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Yahoo Reminds Users That 'No' Doesn't Mean 'No'
rawg writes "Looks like Yahoo is resetting their 'Marketing Preferences' again. In an email I received from Yahoo today it states, 'Starting January 1, 2004, Yahoo! will begin to send you messages, via email or postal mail, about our own products and services. You can control the types of messages you receive by visiting your Marketing Preferences at any time'. It also states, 'And, as always, you can delete your Yahoo! account altogether at any time, for any reason, by going to the deletion page.' I deleted my Yahoo account a month ago. I guess they are lying, because I'm still getting their SPAM."
Dear Yahoo! Member,
Last year we announced changes that affect how we communicate with Yahoo! members about Yahoo!'s own products and services. However, we have not yet implemented those changes for all our registered members. Because of your previous account settings, Yahoo! has not yet sent you marketing communications under the new program. Before we do, we want to remind you how to set your preferences, and let you know what has changed and what is not changing.
Background Information
Over the years, we've sent emails to some registered Yahoo! members about Yahoo! products and services. We've also delivered promotional messages to Yahoo! members on behalf of our marketing partners. When you first registered with us and created your Yahoo! ID, our system presented a single "Yes" or "No" option for receiving all types of marketing communications. At some point you said "No," and after that we no longer sent any of these types of messages to you.
In March 2002, we began rolling out an updated marketing communications system. Instead of just a single "Yes" or "No" choice, we created a new Marketing Preferences page where you decide:
* whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about our own products and services, and separately, whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about the offerings of our marketing partners;
* whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about certain types of Yahoo! products and services but not others (For example, you can select specific categories such as "Managing personal finances" or "Using Yahoo! for research and surfing the Web," and de-select other categories that might not be of interest to you.);
* whether you want to hear from Yahoo! (or not) by postal mail or telephone, in addition to email.
When this updated system was first announced in March 2002, we told you we'd begin sending you messages about Yahoo! products and services across all categories, even though you had said "No" to messages under the old single choice system. We also told you that you could still say "No" to these messages by visiting your Marketing Preferences. But we did not completely implement this change until now.
What's Changing on January 1, 2004
Starting January 1, 2004, Yahoo! will begin to send you messages, via email or postal mail, about our own products and services. (We will not send you postal mail if you have given us a mailing address and have opted out of contact via postal delivery.) You can control the types of messages you receive by visiting your Marketing Preferences at any time.
What's Not Changing on January 1, 2004
As in the past, you will not be sent messages on behalf of our marketing partners. We will not call you on the telephone to market products or services. If you ever change your mind about any of these choices you can let us know by visiting and updating your Marketing Preferences at any time. Every marketing email you receive from Yahoo! will continue to include instructions for how to unsubscribe from more marketing email. And, as always, you can delete your Yahoo! account altogether at any time, for any reason, by going to the deletion page.
Please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information. We look forward to serving you.
Sincerely,
Yahoo!
Amusingly enough, though, SpamAssassin filtered it out and it ended up in my spam folder.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Yahoo ignores my preference to not get spammed by them, I ignore all software EULA's that I click through... I think it's a fair trade... :)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Internet portal Yahoo may want to think about changing its advertising slogan from "Do You Yahoo?" to "You DO Yahoo."
More like "Yahoo DO You."
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
I'm going back to using the telegraph and smoke signals.
The email was a reminder to change your preferences if you don't want to be marketed to. When they changed them to yes (a year ago?) they didn't actually act on the change. Now that people have had a year to reset their preferences, they are going to start marketing.
Not that it doesn't suck, but the article header is wrong. They changed your preferences once, a long time ago.
Ok, rant off.
Children in the backseats don't cause accidents. Accidents in the back seats cause children.
no really we KNOW you want to say yes, wait you said no??? huh I cant here you it sounded like yes. whats that? you said no you would love to have our spa.. er I mean emails sent to you well you asked for it....
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I'll second that... I received the update notification yesterday, and I figured I'd have to go click a zillion "no" boxes to get everything straight again. I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything was still opted out. No complaints here!
I mind the paper. Even though it's easy enough to throw it in the recycle bin and wash my guilty conscience of it, I'd still feel better if it were never created in the first place.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Alright, I think I've had about enough. My first e-mail address was from usa.net, who was purchased by netaddress.com. I liked it because it was free, simple, and had pop access. When netaddress purchased it, and a few months later turned it into a pay service, I decided it was time to switch.
After some research, I found that Yahoo had the largest storage size AND pop access at the time. So, I hopped on and singed up.
