail *cough*.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"
Indivdual consumer(s) are PO's about giving his/their live history to grocery stores for a $0.02 discount on a few items. The problem is that, judging from the looks I get from clerks when I say I don't have a card, I might be the only one!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I have! And I showed him my mailbox, and he couldn't find his message among all the crap either.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
No, because I occasionly get a phone call from my girlfriend or my mom among the 5 crap calls. I screen some of calls with my answering machine, but all that ringing is still annoying! BTW, all that is just in the evening! If I'm home in the daytime, it's even worse!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
It's not at all hard for me to imagine. It is *entirely* conceivable to me that that is a reasonable trade-off. I would probably make it - my personal details are widely available. I don't mind aggregated user-study, I don't mind targetted advertising. I just don't like spam, and if that's what it's going to get me it's not worth it.
:-)
The scope of my point was a lot bigger, though. It's not just one issue that's the problem, it's many many issues. Many important issues. That's what we can't handle.
Admittedly, though, I don't have a particularly well-thought-out solution that I think is better. However, I believe that the internet has significant ability to "enable" meritocracy-based-discussion (something like slashdot, but with a bit of a different intent - slashdot's system is a reactive, defensive system against noise, where I'm thinking of a proactive system that lets you find people who have done the research that you can trust.) that would let me look quickly over what a few people had figured out on, say, shoe companies, and have a sense of how trustworthy it is. *shrug* Solving that problem would get you a nobel prize, probably.
-Rob Ewaschuk
Oh, you mean like declaring a "war" against an intangible enemy with an undefined victory condition? (When will we think we've won the "war on terrorism", anyway?) Then using this so-called "war" as justification for just about any privacy-invading action the government wants to take?
Been there, done that. And the annoying part is, most people are in favor of it. No, not the Slashdot readers, but go outside and ask the other 99% of the population.
Privacy is dead. The genie's out of the bottle and can't be stuffed back in. The technology exists, so somebody will use it. It's inevitable. Your homework, class -- Learn to deal with it.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Although funny, was it really necessary to do the 555 exchange? I mean, it's not like anyone would even get to dial the rest of that :)
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mmmm... meatspace.
</homer>
The article and some posters are assuming that just because I didn't cancel my Yahoo! account that I did nothing. As soon as I heard about the changes to Yahoo's privacy policy I went to the relevant page and switched everything to no. Problem solved. It took about 30 seconds of my time. Am I happy about Yahoo's increasingly desperate attempts to actually make some money? No. But have they gone so far that I feel the need to avoid them totally? Not yet.
I'm not an actor, but I play one on tv.
How many of those who "dont give a damn" bothered to visit their preferences, read the legal stuff, make an informed decision that it is no big deal as long as you change your settings.?? I changed my primary e-mail, address,occupation, etc so i would not get the spam. Ok, maybe nieve on my part.., but no, i don't care enough to ditch my web e-mail. If I did that then I'd lose my "spam-trap" and start to get stuff in my primary mailbox. Bo-ho, we're all gonna die.
Tell me again why this is a big deal? Tell me again why this is news?
Because the decisions of some people effect the lives of others. Here's the deal. Something bad is happening, Yahoo is increasing how much crap advertising its users get. The majority of its users don't like this, but don't actually do anything about it. The minority who really don't like it and do something about it aren't enough to change the movement in big business to sell out their customers.
This means that every time someone says "I can't do anything about it" or "I'm only one person" or "It's not worth the effort" it gets easier for it to happen.
The problem is that it takes a great deal of energy to actually be informed and make good decisions like this. A vast majority of the basic users out there aren't interested in staying informed, because there are more important things in their lives to pay attnetion to. And when I say stay informed, I don't just mean seeing that things like this are happening, I mean placing them in the bigger picture and finding out what they should do about them. Not to mention the effort required to actually do something about them.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
My attitude was to wait and see. I did update my preferences on Yahoo to indicate that I did not want to be advertised to. Guess what? I didn't get spammed.
However, if I had gotten spammed I would simply have abandoned the account like I abandonned my Hotmail accounts. I figure that if I don't read the advertisedments they lose, and I chew up their disk space leaving junk mail in that mailbox. In fact, I log into my old abandoned accounts every month to keep them alive.
It doesn't take much to link cookies to /dev/null and clear cache frequently.
On the other hand, if you insist on providing your real name and address, I guess you're on your own...
