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Is Yahoo Actively Supporting Adware?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the things-we-hate dept.

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.

5 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Yahoo has been like this for some time by It+doesn't+come+easy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
  2. Trust Yahoo? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  3. Yahoo's Reputation by rlp · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
    1. Re:Yahoo's Reputation by clifyt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  4. Re:What popups by sqlrob · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • 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.