And now here we are, a few years later. No more pop access, constant attempts to spam me - I think I've about exausted my patience after getting this e-mail from them this morning. So, I guess I'll do a mini Ask-Slashdot for all the peeps using Yahoo:
What E-mail Service do YOU use/recommend?
Or, alternatively, how much of a hastle would it be to just run my OWN mailserver? I've got a box I could do it on, but I'm worried that it'd be a pain keeping spammers from using it for outgoing if it was found (granted, I know nothing about running a mailserver).
Anyway, for myself and all those like me, suggestions?
The longer I'm a member of the Human Race, the more I believe Apocalypse is a valid solution.
Set your email prefs... I have mine as alerts-feedback@yahoo-inc.com - this way, they spam their own inbox...
Note that you will need to add the address as an "alternate email address" for it to be available in the selection box.
How may we contact you?
Please verify your contact information. It will only be used consistent with the Yahoo! Privacy Policy and your preferences. Please note that Yahoo!'s ability to accurately honor your choices above, including a preference not to receive certain types of communications, depends on up-to-date addresses and phone numbers in your Account Information. If your Account Information is no longer current, please edit or update using the links below.
Email - please select which address we should send email to:
alerts-feedback@yahoo-inc.com
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I have enough crapmail I receive at my house, I don't need more. When I visited the marketing preferences page and told them no for a second time, this is what I was returned
Thank you, your changes have been saved. Please allow approximately 5 days for this change to take effect.
Why would it take 5 days to remove me from a friggin mailing list? A simple delete query should remove me from the database immediately.
alias dir='rm -rf
girl that everybody liked. But she told you "No" and you wondered if "No" really meant "Yes" afterall.
But her parents had to call your parents to clarify that "No" really meant "No" for really positive for sure.
It's like that.
Maybe it was just me.....
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
They're not resetting your preferences, just reminding you to check them. And if you had checked them instead of running to Slashdot, you'd see that they're still the same. They just aren't going to start using those preferences until next year.
For free, you get:
All of this for 0 USD a month, and now they're suggesting that they may "clear" your nospam preferences, unless you turn it back on again.
How is this evil? I've had a Yahoo profile since 1997, its been invaluable. Heck, I feel guilty not paying them a dime!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I get Yahoo's spam at a MindSpring email account.
Yahoo requires you to sign in to your Yahoo account in order to delete that account. Since I don't know what username or password or birthdate they have on file for me, it is impossible for me to sign in and impossible to cancel the spam or delete the account. It is also impossible to contact a live human at Yahoo regarding this problem.
The design is thoroughly irresponsible, yet they've had it this way for years.
It's all bullshit. They only have to sell your name once in order to start recieving spam and junk. Note to the clue impaired: They "sell" your name when you create the account, before you say no to spam and junk.
Which only works if you can remember what the account you might have is. I don't know which account I made the mistake of giving an honest email address for. I am pretty sure it is not the one I use these days.
The point is that I ONLY gave Yahoo! my email address because they promised not to spam me. Now they have BROKEN that promise.
If they lie to their customers they are probably lying to their accountants and shareholders as well. With hindsight it is pretty easy to see that the manipulation of the California energy market by Enron should have been a warning that maybe they were manipulating other things.
Jim Cramer has a note on his monitor, 'financial irregularities means sell'. I suggest folk add another 'Broken undertakings means sell'
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I agree with you. Even though it takes more effort to throw out a credit card offer than delete an email, the fact that they had to pay around $0.30 to send it in paper and bulk mailing costs makes me not mind. Bulk email, which approaches free, has entirely different economics which makes it much more insidious by my perspective.
However, I don't feel the same about telephone solicitations. They've always outraged me, even though there is a cost involved. Before DNC was implemented, I encouraged everyone to keep phone solicitors on the line as long as possible without purchasing anything. I hoped that the ratio of per call cost to hit rate could be increased sufficiently to make the process no longer worthwhile. Others advocated this also, but it never seemed to catch on.
Or you can just ignore it, move on with your life and don't complain about something that is free.
Putting linux on a girl's computer without her consent is a bad rap for the open source movement. Educate her, yes, but forcing her to switch after she said no is bad karma.
Wait... we're talking about linux, right?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
this is all the bulk servers yahoo uses to spam. Block em and you wont have to worry about their spammy crap again, but it wont block legit email from them.
66.218.73.32/27
216.136.172.244
216.136.172.247
66.218.69.17
66.218.69.14
216.136.172.246
216.136.173.191
66.218.69.16
66.218.69.27
66.218.69.21
216.136.172.243
216.136.172.241/28
66.218.69.5
66.218.69.2
mailer7.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
mailer4.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
mailer2.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
qmail1.bulk.yahoo.com
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!