Yahoo Changes User Profiles, To Massive Outrage

Wiseleo writes "Yahoo decided to massively screw up their entire userbase by changing all user profiles to blank. No warning, no automated way to get data back, and other unwanted changes. The blog has such choice quotes as 'We know this has been a rough transition for some of you and, and are committed to helping you use, understand, and (hopefully) enjoy your new profile,' and, 'We also know lots of you worked hard on your old profiles and want your data. If you feel like you're missing data, we've saved a copy of your old profile (and alias) and our Customer Care team can retrieve this information. You won't, however, be able to revert back to your old profile format, but you will be able to get any data that you think is missing. To do this, please go here to contact Customer Care.' There were 850 comments posted, all negative, on the first day. There are hundreds more today. There is even more outrage on the Yahoo Messenger blog."

Comments

Google changed iGoogle only a few days ago...

[Tatsh]

and nobody's complaining.

Why so hard to fix?

[ZorinLynx]

I don't get it. If they still have the data, why is it so hard for them to write up a script to fix the mistake?

It shouldn't take one of their programmers more than a few hours to whip up, and would save them all this headache.

I wonder if there's more behind this "accident" than we're seeing.

Re:Why so hard to fix?

[Trails]

It wasn't an accident. From the article, it looks like they fundamentally changed their profile/account structure (note I'm not a yahoo user, this is simply from RTFA).

It seems to "migrate" existing data to the new structure is not clear-cut and linear. In theory, they could have built some user facing tools to allow the users to choose different data migration paths, although this would invariably involve a ton of additional complexity, which is probably why they opted not to do it.

I suspect this is being done in advance of some social networking type features they're planning to roll out, and they wanted to get the unpleasantness out of the way so that it didn't mar the release of their shiny new features.

Re:Why so hard to fix?

[rumith]

I don't get it. If they still have the data, why is it so hard for them to write up a script to fix the mistake?

Because they insist that it wasn't a mistake and, generally, they wanted people's profiles clean. Now if this is true or not remains to be seen: they could be covering up their asses by saying it was intentional, because a company that accidentally kills or blocks your data would receive event less trust than a company that does it intentionally. So practically by this announcement they could be choosing the lesser of the two evils.

I know why

[Orion Blastar]

There used to be clever hacks in the old Yahoo Profiles to modify your profile to do things like play MIDI files and change the background and run Javascripts via a series of exploits in the way the Yahoo data forms worked.

Yahoo wants to get rid of the exploits by wiping clean every profile after it fixes the exploits. Some of the exploits stole passwords and other data and some even installed malware.

I don't mind having a blank profile, I am not really notable anyway. I am a pirate ninja and just love to blend into the background so nobody can notice me as I turn invisible. :)

taste of cloud computing

[SideshowBob]

And this is a perfect example of why I will NEVER use 'cloud computing'. My data on my hardware that I have complete control of, thank you.

Re:The $64K question is: why did they do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past, each alias could have its own profile. Now there is only one profile per user, each alias can either refer to it or show a blank page. Every user who has used aliases will do one of two things.
1) Keep one account with one profile, thus reducing the amount of disk spaced used.
Or...
2) Create a new full account for each alias desired, thus artificially boosting Yahoo's user count.

Either way, it's a win for Yahoo! Assuming the users don't revolt.

You can still get to your old profile

[TwinkieStix]

I believe that everything is still there at the old address right? http://edit.yahoo.com/config/eval_profile Or, am I missing something?

I get what you are saying..

[TiggertheMad]

... but the biting irony of posting this on Slashdot as anything but an AC is just too delicious.

I mean, how much different is a /. profile from a yahoo profile, really?

Re:What changed?

[Gr8Apes]

What changed is that the "old" layout is now gone. It used to be an option, which was great for those of us that preferred the extremely compact look for our main page. Now what used to easily fit on a single screen takes up 3+ screens (stock quotes, weather, fares for example) and the "new" look is more a reminder of the Fisher-Price move with 2K->XP.

What gets me is since this should all be CSS anyways, why they felt the need to destroy their highly useful compact old layout for the new one. Perhaps it's time to apply GreaseMonkey to my.yahoo.com.

Re:Five Nines, please, on my free service.

[jcrousedotcom]

You're exactly right. I often have people ask me why I don't post all of the pics I post to my personal website on myspace or facebook. My short answer is - I *pay* for jcrouse.com, the hosting of my data, etc. and it is [essentially] my little spot on the `net. When I put it on Faceboook, there is an always changing EULA and the fact that I have no control over their servers, their policies, or *anything* that they do with my data. I don't even know if I even 'own' the pictures I post on those websites anymore. Since I make the EULA on what is posted on my website, I have a better feeling I own them.

This of course is not withstanding the EULA I have with my hosting provider. I know some, like godaddy have some weird things going on, and I am not trying to get into that discussion with this post (I don't use godaddy for that specific reason) - my point is, posting your [presumably] valuable information on something like Yahoo or Facebook could be problematic. You *don't* own the domain, you *don't* pay for the server space. You have no recourse if they delete, modify, censor, or otherwise (in your mind) misuse your data.