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.
OK, here's the obligatory junkbuster plug
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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.
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.
What experiences did you have with this?
Congress is already trying to make it a criminal act to lie to Network Solutions, punishible by up to 5 years in prison. How much longer before they try to do the same for lying to Yahoo?
I actually like the slashdot big ads, usualy informative, non distracting, great in other words.