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Yahoo Denies Ad-blocking Users Access To Email (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-mail-for-you dept.

JoeyRox writes: Yahoo is running an A/B test that blocks access to Yahoo email if the site detects that the user is running an Ad Blocker. Yahoo says that this a trial rather than a new policy, effecting only a "small number" of users. Those lucky users are greeted with a message that reads "Please disable Ad Blocker to continue using Yahoo Mail." Regarding the legality of the move, "Yahoo is well within its rights to do so," said Ansel Halliburton an attorney at Kronenberger Rosenfeld who specializes in Internet law.

8 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Awwww thats so cute by bazmail · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yahoo! think its a player. Good for you Yahoo!.

    1. Re:Awwww thats so cute by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yahoo provides email services for quite a number of big ISPs. Certainly, the email services for BT (which is still, I think, the UK's largest ISP) are provided by Yahoo and just given a light BT-specific reskinning.

      So there might be quite a lot more people out there using Yahoo mail accounts than you would suspect. Some of them probably don't realise it themselves.

  2. To do list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Disable AdBlock
    2) Login
    3) Set forwarding to other email account / Send all mails to that address
    4) Logout
    5) Enable AdBlock

    Sorry, no profit, but the end result will be satisfactory.

  3. Legality? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why would there be any question about the legality of this? Yahoo! doesn't have to allow you access to its service, and its now setting requirements to do so.

    1. Re: Legality? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's simple misdirection - people are asking, "is Yahoo being a dick?" and Yahoo is answering, "it's perfectly legal." Which has nothing to do with the question but many people will fall for it because they [somehow, still, inexplicably, despite all evidence to the contrary] still equate legality with ethics.

      n.b. It may be the users who are being the dicks, wanting something for nothing (#include malvertising.h), but that's not the question here.

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  4. Go back by markdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is going to go over like a lead balloon. I know if I was greeted with that on a site I use, I would then start the process of going elsewhere.

    They would do far better to just shift to some other way to display the ads using local servers instead of ad networks, if they really find all of this necessary. Oh, and in the process, make sure the ads are small, load quickly, don't pop up or under or on a time delay, have no animation and no sound, and no mouse over effects. Inotherwords, go back to the way things were before people found it necessary to block ads.

  5. queue the next level of ad blocking by DevilM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Soon the ad blockers are going to be simulating that the user saw the ad without actually showing it.

  6. Well done Marissa! by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Marissa Mayer was an executive at Google. She went to Yahoo to get all their remaining users to move to gmail (why were they still using yahoo is an interesting question that's not in the scope of this post). Well done Marissa, we hope your bonus will be significant when you'll be back to Google.

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