I got a message saying "We have received your request to join the HomesAtCodwellBanker group hosted by Yahoo! Groups, a free, easy-to-use community service." Only problem is I never made that request. The second problem ... it came to my work email address. Now that particular group isn't too bad but what happens when you start getting emails at work thanking you for joining something more offensive like the "Fat old pedophile support group"?
Is this guy joking? I blck-holed doubleclick, so I can't tell
He's not joking.
I say no to doubleclick cookies from time to time when browsing slashdot, so slashdot is definitely using them.
Add this to the growing list of Slashdot Editorial Hypocracy, along with their promoting the latest Star Wars tripe right next to articles detailing the concerted attack on our first amendment rights by the very same Copyright Cartels, etc. etc.
Slashdot may be where many of us come to get their news, but it has in large part become part of the problem, and certainly it has become a part of the corporate establishment that is becoming ever more oppressive.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I think that in fact the free market is working in a nearly ideal way.
The lack of perfect infromation and transparency is not a insurmountable hurdle for free markets to deal with. You make a rational decision to allocate your time and effort to find information about decisions in line with how much you value that information. If you do not place a high value on non-monetary costs, then you don't invest your time or resources to find out the full extent of what they are. If you have money to burn and place a high value on privacy, you will almost certainly put in the effort to find out the privacy costs of any contract you sign.
As far as I can tell, the biggest obstacle to free market efficienty is deception. When lies are intentionally used to mislead agents in the market, eiceincies are lost because agents no longer have even good information. Strong penalties for misinforming consumers are essentiall to the efficiency of free markets.
I tried to delete my account a dozen or so times, their servers were "too busy, try later".
All of my preferences are set to yes. My mailing address is Yahoo's San Jose office, my phone number is their investor relations line, and my email address is their PR email.
I just hope they put that info on every mailing list known to man.
So, how would you tell people about stuff, if you dont think email is good enough? If you dont read email from your email provider, thats your problem - no-one elses. `Oh - my summons to court? I through it in the bin because it looked like any other piece of rubbish mail...wait..where are you taking me....?`
I've been encouraging anyone I know to give out completely false information in any "registration" process on the net. I'm the same with retailers, why does Radio Shack need my home address to sell me a $4 mousepad?
The credit card information can be a little stickier to deal with. Avoid net commerce entirely. Read about what you need to buy, and compare prices online, yes. But I tend to buy from a local dealer.
Create four or five 'throw-away' email accounts. Use those for 'email registration required' places. The one I use the most, gets about 200 bits of spam per day lol. Straight to the trash bin.
When I first heard of this, I wondered if this was at least partially a thinly-veiled effort to get everyone to "ack" their account. It's been my experience running mailing lists that the "half-life" of E-mail addresses is about 24 months (and may be getting shorter). With a database of over 1 million, Yahoo may be concerned that many of its E-mail addresses are inaccurate.
One possible side benefit of publicizing a controversial policy is to get everyone to come back and update their information. Many users may have just not cared (or even not been skilled enough to log in and get to the right screen to update their information). However, I wonder if a sizable subgroup of those that didn't update their information just didn't want to play into the hands of Yahoo by helping to give them a confirmed address list for possible future misuse. I also wonder how many of Yahoo's registrants are simply not active at all (e.g., not pointing to a valid E-mail address, not read at that address, no mailing lists subscribed, no use of Yahoo mail, etc.).
I, for one, think you're absolutely right. Good message, BTW.
Unfortunately, at least in the United States, the majority seems to feel differently. For example, a number of gas stations took advantage of the paranoia right after the war started, and jacked up prices to $4.50 per gallon or more. What happened? They got slapped with huge fines by the government!
IMHO, if you're a gas station owner, you should be able to sell your product for whatever price you wish. In cases like this, where all the stations were still paying much less than the inflated prices *some* chose to charge, the problem would resolve itself. (Obviously, a number of stations would realize they could steal 99% of the competition's customers by keeping their prices reasonable. Not only that, but think of all the marketing material this situation would create. "Unlike Joe's Mobil down the street, *we're* patriotic enough to hold down prices for you, the U.S. consumer!")
It's too bad the majority still feels government is needed to barge in and interrupt the free market economy on a regular basis....
the vast majority of users did nothing.
You are assuming that the information I gave Yahoo! actually means anything besides gibberish I typed in to get a free e-mail account. *DUH!*
I'm a 2000 man.
Nice try, but I'm not buying into this whole "dual existance" concept. You physically exist as a human being, period. The data gathered about you and your actions is not a part of you, nor does it constitute some sort of "cyber-existance" that is automatically considered your "property".
