Yahoo sued for $4 billion over access to user info

skankydog writes "A judge filed an injuction preventing Yahoo from publishing their privacy policy. It seems that a partner of broadcast.com is suing Yahoo for denying them access to user data. Heck, just read the story." The cute factors here are the huge amount of money sought and Yahoo's situation. They're being sued for having a half-decent privacy policy and refusing to release user information that a company they purchased had agreed, by contract, to release. Oh the irony: if you violate people's privacy, they get irritated, and if you don't, you get sued.

TRUSTe again?

[Seth Finkelstein]

Yahoo's privacy policy [yahoo.com] prominently display's the TRUSTe logo and talks about being TRUSTe-certified. Seems it's in the mix again.

This is bizarre.

[lyonsj]

OK, I now know why I am not a lawyer. Crikey!

From this article and thing I've read/seen in the past, it doesn't seem like Yahoo is only out to defend the "privacy" of its users. But that doesn't change the fact that this is totally ridiculous! People actually file these lawsuits? Judges actually tell someone they can't publish their privacy policy because they won't give away user data?

I think I'd need more background info but it seems like Universal would have seen Yahoo's privacy policy before selling them broadcast.com and if there were any question about whether or not they'd get the user info, then Universal would have put something into the buying agreement. Mind you, I know almost nothing about how business works, but it seems like if Universal wanted the info, then it should've been in a contract somewhere. Maybe it is and either a) I'm reading the article incorrectly or b) there's information missing from the article.

Contract duration post-sale

[SnakeStu]

I would expect that a key issue here, which will presumably be addressed in the hearing, would be the effect of the sale of Broadcast to Yahoo! on the contract that existed between Broadcast and Universal. I'm not a lawyer, and obviously I haven't seen the contract nor the terms of the sale, but I would be somewhat skeptical that Yahoo! won't find a way to show the contract did not survive the sale. (If I understand it correctly that Broadcast was part of Universal to begin with, I would be curious what kind of 'contract' existed between Broadcast and Universal anyway.)

Ah well, I'll go back to writing science fiction [uninova.com] and leave the legal wrangling to those with the patience for it. (And to think my sister -- a lawyer herself -- keeps pushing me to go to law school...)