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Privacy Your Rights Online

Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy 395

Posted by chrisd from the sadly-expected-result dept.
sulli writes "Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily deleted their accounts, the vast majority of users did nothing. (New York Times, blah blah) So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Yahoo!" Sigh.
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Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy More

Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Privacy

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  • I mean, really...

  • Everyone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @08:50PM (#3514118)
    Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members?

    A few thousand pasty geeks are not "everyone".

    Fortunately, I'm pretty content with the fact that most people gleefully piss away their privacy and personal information. Means those of us who take even the most rudimentary steps toward avoiding giving it up are better shielded by easy targets.

    --saint

    • Re:Everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PepsiProgrammer ( 545828 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:04PM (#3514212)
      Sad thing is, while "Operation Human Sheild" may protect us for a while, the fact that all the n00bs are so passive, makes it easier for the government, corporations etc to become stronger, and more authoritative in obliterating privacy, if crap like this isnt stopped now, it will never be, we will all be living the 1984 life, and have the additional agony of being bombarded by constant spam from all mediums, and directions.

      And thats all i gots to say about that.

      • Re:Everyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pjrc ( 134994 )
        ... and more authoritative in obliterating privacy, if crap like this isnt stopped now, it will never be, we will all be living the 1984 life, and have the additional agony of being bombarded by constant spam from all mediums, and directions.

        There's a long way from clicking delete on a dozen obnoxious emails (which may even be promoting something you're really interested in, since they knew something about you) to being hauled off by the Thought Police, brutally tortured for days, and ultimately grug into room 101 where starved rats will eat at your face (or whatever your worst fear happens to be, since they've been monitoring you 24/7 and know everything about you).

        • Thought police don't need to resort to such primitive tactics. The reason that police states have always broken down is because there are too many cracks. There are too many places to hide, to slowly spred sedition, to slowly build a resistance to the oppressors. It's a simple matter of resources; you cannot track all the people all the time. Or can you?

          With the vast increases in computing power, suddenly the ability to manage the raw data created by people on a daily basis is within reach. Suddenly using all of the cameras spread through the cities to track people's movements is completey possible. Suddenly an agent can go through credit receipts of millions of people and use a profiling system to weed out the people that are potentially unsavory for the government.

          No need to take them out in the night and torture them. That's clumsy and builds hatred by the masses. Label the person an extremist, a terrorist, a pedophile. Talk abut all the terrible things the person's done. Some of it may be true, some not, but with all that data floating around out there, you can probably find a few juicy tidbits to destroy political opponents.

          A police state is now, more than ever, a viable possibility. With all of this information out there and, more importantly, the increasing ability to do something useful with that data, it becomes very easy to track the unsavories. It may even be made easier because the unsavories cover their tracks leaving obvious information voids in their wake.

          Maybe this is a tad paranoid, but tell me that this isn't technically possible...

        • Re:Everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by BreakWindows ( 442819 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2002 @09:29AM (#3517036) Homepage
          While I will agree people jump to the Orwell phase a bit quick, I don't think he was comparing the current reality to 1984, but the potential for it. As the saying goes, Hitler never campainged with "You know what Germany needs? more concentration camps".

          It starts with marketing. Then it goes to "national security". Then "protecting your freedoms". Wait, no, we're already there. If there's no public outcry against invasions of privacy, combined with the public's fear of the specter of (spooky voice)terrrorism, we're on the fast lane to a shiny new life, happy drugs, a Department of Homeland Security (which Orwell himself couldn't have named better) and constant monitoring of what we do.

          Think about it this way: when they put up cameras to watch the crowds, no one flinched. The government admits to having the ability to read all our email or listen to phone calls, no one cared. Bags are searched, homes are searched, radio stations taken off the air, drug testing, informers cutting deals, marshall law (lockdown for fear of terrorism). If no one even notices or cares when privacy policies you agree to flip over, who's going to complain about "the PATRIOT Act" or "the USA act"? Or, in 2005 the "International Let's Oversee Virtually Everything Near You" Act?

          Corporations are compiling information on what we do, buy and sell, watch and hear...and if one more terrorist attack occurs, our government will take it, no matter what kind of "privacy policy" Yahoo sends us an email about. If everyone is apathetic to this, I'm afraid by the time they do care we'll already be living in a brave new world. How farfetched is it, really? We're not there now, but when should we acknowledge the possibility?

  • . . . on /. wasn't able to find another service provider that would give them free email, free webspace, and customized content for free and that would also promise to hold any information about them sacrosanct. Imagine that.
    • or, those who received yahoo's email didn't realize what it meant. Go back and take a look at the message (you can scroll down on this page [politechbot.com]). Yahoo never tells users what they've done in the email.

      The message they sent to their users just says things like "We value your privacy," and "you may want to update your settings." It doesn't say anything about them changing users' settings against their will.

      This is equivalent to Ford sending a letter to car owners saying "We hope you're happy with your car, you may want to get gas for it. We have a special web page you can visit if you care about gas." and using that to justify selling all their pertinent info to third parties -- that is, unless they went to the special "gas" page to click the "no, I appreciate the opportunity to be taken advantage of, but I'm gonna have to say no this time" button.

      So, to summarize:

      1. Email customers. Don't mention that you're screwing them.

      2. Point to fact that customers didn't figure out that you screwed them as rationalization for screwing them.

      Dicks.

  • I find it funny that (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WickedChicken ( 459613 ) <wickedchicken@trioptimum.com> on Monday May 13, 2002 @08:53PM (#3514136) Homepage Journal
    you have to give up private information to view a story on how people don't care about privacy.
    • right on the point! funny thing is even slashdot readers don't mind losing their privacy to NY Times? or are we giving out false information for all those online registrations?

      I can smell DMCA....

    • Re:I find it funny that (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sc00ter ( 99550 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:27PM (#3514324) Homepage
      You do? I just use this [majcher.com]. No need to give out any info...