To illustrate, say you choose to dress in a green shirt and blue jeans with Nike tennis-shoes. I observe you and make note of what you're wearing. Well, I can now punch that info into a database and do whatever I like with it. It's not *your* data; it's a description of *my* observations of what you wore when I saw you.
You may find it extremely unpleasant if I proceed to construct a profile that includes you as a "likely candidate to purchase Nike running shoes in the next 2 years", or add you to a list of "known people who dress casually" - but I could do it, and you really have no basic human right to prevent it.
I went to the Yahoo site, read the privacy policy, clicked the opt-out button, noticed that I had filled in a fake name and address, and left well enough alone.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
"3. The people who didnt like Yahoo!'s actions have stopped using the service and either (a) gone without the service or (b) switched to the competition."
Unfortunately not true. When I learned what Yahoo had done, I sent certified return-receipt mail telling Yahoo I was terminating business with them and instructing Yahoo not to send me email. Yahoo has refused my instructions. Yahoo has since sent me three email messages. The first told me I had received email telling me about the changes. That was false. The second, received three days later, told me about the changes. In the third, Yahoo refused to delete my accounts.
I would delete my accounts myself, if I could. At first, I saw no link or method for deleting an account; I didn't know how until Yahoo sent that information. However, at least one of the "accounts" for me at Yahoo has a user name unknown to me. It got created in the process of buying something through Yahoo stores sometime in the past and isn't my regular account--but Yahoo still uses it to send me email and did not tell me what the user name of that account was when I complained about the unsolicited commercial email they sent pursuant to that account.
If it were true that people could choose whom they do business with, maybe there wouldn't be a problem here. But there is a problem. The problem is that corporations do what they please even if it is unlawful, and individuals have little power to remedy the situation. I want to choose not to do business with Yahoo, but Yahoo isn't allowing it. Maybe I will end up filing a small claims suit against Yahoo, and maybe they will finally stop using my property to transmit me email, but it shouldn't cost that much to get a company simply to terminate a relationship and leave a person alone.
The problem is that remedies for privacy violations are too weak to be effective.
Beyond mass theft of credit cards, shopping habits, medical information, information on children?
I said that "[we] were waiting..." (emphasis added). I'm no longer convinced that event of sufficient magnitude could occur. Which means that waiting for a fear-based opportunity won't work.
I now think the best way to do it is ... well, the way we geeks do things best -- subvert the paradigm. Get it in at the ground floor. Work features into products that enhance privacy without degrading the user experience. Because while people won't spend money for privacy itself (as a general rule), they will choose a more privacy protecting product over a less privacy protecting one, all else being equal.
Also, realize that the concerns of the average person are not the same as the concerns of the average /. reader. We tend to be more worried about the dangers from Big Brother, whereas the average consumer is more worried about the thousands of "Little Brothers" in business, which is a hugely different issue to deal with. For one thing, things like mixmaster remailers and strong crypto-based identity guarding / generators (like alas, the defunct Privada's Incognito set and Zero Knowledge's Freedom) aren't necessarily essential.
--ZK
So I have a "no solicitors/unidentified calls" message on my phone. I'm using one technology to filter the people that the banks sell my info to. Stupid.
It all comes down to the fact that the majority of the users value their services. They find enough potential value to outweight the potential harm that having a yahoo! account will have on their lives. And in the scope of things, to most people that potential harm is nil because they are already opted in to so many things, get enough junk mail and cold calls, that the yahoo! stuff won't make a dent.
I know I kept my account solely because I am in a yahoo group. That is what the account is primarily used for. I occasionally use it to check my popmail when away from home.
It's not like people didn't know about this change it the policy. yahoo! sent each account a very nice, fancy email that was highlighted in the list of messages in bright blue, to make sure that people would pay attention to their message. Why cancel an account if you can just fill your contact info with bogus information and say no to everything they want to send you???
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
I consider myself a regular reader of slashdot and I haven't seen anyone post about it.
So even if I am redundant, I at least got to one person that hadn't seen the other posts.
I've blocked doubleclick in dns by putting in fake entries, but I'm not sure if there is a better way to do it. This results in an error everytime Opera hits a doubleclick page.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
No. They want to interrupt your day, your work, and your meals to sell you something you don't want.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Spam control is 100 times better with Yahoo than with Hotmail.
I never get any spam delivered to my inbox, and I've been using my main yahoo account for years.
Those that said they never received a opt out mail from yahoo, remember that the new privacy policy is for servers in the US only, if you have a @yahoo.co.uk address for example the old privacy policy is still in force.
