Yahoo Shutting Out Third-Party IM Clients?

prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."

Comments

Re:what's to gain?

[yerricde]

You can already download their clients for free

Free, eh? Where's the source code?

Re:Bad move?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

GAIM doesnt' profit a lick, and I"m about to be locked out for using it. I'm more than willing to evangelize another IM standard for my company (a very large one, with employees across the world, most of whom use Yahoo client on windows at the moment).

I am a Unix/Linux specialist. I use GAIM on Linux to communicate. If I identify Yahoo as a security risk, Yahoo immediately loses about 5000 registered users and the data they generate.

They would be far better served to let the 15 or so of us who use alternative clients do so. I hold enough sway in the company to get Yahoo completely banned from the corporate WAN. I will not hesitate to do so.