  • if you did what I did and fed them a bunch of bogus information about yourself. In fact, I think I listed my neighbors' phone number and adderss (with a different zip code).

    Uh oh.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @08:56PM (#3514158)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The problem is that the vast majority of users don't know anything happened. A free market relies on an informed base of consumers. If you were to call up each Yahoo customer (which, of course, would be ironic since this story is about the evils of telemarketing) and tell them what was going on, i'm willing to bet at least 95% of them would want to opt-out.

      But by doing this quietly, nobody will notice. They'll just get another piece of spam, another piece of junk mail, and another phone call during dinner, and curse about all the scum-sucking direct markers out there. They won't realize that Yahoo was the one who stabbed them in the back.

      There are consumer laws that force McDonald's to clean their kitchen, even though most customers wouldn't notice. There are laws that regulate how many bugs can be present in your peanut butter, even though they could grind up a few more and you wouldn't notice. There are laws that keep your doctor from sharing your personal information with your nosy neighbor, even if you would never know one way or the other.

      There should be laws that prohibit Yahoo from doing this.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:23PM (#3514306)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:34PM (#3514363) Homepage Journal
          It sounds like you're pissed because too many see the trade, realize it, recognize its effects, and just don't care.

          My whole point is that people do care. However, it becomes a full-time job and requires the skills of a lawyer and a computer scientist to keep up with all the scum out there. Most people can't handle this. They do care, though -- they fume about all the spam, junk mail, and telemarketer phone calls they get.
          • Some people care. Only a small percentage are actually vocal and an even smaller percentage of those are actually willing to do something about it.

            Let's face it - spam is easy to bitch about because it is an annoyance, but only that. It's like traffic noise - it's there, people bitch about it, but no one really does anything about it, and wouldn't notice it if it was gone.

            People like to bitch and spam is an easy target.
            • Is there anyone who actually gives their real phone number on these web forms anyway?

            • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @11:11PM (#3514775) Homepage Journal
              What are you talking about? Everyone i know -- even, say, my parents or non-techinal friends, complains about spam. I bet if i asked them to name one complaint about the Internet, it would be spam.

              no one really does anything about it

              What would you suggest they do? Should i tell my mom to use procmail? Should i tell her to try to opt out when spam offers the opportunity? (Hell no -- spammers use that to verify the address, which means you'll get a lot -more- spam)

              No one does anything about it because they have no idea how. All they know is that they and their ten-year-old are inundated with ads for porn sites, and they can't make them stop.

              You can be damn sure that they would notice if it was gone.
        • If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.

          That's a bad attitude that the vast majority of the world has. Suppose I offer to screw some guy over. Now let's say he accepts. Is it my problem if I proceed to screw him over?

          To you unfortunate people who think, `No': you may own that hot dog stand, but during all the time you are not selling your food items, you are a consumer, just like all your customers, and you have to deal with all the nasties out there who pray that you represent one of the poor `dupes/idiots/uninformed'. You should help this poor guy without giving it a second thought. Unfortunately, the world doesn't think/work this way, but is that to say that it ought not to?

          Being a money-maker does not preclude one's moral obligation to be an honorable individual. People mourn the end of the old HP, because we lose one of a few good honorable firms to a ruthless corporate world that has successfully legitimized commercial deception and contractual robbery through the power of material persuasion.

          You had better reconsider the price of your hot dogs, because the intelligent moral crowd among mankind will refuse to do business with you, let alone have anything else to do with you.
        • on what's in that $5.00 hot dog.

        • The analogy sucks (Score:3, Insightful)

          by CaptainZapp ( 182233 )
          Indeed. And that is the job of the *consumer* to be informed. It is not my job as a business person to forcibly inform the consumer. For example: I own a hot dog stand around the corner from another hot dog stand. My stand is on a very popular route, with most people passing mine first. If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.

          OK, so you part with a hot dog and your patron parts with five $. We have a clear change of ownership here. So what the fuck has that to do with my data, which I own in the first place, which is infinitely copyable (including all errors introduced) and which will be used against me, be it by annoying telemarketers or by spammers?

          I believe that the EU has a far better grasp of the problem and far better instruments to protect the individual, while the US approach is to protect the "right" of businesses to make money, with something they don't own.

          In essence:

          I own my data

          You may only collect and store data, which is pertinent to the transaction(s)

          You may not sell or provide access to my data to third parties without my explicit agreement. And no! some lawyerese on page 49 of the EULA is not considered explicit agreement

          I have a right to see what you stored about me and I have a right to get it corrected

          Special protection applies for medical and (partially) financial data.

          You are liable for criminal and civil penalties if you don't obey the data protection directives. This goes for business as well for government entities.

          If you believe, that personal data is a tradable commodity we can stop right here. If we can agree that I'm the owner of my personal data (same as I'm the owner of the hot dog, for which I just payed 5$), then there's no way in the world, why the eu guidelines don't make sense.

      • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:4, Informative)

        by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:33PM (#3514357) Homepage
        The problem is that the vast majority of users don't know anything happened.

        Bzzzt! Wrong. Yahoo! sent out an email to every customer, telling them exactly what had happened, and giving explicit instructions on how to view and change the settings.

      • Quietly?

        Yahoo sent an email to every account I have through them, telling me that changes/additions had been made to my marketing preferences. I followed their instructions on how to change my marketing settings so that I wouldn't receive unwanted mail/calls. They made it very clear that this had happened, and told me what I could do to keep my privacy.

        Quietly?

        Your argument now might be "What about those people who don't check their email, or don't bother to read spammy looking mail that comes from Yahoo?"

        This is my problem with the average consumer, people sign up for accounts, services that they don't need, but don't care since they're getting it for free. Then they get mail, calls, whatever, and bitch about it. It's clearly stated in TOS agreements what will happen in the future. Beyond that, if you're too lazy to check your email to read what yahoo sent you, or too negligent to think that a letter from them might contain something important, it's your problem when telemarketers start annoying you.