Yahoo is a free and easy service, opting out was no hassle, whine about something that actually matters Slashdotters, I mean "free service tries to up ad revenues" is hardly a shocker is it ?
Yahoo sells its services, not for money, but for marketing data. It sells that marketing data to generate revenue. Thing is, of course, they don't verify that the marketing data you give them is accurate.
This is equivalent to a grocery store charging you $10 for a loaf of bread but letting you pay in Monopoly money. Where's the problem, here?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I'm livid. I have been using a tool to filter and delete spam on my personal email, but a few get through. One got through the other day and it was my employer!!!!! (SBC Communications...) They have learned a few things from their new partner, Yahoo.
Argh.
Span = Spam.
duh.
Or worse yet, netscape.com? I signed up for a netscape.com Web email address once. I never used the account or gave out my address to anyone. Within a couple weeks, I was already getting a half dozen Spams a day. Needless to say, I've never cone back to netscape.com, or sent them anything other than obviously spoofed addresses and phone numbers (like 555-1234 and nobody@death.to.spam).
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Yeah! And I don't see the problem with sweatshops either... I mean, it's easy to find out that GAP/Nike/Banana Republic/Old Navy all exploit sweatshop labor. Obviously people make the choice each time they shop that cheap, fashionable clothes are more important than human rights... It's the free market working, Yeah baby! Of course, people don't make such decisions, because they don't have the time to investigate each purchase. They count on laws and ethics to protect them from supporting such behavior (which it doesn't). If the previous argument holds, then there's no need for the FDA... we can all investigate each resturaunt ourselves beforehand to find out if the meat is rancid or the employees washed their hands. How silly of me to throw a 'hissy fit' for wanting clean food. And what Free Market? Farm subsidies, corporate tax breaks, etc? We haven't yet had a free market to try out.
It is not always the job of the consumer. This notion that each citizen dictates the best course of action is absurd. Companies do not advertise their negative aspects. Exxon lobbied hard for drilling in Alaska, but you don't see signs at the pump like "Before you fill up, you should know that you are supporting a campaign to drill in National Parks for oil". The majority of citizens are passive, but if you ask, I'm sure they'd like more laws protecting privacy so they don't have to make a full-time job out of it.
Or try:
login: assword
password: password
Who gives their real contact information online anyway?
name: John Doe email: x@x.com phone: 212-555-1234 etc... the only details that are ever confirmed are area code (pick one at random) and sometimes ZIP code (also, pick a real one at random)... works for all information gathering in any medium
...it only gets tricky when they try to bribe you with interesting prizes (damn)
Security through deception... I never give real information to marketers. EVER. They aren't trustworthy... eventually the temptation to use your contact info will overcome any sense of ethics they have. Working closely with marketing and sales people, I've seen this all too often.
Quote: "Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily deleted their accounts, the vast majority of users did nothing." and "So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Yahoo!" Sigh."
/. readers like to think they are intellectually and morally superior to everone else. But what that statement really points out is that /. is infact one giant Chicken Little. And in fact the sky is NOT continuously falling.
/.?
/. about the impending ad spamming that yahoo intends to start. That's fine, all /. readers can "Angrily delete their accounts". But this follow up with it's derogatory commentary is just not called for. /. does not run the universe, just because the rest of the world does not follow /.'s "lead" does not mean anything important. In fact it means nothing at all.
I know that
Virtually every story here gets treated like the subject is going to bring about the end of the world. 99% of the time nothing comes of it. In the rare cases where actualy harm is done, then things ARE usually actually done about it (I.e. the deregulation of electricity scams)
So nearly everyone on yahoo just doesn't f*cking care. Well then either it doesn't bother them or they get what they deserve for not caring. What's that to
It's one thing to run a story on
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Legally, this is referred to as a fiduciary duty. Historically this was applied only to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, etc. More recently, however, this has been applied in a n increasingly wide array of situations including, person vs. company, and company vs. company. In any situation where one party is significantly larger than the other or has access to confidential information, or has the power to effect harm, then that party may be considered to have a fiduciary duty towards the smaller, or less influential party.
I think it is certainly arguable that a company who controls one of your modes (and an increasingly important one) of communication, your name, address, etc, and possibly your credit card number (wallet), would have a fiduciary duty towards its users.
