Is Yahoo Actively Supporting Adware?

conq writes "According to BusinessWeek, a report said Yahoo was actively supporting the companies that spawn pop-up ads. In early September, Yahoo engineer Jeremy D. Zawodny sounded off on his blog: "Do I like those [software installation] practices? Hell no. It's insulting and disrespectful."" update the story submission takes Jeremy out of context which he blogs about and says mean things about us.

Comments

Yahoo has been like this for some time

[It doesn't come easy]

Yahoo has been doing something like this for quite some time. Many years ago, Yahoo was the place to go to find the best price on products you could purchase over the net. However, they evolved into a search that only showed the prices from businesses that had a relationship with Yahoo. Mind you, they still claimed to find the best price on the web but in truth they only included companies with an arrangement with Yahoo (and those companies rarely had the lowest price) It may be business, but it's not trustworthy. So for me Yahoo lost my trust years ago. Now they are just one source for information and no more trustworthy than the next source.

In other news Jeremy D. Zawodny fired

[mrkitty]

Google's fired people for comments about the company, will yahoo?

Trust Yahoo?

[Red Flayer]

"Yahoo Chief Operating Officer Daniel L. Rosensweig insists the company has the highest standards. "Users can put their trust in us because that is what we're built on," he says."

What Rosenzweig fails to mention is that Yahoo, like most companies, will take advantage of that trust to the furthest extent they can get away with.

Trust us because we say our foundation is trust? I don't think so.

How about "Trust us because we take steps to prevent adware, not support it."

Or, "Trust us because we will never piggyback software and settings changes onto downloads from us that you choose to install."

Or, "Trust us because it's not in our financial interest to do bad things to you."

Unfortunately, none of these three possibilities are true... and until they are, I will not trust Yahoo farther than I can throw them.

Yahoo's Reputation

[rlp]

Yahoo risks tarnishing their reputation by turning over e-mail accounts of dissidents to the mainland Chinese government. Compared to that, adware is nothing.

Re:Yahoo's Reputation

[clifyt]

As much as I hate it, they do have to follow the law of the land.

If the US government had asked them to turn over email for accounts that originated in the US and were maintained on US servers, and the courts agreed with this decision -- they'd turn it over too...just the same way you'd roll if the gov't and the court system told you to do something.

What? You think that just because they are a US company that they don't need to follow the laws in countries they do business?

Again, I don't agree with it either...but so long as they maintain a physical business presence there, they need to follow the law like anyone else.

Re:What popups

[sqlrob]

• You can use adblock to block swf's from Yahoo,
• You cn use the extension that you have to click to get the flash.
• You can use the underdocumented config setting to turn off popups from flash.

There's no good reason to put up with those popups.

you're a fucking hypocrite

[Ender Ryan]

In the U.S. now, due to the Patriot Act, the federal government can detain anyone for any reason for any length of time and pretty much do to them anything they want. Therefore, if a company operating in the U.S. receives a court order to turn over information, they should refuse, otherwise they may be unknowingly complicit in violating someone's civil rights.

I really, really doubt the police in China told Yahoo what the investigation was about; you know, police are like that. They just demand information, and the law compels you to obey.

Perhaps we should have a trade embargo against China? That is, logically, the only way to go following your logic. If you operate in China, you have to follow the law. If you don't follow the law, you can't operate in China. The law, in your opinion(and mine too, certainly), violates the peoples' civil rights.

So, how about we stop all trade with China. Seems to be working just wonderfully for the people in Cuba...

Look, Yahoo isn't personally accountable for the actions of the Chinese government. The authorities demanded information and Yahoo obeyed the law. Did they even know what the investigation was about? It's not like the executives at Yahoo said, "No let's see. Who's civil rights can we violate today?" Give us a fucking break.

This is a political matter that deserves attention. When we have some politicians that aren't mouth breathing shit eaters, maybe it can be properly addressed. And perhaps when we damand the same of ourselves that we demand of others, we won't look like fucking hypocrites.