        They gave the public plenty of notice. If the public is too lazy to respond, it's their fault. Yes, Yahoo could've changed the marketing preferences and given you a chance to opt *in* for the new spam/mail/telemarketing--but think about it--they're a *business* they need to make money. Why would people bitch about a company that gives them something for free? They need to keep it running *and* make a profit. Would the people who complain about this be happy if one day their Yahoo accounts and services suddenly vanished without prior notice, only to find out that the company was so generous and noble that they refused to sell information and subject their freeloaders to the evils of marketing, that they went out of business, because they also decided to cut out those annoying ads? Would you say "Well, I lost a good, free service, but at least I didn't have to put in that extra tiny bit of effort that it would've taken to keep it...".

        I know this is about privacy. The point is, they gave us the option. They also need to make money, that's why it was a negative option. Nothing is free, but if the price you have to pay for a service *and* keeping your privacy is just clicking a few more buttons, isn't it worth it?

        There are laws that prohibit yahoo from doing this. That's why you agree to the terms of service. That's why they sent those emails.
        • Blah. The telemarketers should have to begin their phone calls with, "Hi, i'm calling you because Yahoo sold us your personal information. If you'd like to opt-out of Yahoo's database, press 1 now."

          Then we'll see how many people want to stay on the list.

    • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JetScootr ( 319545 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:21PM (#3514302) Journal
      Here's what's wrong with it: It turns out that Yahoo was able to discover both my work and home emails - without me ever knowingly signing up with yahoo. The first two spams I got: from Yahoo, "Hey we're gonna start spamming you! follow this link to unsubscribe!"
      I follow the links. It insists I tell yahoo my birthday and my zip code to unsubscribe - BUT I NEVER GAVE THAT INFO TO YAHOO IN THE FIRST PLACE!
      I had signed up with some list services ("ThisIsTrue" for one) that (unknown to me) were hosted by Yahoo groups, and that's how yahoo misappropriated my email. I had to send nasty grams to Yahoo to get them to unsubscribe me, cuz the online auto system won't tell me what it thinks my Bday and zip code are.
      By the way, the writer/moderator of ThisIsTrue was equally pissed that Yahoo took HIS mailing list and made it THEIRs without his permission.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JetScootr ( 319545 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:39PM (#3514395) Journal
          Like I said in my post - I did email a real person there. The thing that's wrong with it this:
          Humans now have a dual existence: In meatspace and in cyberspace. I own my own meat - I can clothe it the way I want, I can move it around the way I want, and by damn, if I want it hid in a closet, that's where I'll put it. My cyberself should be just as much my property as my meatself: I am that data that yahoo was misusing, my meat is attached to it and I should be allowed full consensual control over both my meatself and my cyberself.
          Nobody decided for, or gave me the chance to vote, over whether or not corporate bigmoney should be allowed to enslave my cyberself.
      • I'm in the same position-- on a list that got transferred to Yahoo, and thus I can't even find out what my "ID", email, password, etc is supposed to be. So I couldn't "opt out", and of course they don't have a customer support email, only their impenetrable labyrinth of useless help wizards.

        I even emailed their webmaster to try and get it forwarded, it failed. It's tempting to sue them for misappropriation of info (if only I had the free time!)

        If you ever find a way to find out who we ourselves are (i.e. find a clueful techie at Yahoo), let me know (hcaulfield@ghostlibrary.com)
    • To respond to this point-by-point:

      1. Yahoo! did something that some people mind and some people don't.

      Yahoo did something that some people know about and most people do not. Virtually all of them would mind.

      2. Yahoo! competes in a fierce marketplace filled with alternatives.

      People aren't going to switch to an alternative if they don't know Yahoo is doing this.

      3. The people who didnt like Yahoo!'s actions have stopped using the service and either (a) gone without the service or (b) switched to the competition.

      The people who actually knew about Yahoo's actions have (etc)

      4. The people for whom this is not a big deal continue to be happy using Yahoo!.

      The people who don't know about this continue to be happy using Yahoo.

      Tell me again why this is a big deal? Tell me again why this is news?

      "Soylent Green is made of people!"

      "Oh, come off it. People happily eat Soylent Green, and what they don't know won't hurt them. Soylent Green participates in an extremely competitive market. If people didn't like eating human flesh, they would switch to a competitor. Obviously some people care about cannibalism and others don't. The people who care have moved to another product. This is a free market: The people who don't will continue eating Soylent Green. Stop pouting."
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • danheskett wrote:

          > 4. If you are ignorant, its your fault. If you cant read a privay policy,
          > and understand it, then get off the Internet.

          This whole incedent involved Yahoo violating its own privacy policy, opting in all their members who had opted out, selling their information, then telling them that they might want to check their preferences. You could have taken their privacy policy to your lawyer for minute examination before you signed up, and still have not seen this coming. Privacy policies that are ignored by the company who wrote them are worse than useless: they give a false sense of security. Yahoo has proven two things in doing this:

          1) Their users' privacy is worth exactly the sum they can get from the direct marketers for their users' private info.

          2) Yahoo has no honor, they are just another greedy shark. Do not feed.

          > 2. Ignorance again. Who cares about ignorant people. If you are
          > ignorant of the world then you should have been eliminated by natural
          > selection already. If you havent, well, chances are you getting screwed
          > on a daily basis. Once again, it is up to individuals to safeguard their
          > privacy in this case.

          Real compassionate there. Not very in tune with the reality of the net, though. There are lots of ignorant (or at least innocent or naive) people on the internet. Check out the following:

          1) School children. Whether on the net to get their homework done, chat with their friends, play a game, or check out the web site of their favorite TV show, their presence is a fact that is not too likely to change. There are laws protecting them from sites that want to run off with their private info. I wonder how many children had accounts on Yahoo that got involuntarily opted in and sold to the direct marketers or whoever.