Click-through agreements are notorious for saying that The company will not be held responsible for any harm incurred as a direct or indeirect use of subscribing or using the service. This too, however, lacks enforceability. No party to a contract may completely relieve themselves of responsibility. CTAs also commonly say that "The contents of this agreement may change at any time without notice and it is the resposibility of the user to remain apprised of any changes by viewing this page at <Insert link to license agreement here>". This is acceptable assuming changes to the agreement are made sufficiently prior to any results due to changes in the agreement (i.e. You can't change the agreement to say that Users' credit card numbers will be distributed to advertising companies as well as the name, email, etc, and then immediately begin doing so. 60 days later, however, would probably be considered sufficient time for users to famialiaze themselves with any changes and to make an informed decision). The ability to change the license however, does not relieve a fiduciary duty. Arguably, it increases it. Where one party may change the agreement and the other may not, simply increases the difference in power over the agreement between the two parties.
Another note to point out is that any canadians here should recall several years ago when the cable companies used an opt-out scheme to increase services (and billing) automatically. There was a class action suit in which several of the cable companieswere found to have failed to make the subscribers suitably aware of the changes. The cable cos relied on notes on the subscriber's monthly bill (which nobody reads since they are usually only advertising for some other (higher cost) package they want you to subscribe to istead. I think the parallels here are obvious. Most Yahoo! correspondence consists of special deals, advertising, and useless community news. People leanr not to read those messages because they rarely apply/matter to them - much like the special note areas on cable bills. The opt-out style of subscription in both cases.
Beyond the above however, there is the issue of resetting user defaults. If you receive junkmail from an organization (i.e. publisher's clearinghouse), and notify them that you do not want to receive mailings from them, then you should never get mailings from them again. To continue to send mailings to a consumer who has expressed their dislike for them is considered harassment. One notification is all that's required. If you tell Yahoo! that you don't want them giving out your information, if you tell them you don't want to receive their special offers and such, there is an expectation that you will not receive them. For them to expect you to state your wishes several times unnecessarily with the threat of spam, is harassment.
True, although the old saying "consumer beware", is always applicable, there is no doubt, ethically or legally, that what Yahoo! has done is wrong.
Here's one we've been using for years... bob504@hotmail.com :-) You think after 3-4 years they would've caught on, but noooooo.
I haven't had one registration reject it yet
^_^
I read mine. I didn't care. I figure if that helps Yahoo stay afloat, then more power to them. I like Yahoo as a service, I have my.yahoo.com as my homepage. I don't want it to go away but I don't want to pay for it. So let them advertise to me.
-no broken link
Well i didnt cancel my service. I didnt even visit the FAQ on how to cancel.
But I did put autoresponders on both my yahoo emails telling people I no longer use yahoo email and why. I no longer use there services. I used to use them for almost everything. To look up music, real estate, cars, weather, news, yellow pages. Its too bad, i used to love yahoo.
How strange it is to be anything at all
Yep, it is. I put that in all the idiotic web forms I have to go through. Those forms check for character totals, not invalid prefixes (like 911).
Do not delete your user account.
Change your active Email address to a yahoo.com address and let the "spam me all you want" preferenfes stay "unchanged".
This way Yahoo will spam your yahoo.com account, which you will never use, and fill their own disks.
More spam on everyone's yahoo.com account leads to more costs to Yahoo.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers!
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
it's not about wanting to be on a list or not. If people had a choice, they wouldn't be on any telemarketing/junkmailing lists. If given a choice, people wouldn't even want to have to watch TV commercials. I'm sorry, but too bad, we're stuck with this crap for as long as we want to live in a capitalist society. For our services to keep running, they need to keep making money somehow. If you give someone the option to opt out of something they don't really want, they'll do it. The option *is* yours to be removed from these lists, but you are left on them by default because we all know that nobody would choose to be on them and they need to advertise/sell to someone if asked upfront. If everyone starts off on them and only removes themselves when they're so pissed off with it that they have to call or email or whatever to be removed, at least the company has gotten their message across to them. "If you'd like to opt-out of Yahoo's database, press 1 now." We're right back to what I said before: yahoo gave the option. Why should they have to give it again? Why should they let you press 1? They already gave you the chance, and if you want to do something about it now, go and use the normal channels like everyone else. I don't like marketing and advertising any more than the next guy, but seriously, people shoot off at the mouth about why this stuff is evil without realizing how unfortunately necessary it is. Tell me: why is it that you deserve something for nothing, from a company that owes you nothing?
The next few days I got lots more spam than usual, and was wondering what was going on. After I saw in Slashdot what Yahoo had done, I immediately went to Yahoo to *OPT OUT AGAIN*.
