[governance] Yahoo Changes User Profiles, To Massive Outrage

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

All,

  Is this another example of the Internet we want?  Should
service providers have this leverage on it's paying users/customers?
What does this say in respect to an Internet Bill of Rights? Is
the IGC ready and willing to take this sort of thing on, head on?

For the record, I have never been a fan of Yahoo and consider
them less than honest with their business practices as well as
entirely week of user privacy and security.

See:
Yahoo decided to massively screw up their entire
userbase by
http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/17/managing-your-alias-and-profile/
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,
 http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html 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
http://www.ymessengerblog.com/blog/2008/10/17/changes-to-your-yahoo-profile/
even more outrage on the Yahoo Messenger blog.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com
My Phone: 214-244-4827
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