          2) Business people. Corporations may require their workers to use the internet for communications and access to corporate web services. Home internet accounts are often used to take work home, and perhaps for some surfing in ones free time (the two seconds between work and bed, and perhaps during breakfast if there are no children to get off to school). These people are skilled in their jobs, but not necessarily in computers or the net. If they are always busy, and burning the midnight oil every night, exactly when are they going to find the time (let alone find out that they need to find the time) to keep up to date on every privacy policy of every site they visit or account they use? Yet they *have* to be online to make a living.

          3) Everyone in the world. Not everyone online is from the same country as Yahoo (or any other site). Not everyone online speaks the same language. More than one country might think it has some sort of jurisdiction in anything you do online. If you need to hire a dedicated professional just to understand a bit of legalese in your own country, what chance has someone from another country who has to consider two or more sets of laws, and may need some translation first? Multiply that by the number of sites you visit or whose services you use, and then consider keeping up to date on all the changes that can occur, and almost everyone is ignorant or misses something, even slashdot geeks and lawyers.

          > The user entered into a presumably binding contract.

          Yes, a presumably binding, yet ever changing (at least on the other end), contract. Which might have not been in one's native tongue. The user could have been a minor (really iffy on the binding part if that was the case, IANAL), or not well enough educated to understand it. How many governments want to jump in and claim jurisdiction here?

          > Therefore, if you don't like it, screw.

          If I was the parent of one of the users, and my child's information was sold, I'd sue (I don't like censorship, but a child's privacy should be absolutely protected).

          "Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
          Torahata, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", 1964
      • You are truly out of touch with the public. Most people don't give a shit. Most people aren't this paranoid and anal retentive. Hell, I know everything that happened, and not only do I use Yahoo, but I haven't gotten around to changing my settings. Why? I have a life. You should look into getting one, too.

    • Re:Everything is okay... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sylvester ( 98418 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:37PM (#3514384) Homepage
      You're right, of course. This is exactly how the free market is supposed to work. And it may be the best general solution to this sort of problem. But it probably isn't ideal.

      It's one of the underlying assumptions of capitalism that we are all rational agents. In particular, we have the quality to make a rational decision about every system that we take part in, and more importantly every dollar that we spend.

      I am human. I am not a rational agent. While some of my decisions are irrational, more often I don't even realize I'm making a decision. Because the world is not transparent (and it would be impossible to make it so) I can't make the rational decision to support the shoe company that creates the best working conditions, and the fast food company that has the most efficient packaging (through the entire process, mind you, not just what I get handed.), and the beef company that treats its animals best, or the government that has the least corruption.

      Now, it's important to note that on any particular issue (environment, corruption, labour standards, animal treatment, etc.) you can probably do enough digging to make the decision. However, there is not (yet?) a system that "lubricates" the effective decision making capacity of the citizens of a capitalist democracy.

      Thus, while this is indeed working exactly as it is "supposed" to, it is still not optimal.

      (It's no wonder I have a hard time placing myself on a political spectrum. They're *both* wrong. :-) )
    • That is the standard argument to explain away any bad behavior in the market. Don't like the policies of company X, well, simply *choose* to not be a consumer of their product and switch to company Y. Of course this breaks down miserably when *all the companies are equally heinous*. "When they came for my privacy, I didn't say anything because I didn't mind..."
      • It is possible to dehumanize man completely, and yet for life to go on.

        1984 [geocities.com]

      That's an extreme form of what's wrong, but it's the same type of problem. Another similar situation: most people living under oppresive dictatorships aren't constantly crying out for help, they're not constantly on the verge of having a mass uprising to overthrow the government. The problem is that humans don't always recognize when they're in a precarious situation, especially if they're put in that position by someone they've somewhat trusted for some time, and there aren't any voices of opposition to make them pay attention. Generally, a lack of knowledge.

      That's what this article is. It's a call to users to pay attention, consider for a moment why they might not want to remain in their present situation. It's also a call to those in the know to educate their peers.

      That's why Slashdot readers should get all worked up about it, put some thought into it, post good arguments that common people will understand, and then tell all their friends about it.

    • In regards to the omnipresent quest for attention, I agree. However, that being said, I shall explain why this is in fact a problem.

      The majority of people do not look at the consequences of policy changes (be they corporate or government) with regards to privacy. Much of the time, most people aren't aware of the fact that a policy change is being made. Ask 100 people on the streets of NYC what the DMCA is and I'll bet that less than 20 will answer with a remotely correct response. Ask what the SSSCA was and you're not likely to find 5.

      Now let's look at Yahoo. Most of those reading slashdot know what Yahoo did. Most of us who read slashdot have at least some scrap of cognitive capacity and perhaps a few even read through most of the daily news here and at other websites. We knew what Yahoo was up to long before their policy changes went into affect. However - a great many people do not keep up with the news, nor do they read the little announcements on the yahoo pages. For these folks (probably a majority), they have no clue of the policy changes at Yahoo, and didn't have the common sense to not give real information to Yahoo. Thus, we have sheep going along with the flow while those "in the know" take full advantage of them at every turn. There is, in fact, something that is not working; and it's a combination of widespread apathy and big-wig sneakiness. Granted, no one expects large corporations to play nicely, but to disregard the choices of the general public because it doesn't fit your business model is absolutely wrong. There is a common misconception amoung large businesses that the public exists to serve the needs of the corporation, when it is of course, the other way around. One also sees this in government. Nowhere is this more identifiable than in the entertainment industry, where consumers are no longer enticed, they are coralled. When you combine this with the general apathy we see so much of these days, we see a system in which the government and large corporations "pull the wool over the eyes" of people who just plain don't give a shit.