The funny thing is that *I OPTED OUT OF EVERYTHING* when I signed up for the map service; however they went against my explicit wishes and opted me in to their spam lists without telling me anything at anytime.
I NEVER received an e-mail from Yahoo telling me they were going to opt me in to their spam lists against my will. The ethical thing to do would have been to warn me when I signed up for the Yahoo Map service that they were going to change their TOS and opt me in even though I wanted to opt out.
Had they told me that registering for the map service meant that they were going to sign me up for lots of spam, I would have NEVER, EVER signed up for the Yahoo map service (plenty of other map services out there) and my web e-mail box would have been a lot less clogged these days!
As an aside, people bitch about Real Player and how installing it signs you up for spam lists when you don't scroll down the too-tiny window and uncheck the hidden boxes, but that is a one-time problem. Real has never put me on spam lists against my will after I told them I wanted to opt out...
A man who wants nothing is invincible
I am sure people posted something like this when AIDS was starting, or about the root cause of starvation. Nip the problem in the bud when u get a chance friend!
JetScootr, if you're going to post here, you should have at least a tiny clue of what you're talking about.
.
1) "This is True"'s distribution list has NEVER been hosted at Yahoo/YahooGroups.
2) Yahoo/YahooGroups has NEVER spammed TRUE's distribution list.
3) TRUE has been hosted at Lyris.net for quite a few years now; there has NEVER been spam sent through the list via that service, nor has there EVER been a virus that has gone to the distribution. I take list security VERY seriously, and am fairly outraged that you would post here implications that it is not.
I did, in TRUE, discuss Yahoo's privacy policy. Here it is for you verbatim:
I'VE HAD A BIG SURGE OF "warnings" from readers centering around Yahoo,
who changed all their registered customers preferences to say "Yes",
that they WANTED all sorts of marketing mail, e-mail, and phone calls!
If you have a Yahoo mail account, or anything similar, you probably
should log in and change things to "no" unless you want such mail. If
you use a Yahoo "wallet" for online purchases, they may have associated
your information into these preferences, so you really CAN get more
paper junk mail! My address was indeed shown on MY "preferences", so I
changed it all to the way *I* wanted it. An article with more details:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24683.html
. .
THIS MIGHT MAKE YOU WONDER about TRUE's privacy policy. I've had one for
years, long before they got "trendy". The nutshell version is: we hate
spam and carefully protect your e-mail address from others. When you
order stuff from us and we get your snailmail address, we protect THAT,
too, even though we could make good money by selling it -- and that
policy has been in place since 1983. Why? It's quite simply the way *I*
want to be treated by the companies I do business with. The details are
at http://www.thisistrue.com/privacy.html
Next time you want to discuss my business practices, I'd appreciate your doing so accurately.
Randy Cassingham
Author and Publisher
This is True
Who says users did nothing?
I learned about the privacy change from someone on IRC, not Slashdot. I changed my settings back, and then went out and got a new free email account from elsewhere. I then emailed everyone I knew and informed them of my new address.
More than one of the new mail services I checked out at this time had text up warning users to "please be patient" due to the "massive numbers of former Yahoo users" flooding their servers.
Just because we didn't delete our Yahoo account doesn't mean we kept using it. If they want to side with the spammers against me, then fine - they can spend their bandwidth receiving a bunch of messages they have to store on their own drives - on an account that hasn't been logged into since. Sometimes, you reap what you sow.
With a name like "HomesAtCodwellBanker", I would imagine they ARE a "Fat old pedophile support group".
123
Say no to software patents.
456
Say no to software patents.
does this work?
Say no to software patents.
111
Say no to software patents.
113?
Say no to software patents.
I'm looking at this discussion, and while in basic agreement that Yahoo is threatening our privacy, that this is a hole in the dike, the main point is that Yahoo has also provided the plug for the hole in the dike!
The people all yammering about how Yahoo gets to invade your privacy no matter what you do, have not read the Yahoo privacy policy and looked at the attached "opt-out" page. Yes, thats right, the OPT-OUT page.
I read the policy, I went straight from there to the opt-out page, and told Yahoo not to call me, write me, or otherwise spam me using the information on my account.
Yes, having to opt-out rather than being automagically opted-out is a pain in the ass. Yahoo shouldn't do it, but it ain't the "how much venture capital did I waste today?" 90's anymore, so they have to make money any way they can. If it means only giving privacy to those Yahoo users who give a damn about their privacy, so be it.
But don't forget that the users who want their privacy have the CHOICE to opt-out of the spam and keep their privacy.