      Then you have us - the few who do care about ourselves and others, yet who exist in too small numbers to actually accomplish much. While our rights and freedoms are stripped away at an alarming rate by our government, our freedom of choice and quality of service is reduced to a dream while we, ourselves are reduced to a number by large corporations. We few who recognize this are helpless to defend ourselves. If we don't like what Yahoo is doing, we can certainly switch to another service; one with less features and more problems. You see 1000 .com's to choose from and you believe that those using Yahoo.com have made a choice. I see 1000 services, each less useful and more invasive than the last. It's not a choice, it's a lack of options. In the automotive industry, I have a choice; Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, etc. In the web services industry, I have Yahoo (underhanded, dirty tactics, spam-friendly), Hotmail (M$, poor security, restricted services, charges for something slightly better), and it gets even better from here.

      For those about to complain that I want everything for free and am just another low-life freeloading Linux user, I will say this - I have no problem paying a reasonable price for a high quality good or service. I have every problem paying a high price for what could be dirt cheap if it weren't run by a bunch of money-grubbing gluttons. I just bought Red Hat Linux box set, and am about to order Star Office. These are both quality products offered at reasonable prices. $400+ for an operating system that causes more headaches than a radiation leak and crashes more often than a rich suburban drunken speed-freak is not reasonable.

    • I dont see the problem ...

      The problem is simple to understand. It just takes a different perspective. Here goes:
      • Yahoo offers some free services to Internet users; these services require a simple registration giving Yahoo your name, address and phone number.
      • Yahoo's free services include email but are not limited to it. Many registered users have never used the email, or have long since stopped.
      • For all users who registered before Yahoo decided to do this, either there was no mention of marketing in the registration process or many of those users opted out of the marketing.
      • Yahoo creates their marketing plan and to implement it they do the following: First, they reset everyone's existing marketing preferences to settings that favor marketing; and second, they limit their sole notification to an email to [user]@yahoo.com.

      Given these two premises, here's two problems right off the bat:
      1. Individual's stated marketing preferences, given during registration, where blatantly thrown out.
      2. While Yahoo has a right to amend its privacy policy, they also have a responsiblity to make a good-faith effort to notify users. Yahoo knows that many of their registered accounts fall into one of the following categories: duplicate, long-term dormant, or never used email. Yahoo could have easily put their notice infront of anyone currently using MyYahoo services, but there doing so would have been in the interest of subscribers. Clearly, Yahoo has not made a good-faith effort at notification. In reality, they did as little as they thought they could justify.

      The fact is, Yahoo could tell everyone that marketing is a trade-off for the free services and go fsck yourself if you don't like it. Then people could either deal with it or cancel their account. (Is it possible to cancel your MyYahoo account?) However, they aren't doing that. Instead, previously expressed wishes on the topic have been tossed; and many registered people aren't even being notified.

      For anyone who created a MyYahoo account and either doesn't use their email or has abandoned the account, their notification efforts are not unlike those experienced by Arthur Dent at the beginning of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

      "The plans [to demolish your home] have been on file at the planning office. They're stored in a file cabinet, in the basement, in a dis-used lavatory with a sign on the door that says 'Beware of the Leopard'"

      I'm all for 'free markets', but they should be closer to 'fair markets' not 'free-for-all markets'. Yahoo has done the bare minimum their lawyers can defend. That's not the same thing as doing what's right. They could have put the same notification in front of every active account and considered anyone who acknowledged it to be fair game until they followed-up to opt out. However, it's much more profitable to use your entire list (active, inactive, duplicates, etc), even if you know many will never read the notice.

      See the problem?

  • This is crap (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Smack ( 977 )
    Did anyone really think users would actually delete their accounts because of this? Since the link to opt-out was so publicized, including here on Slashdot, I think most users just opted-out. The article even says that:
    Slightly more people, 1.1 million, visited the page Yahoo had set up where users could "opt out" by telling the site not to send e-mail or other messages.
    1.1 million people went to the opt-out page, and somehow that supports this part of the article:
    Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo's editor in chief, confirmed that Yahoo's marketing changes had led to action by
    a very small portion of its users.
    This whole article is just utter crap. Did someone from Yahoo! write it?

  • Not everyone reads Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chibi ( 232518 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @08:57PM (#3514164) Journal

    Despite what melted web servers around the world say, not everyone reads Slashdot.

    After the original story was posted, I made it a point to tell everyone I worked with about it. Several of my co-workers made sure they opted out of things they didn't want. But I'm sure only a small portion of the Yahoo userbase were made aware of the changes in this context. I believe there was e-mail sent out by Yahoo explaining, in a very passive way, the changes made to their privacy policy. Most people probably just skimmed it (if at all), didn't see anything glaringly bad, and then just went along, business as usual.

    In this case, I'd say it matters how you learned of this change. Obviously, Yahoo isn't going to paint themselves to look like bad guys in e-mails to their own users.

  • News flash: nobody gives a damn about anything anymore.

    Overly pessimistic? Perhaps. But so long as Joe Sixpack (to borrow a Monty Burns-ism) has 70 channels of pap to keep him pacified and everything is generally "ok", nobody cares about anything.

    Government is passing laws that encroach and in some cases obliterate my rights? Who cares, as long as I get my MTV and my car still runs.

    This is the most apathetic generation ever.

    • Perhaps they hear about stuff like the DMCA, think it makes sense (on the outside, it kinda does. It stops those evil hackers). Same with he SSSCA or whatever it's called now.. who would want to stop the copyright owners from getting what they desirve.

      Perhaps it's YOUR fault for not getting out there enough to educate the public, not the people that don't understand what's going you. You do, you should be out there telling everybody.

  • OH NO! LETS REVOLT! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mr_gerbik ( 122036 )
    After giving me years of free email service they want to (GASP!) CALL ME ON THE TELEPHONE?!?!?!!?

    Oh God No!!! What is the world coming to?! Someone call the New York Times! Forget about the wars being waged around the world, forget about starving children, forget about AIDS.. YAHOO MUST BE STOPPED FROM PICKING UP THE PHONE IMMEDIATELY!!!

    -gerbik
  • Look, dude, what Yahoo did sucks, I admit, but I've been using them since when they first started offering email service. I wrote a letter of complaint, I got a form response, what more can I do? The majority of my personal corespondacnce goes to my yahoo address. It is wise to choose ones battles wisely. In this case, you seem to claim that fighting means deleting my account because Yahoo decided to follow the rest of the industry. That's a battle I'd rather not fight.

    Do you have a suggestion for an alternative? They handle my bills, they have my email, my personal photos, they sync my palm data, they page me with reminders, they even let me check my mail by phone. What other service offers all of this? I'd be happy for a realistic, viable alternative to Yahoo. (and rolling my own is not realistic. i want easy and cheap)
    • I'm currently recommending www.myrealbox.com [myrealbox.com] for free POP3 & web-based email, although I don't use it (I have to recommend something for our students). They've just got WAP running apparently.

      For all that syncing stuff, you could try www.truesync.com [truesync.com] -- I used to have their service setup for my Palm, but I deleted my account when deleting my Yahoo account prompted me to clean up a heap of other accounts that used my Yahoo address as the contact. You may not get all the features you currently use out of these two services, but you may also find a few new useful ones.

    • So I see I'm not the only person who knows and accepts the inconveniences. this story annoyed me, 99.99999999% of the Slashdotters who are affected by the Yahoo policies have either cancelled their accounts or made an informed decision to accept the inconveniences and privacy risks.

  • This may sound a little elitist, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr. Bent ( 533421 ) <ben.int@com> on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:03PM (#3514202) Homepage
    Privacy is one of those things that geeks pay attention to because they're so acutely aware of how easy it is to lose it and how annoying the ramifications can be. The vast majority of people out there don't care about their privacy because:

    a) They're mostly ignorant about what they're giving up, and

    b) They're too busy trying to feed and house themselves given all the other shit they have to deal with.

    Geeks, on the other hand, are intelligent and have enough free time to sit around and discuss about how they're getting royally fucked over...which, of course, they are. This is why it is our job to inform people whenever possible, and most importantly, supply the tools necessary to protect personal privacy (Ad-Aware, anyone?), and make those tools easy to use for the poor schmucks out there who don't have time to worry about it.
    • Good points, but why lump in those geeks that know the risks, and choose to accept them. I'm a satisfied user of several of Yahoos services, and I know I'm going to get unnecesary ads and spams. I made a concious decision that the inconvenience and privacy sacrifice was worth the benefits of yahoo groups, the profile service to contact people of similar interests, the instant messenger(which I personally believe is the best single network IM client around, great balance between features and simplicity) and other things...

      Granted, many people can't be bothered to care. But there are some who know the risks and make an informed decision that they are worth the benefits. When will people realize this????
  • Isnt it funny how their are articles on the New York Times website that are advocating privacy, and saying how yahoo doesnt care about peoples privacy. But that they require you to fill out EVERYTHING about yourself just to read the freaking article

    Rather hypocritical if you ask me.

  • slashdotsucks (Score:5, Funny)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:08PM (#3514233) Journal
    Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Slashdot's plans to implement Big Fucking Ads? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily boycotted slashdot for a week, the vast majority of users did nothing. So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Slashdot! Sigh.
    • OK, here's the obligatory junkbuster plug
      http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html

    • Re:slashdotsucks (Score:2, Informative)

      by isorox ( 205688 )
      I actually like the slashdot big ads, usualy informative, non distracting, great in other words.

    • It seems you kind of missed the boat. They weren't up in arms over the ads they were protesting the subscription model. Unfortunatly I can't find a link to the journal now but the deal basically was that the users who supplied /. with the vast majority of its content would also be paying the most because they were also the ones who reloaded the most. Also note many users did infact do something. Did you notice how many users were openly promoting the Blackout, did you notice how sparse the comments were how the first couple days? Most of those were major discussion contributors. Also note that the second day of the blackout this story [slashdot.org] came out. The editors saw that there was a popular revolt and made concessions, true they didn't make any major changes but they made significant moves towards allieviating the two major concerns. So as opposed to your cynical post the Great Slashdot Blackout was a success. Note also the recent hurdle encountered by Holling's bill. Although I don't recall hearing about DigitalConsumer.org [digitalconsumer.org] on slashdot I'm sure not a few likeminded individuals were involved, and we were definatly involved in the huge public upcry [slashdot.org] that halted the passage of the bill. The problem here, as many have pointed out, is that public simply doesn't care, if we got them to understand perhaps we'd get a different reaction, perhaps not, that's capitalism, love it or hate it. If all consumers were as vocal and vigalent as slashdot readers are this would be a much nicer world to live in.
  • Seriously, what was the purpose in cancelling accounts again?

    I got a friendly email directing me to a URL, at which point I spent 42 seconds clicking "no thanks" and went about my business. Total sweat off my ass: none.

    In the end, I've always been happy with my Yahoo service (== slackware mailing list), and while their initial behavior in this case was questionable, they responded well. I will be keeping my Yahoo account for the foreseeable future.

    One note: when I first signed up for Yahoo, they told me "tps12" was taken, so I am "tps12tps12" (yeah, message me, and support Gaim [sourceforge.net]). I have had "tps12" on my buddy list forever, and never seen hide nor hair. Anyone know how much inactivity it takes before a Yahoo username returns to "the pool"?

  • I don't get any telephone solicitations.
  • Why? Because it's convenient, it's much easier to ignore it instead of trying to find it. Look at what happened to PGP and look at Sony running wild with the DMCA yet every now and then, Slashdot treats us with articles about the Playstation, about movies, about music, etc. So no don't come and tell me that you care, your actions prove otherwise.
  • so we can take advantage of the apathy of the general population and make a ton of money off them :).

  • I'm not sure how anybody could've expected to influence yahoo's position. Yahoo can be broken up into many population segments. A useful one to consider is this:
    1. Average yahoo users
    2. Pro-privacy/anti-commercialism yahoo users
    3. Abandoned accounts

    Group 1 completely overwhelms group 2, but to further minimize any chance of making anything other than a moral difference, I'll bet group 3 overwhelms group 2 as well. The third group counts as votes in favour of, or at least ambivalent to the concerns of the second group since as far as yahoo concerns its a satisfied customer.
  • I followed one of the alternative suggestions for dealing with this. My acct info reads thusly:

    Work/School Address:
    TrustE Violations, Inc.
    701 First Avenue
    Sunnyvale, CA 94809
    United States
    Phone:
    408-349-2000
  • Something that needs to be taken into account is that most people that use Yahoo, AOL, MSN/Hotmail are not aware that this war is even being waged around them. They are usually people who probably don't know much about computers, or the internet, and use Yahoo because somebody told them it is "easy". Sure, i have been known to use free email services from time to time, but i don't use them for my primary mail services.

    Sure, they don't like spam, or being monitored in various ways, but how are they supposed to find out that it is going on? Is Yahoo going to tell them that they are being monitored, and sent spam tailored to their interests? I don't think so!

    Rather, they just sit there and obliviously read their email from dear aunt bertha and delete their spam.

  • Welcome to Activism 101... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:16PM (#3514279) Homepage

    ...where you will learn that the vast majority of humanity is not interested in "causes" or "revolutions". Even when most people recognize that they are being harmed or exploited, they lack the confidence and courage to do something about it. They rationalize that it isn't their problem, or that nothing can be done, or that it's really someone else's responsibility. They close their ears so they don't hear about something they can't cope with.

    Any revolution is lead by a few who are willing to sacrifice anything for what is right. How many of the "privacy" advocates are willing to give up their job, risk harassment, and alienate friends in the quest to do what is "right?"

    Of course I'm cynical -- I've studied history, and I've worked the frontlines of various causes. Complaining that other people won't "fight the good fight" is a waste of effort. If the fight is worth fighting, then you must be willing to take the responsibility on your back to "do the right thing."

  • I have a Yahoo account, and I didn't delete it. Want to know why? Because first of all, Yahoo doesn't have anything they can use to annoy me in new ways (phone #, physical address, etc.). Second of all, my yahoo address is what I use when not corresponding with family or friends, it's the box I expect to get spammed. So I care about my privacy, but in this case, I just don't see anything to worry about.


    I was much more annoyed when Yahoo removed pop3 access. Now how am I supposed to archive old email?

  • The first couple times I read the article title, I thought it said "Your Rights Online: Seems Nobody Gives A Damn About Piracy".
    Which I guess is true also. :)
  • The solution to telemarketing by Yahoo! and other online companies is not to delete your account, it's to make it unprofitable for them.

    If Yahoo (or any other marketeer) cold-calls you, the best thing to do is not to hang up as quickly as you can, but keep them on the phone as long as you can. The telemarketing gig only works if they can complete so many sales in so much time, so by holding them on the line as long as you can, you decrease the profitability of the endeavor. If enough people do it, they may just give up the venture.

    So what do you think, people? Can we Slashdot the telemarketers?

  • No one seems to care about Mac GUIDs either :( (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @09:33PM (#3514359)
    I started a thread [macnn.com] on MacNN [macnn.com] about the fact that any cocoa application can read a new Macintosh's unique serial number. I even wrote a sample program [mac.com] that accesses and displays it.

    I thought that others might be as concerned as I was. Instead, someone confirmed that, yes-- the Mac's GUID is globally accessible, yes-- it's on the motherboard... but no need to worry because "As much as you feel that the serial number can be abused it won't. No vendor has shown any indication that they will use unique IDs in their programs and all we can do is hope that they won't."

    Uh yeah right. Except for Windows 98 [nytimes.com], RealNetworks [seattleweekly.com], Word for Mac [xlr8yourmac.com], etc.

    Why is that Intel [bigbrotherinside.com]'s GUID problems were such a big deal and this barely gets a shrug?

    W
    • Explain to me how this is different from writing a simple program in C (or C++, or for that matter, probably dozens of languages) that reads the MAC address of your ethernet card? Since nearly every PC sold these days comes with one, seems like no matter what, somewhere there's a unique ID # burned into some silicon somewhere.
    • Why is that Intel's GUID problems were such a big deal and this barely gets a shrug?

      I'd wager because no one has, to my knowledge, used Intel's GUIDs to identify people. Most software that tracks users with specific UIDs makes the UIDs itself (i.e. specific to that install), and therefore you don't need a GUID in hardware to do the trick.

      Not to say that people should have a right to anonymity, but companies are going to be tracking users as long as they can get away with it, and they don't need a hardware GUID to do it. Register your realplayer to nospam@real.com (pword is nospam), and who cares if they know that some person that watches Garbage music videos also spends Sunday afternoon at ifilm.com? It gets them nothing, it costs you nothing. Relax.

      Summary: Evil companies are evil already. GUIDs are unnecessary. Being alarmist gets you nowhere.

      --Dan
  • Um... Complaining about privacy invasion, yet slashdot uses doubleclick for it's privacy invasion.
  • The response would be similiar.

    People shouldn't have to continiously spend time and money in telling others that they want their privacy.
    The default should be a respect for peoples privacy.

    Everyone knows this so why isn't it?

    For the people by the people??????
  • Big Brother exists, has terabytes of info about you, but is deaf, blind and has IQ 58.

    Full argument on this Humorix Editorial [i-want-a-website.com].

  • Remember, people, the same people who write their password on a piece of paper and stick it on their monitor are the ones who form the majority of Yahoo's user base. They're relatively unsophisticated and, more importantly, simply don't consider their contact information, purchasing preferences, etc., to be terribly private information.

    The reason people don't care about this is that they behave as they always have: they don't care about something until it affects them directly. This is why we're slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) but surely losing our rights over time: the majority of people aren't affected by the loss. For instance, they don't have anything terribly earth-shattering to say, so restrictions on speech aren't an issue to them.

    Should people care about their loss of privacy? Absolutely. The reason is primarily because of the ultimately evil things that can be done with that loss, namely the police state tactics that can be used to control the population once the data is gathered and accessible to those in power. But very few people think along those lines. Most people are sheep, and will therefore act like sheep.

    Which is exactly why oppressive police states happen to begin with.

  • Greetings!

    While these sites indicate that you must provide personal information, nobody stops you from hacking the system. Thus, my registration for NYT indicates that I'm a 50 year old, black Samoan lady living in Moscow, and my Yahoo! groups account identifies me by a fictitious name, as a male living in Zurich.

    My 'public' email address is routed through a Yahoo! like service based in Switzerland. I seldom get any spam because the TLD is a .ch, not .com.

    Cheers!

    E
    • The email service I use is at:

      http://www.bluemail.ch

      They offer the service in German, French, English, and Italian.

      Cheers!

      E
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Ok, so not everyone decided to give up email addresses that they may have been using for years. I wonder how many people who were forwarding emails decided to pay up to keep using it? That would be a far more interesting statistic.

  • Most People Don't Understand the Problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geoffsmith ( 161376 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @10:07PM (#3514549) Homepage
    They didn't opt-out. They didn't read the email Yahoo sent them (since they are usually not worth reading) And they are not conscious of why they are getting more and more junk mail and *very annoying unsolicited phone calls* during their family dinner. They think it's just a sign of the times, when in fact it's because Yahoo sold their phone number, mailing address and other personal information without their consent.

    Even worse, the reason Yahoo has all this information like phone numbers and mailing addresses in the first place is because they require it when processing credit card transactions for Yahoo Wallet (ie. Yahoo is screwing over its own paying customers).

    What Yahoo did is criminal. And if people understood that, there would be a class action suit, just like there were criminal procedings against DoubleClick and Alexis for similar violations of privacy. I'm all for free market, but what Yahoo did is fraudulent, and I have never heard of a free market that protects fraud.

    Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]

  • Stats are off (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @10:21PM (#3514593) Homepage Journal
    But only 73,000 users, comScore projects, considered ending their relationship with Yahoo by visiting the page (https://edit.yahoo.com /config/delete-user) that actually cancels their Yahoo accounts, which can include e-mail and other services. That was fewer, even, than the month before, when 114,000 users went to the page.
    I believe that both of these numbers should be added together to show the total number of people unhappy enough about the changes to consider closing their account -- since there was plenty of warning and not everyone would have waited for the, say, last day of POP3 access to close their account. So lets say almost 200,000 people felt like walking away after the changes. I wish I could piss away that many customers without caring.

    For what it's worth, I ended my relationship with Yahoo. I learnt ages ago that an email address with no POP3 access is of no use to me. Add to that the fact that I used to receive 30-odd peices of spam to my Yahoo account each day and there was no value left in the service. I now use sneakemail, spamcop and my private ISP account that never gets posted anywhere. I've had one spam come through on the alias I used for "GoogleGroups" since I posted something about 3 weeks ago. That alias is currently queuing messages at the sneakemail server...

  • It's the best mail account that I have ever had for not getting spam. If you sign up for a hotmail account, you will have spam within a half hour. I've used yahoo mail for about 6 months WITHOUT ANY SPAM WHATSOEVER. and if you do get spam, they have spam filters (which haven't caught anything, as it tells you) My secret: DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR MAIN EMAIL ADDRESS ONLINE. keep a spam account for site registration purposes. No online service has my home phone and/or home address either.

    As I recall, all it took was one visit to http://subscribe.yahoo.com/showaccount to remove myself from their marketing schemes. they sent me an email advising me to go there if i cared.

    I'm not sure why slashdot keeps making such a big deal out of it. I haven't been forced into anything. I'm happy with the service. I'd actually recomend it as the best free email service I've ever had.
  • If the rest of those people were like me, they didn't recive any notice from yahoo on the subject. I haven't seen anything at all about it from yahoo. I found out about it here at /., and then 10 to 20 minutes later in email from several mailing lists.

    Also, I recently went to www.yahoo.com to see if I could find the opt-out page. I totally failed. The only reason I know its URL is messages from other sources. But yahoo has hidden it far too well for my meager brain to find, even when I know it's there somewhere.

  • I tried about 10 times over several weeks, but was unable to change my Yahoo prefs. Every time I tried, I got a "Server busy, try again later" error message. I eventually gave up, assuming that Yahoo never intended to give us the option to opt-out.

    What experiences did you have with this?

  • Convenience VS. Annoyance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GuNgA-DiN ( 17556 ) on Monday May 13, 2002 @10:54PM (#3514728)
    I've used Yahoo! since day one. I use a lot of their services now (mail, auctions, shopping, bill pay, weather, etc...) and find it to be convenient. I was angry when they pulled the old "presto-chango" routine by setting all my preferences back to "YES".

    I went in and switched them all back to "NO" and then wrote a couple of angry messages to Yahoo! and bitched them out for messing with my account settings. I was annoyed with them for changing the settings. But, it wasn't enough to over-ride the convenience of the services that I had access to. In the end I decided not to cancel my account.

    If you read the email that Yahoo! sent out they told people that they were doing it and they gave you 60 days to change your preferences. If you were too lazy to go in an change them -- then you get spammed. Of course, this being Slashdot, everyone went into *rant* mode. What Yahoo! did was bad. But, at least they told you they did it and then they gave you a chance to decide.

    If only other companies would be so nice! I get barrels of spam all the time from people who "opted me in" but, forgot to tell me about it.

    Anyhow -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

  • real data? (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )
    So who has ever given real data to any of these "free" (read: you pay with your valuable data) sites? I'd consider this a stupidity tax.

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