Yahoo Treading Carefully Before Exposing More Private Data

crimeandpunishment writes "Yahoo hopes to turn on a new sharing option without turning off its users. The company is trying to avoid the privacy backlash that has befallen Facebook and Google. It's advising its email account holders, all 280M of them, to review their privacy settings in advance of Yahoo's new features that will share users' online activities and interests with people in their address books, unless they take steps to prevent it."

Re:Oh, FFS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points for the parent. I know it was an emotional rant, but, seriously, it was the first thing that popped into my mind, too.

Does every online company these days have to treat everyone like they're a 13-year-old girl? When did sharing everything with the entire world become the overriding priority for the Internet?

How about they do it the other way?

[Todd Knarr]

Instead of it being "Yahoo's new features that will share users' online activities and interests with people in their address books, unless they take steps to prevent it.", how about they make it "Yahoo's new features that will share users' online activities and interests with people in their address books, if they take steps to enable it."? Problem solved.

Unless, of course, the problem is that Yahoo wants to do something it knows the majority of it's users don't want done, in which case I still think it's "Problem solved.", it's just not a solution Yahoo likes. But it isn't Yahoo's information Yahoo wants to share, so I don't see why what Yahoo likes should figure into it.

Re:Why is this needed?

[Darkness404]

I can see the point in them, you can talk to people who you haven't seen for a while. Rather than needing an MSN, AIM, etc account to IM your friends, just find them on Facebook. Its easy to find the people who you want to talk to on FB and people generally check it more often than sign into Instant Messengers.

Plus, you have a lot more control over it than a cell phone, if you need to negotiate a meeting, its a lot better to just message them over Facebook because you can block them or delete them if need be. Good luck convincing that annoying person who got your number to stop calling you, but its easy to just block them on Facebook.

Re:Oh, FFS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Configuring my security setting does not seem like a big deal.

Since it's apparently no big deal, can you please tell me what settings I'll need to change? I can't find any indication of any security settings in all of the various Yahoo options.

I didn't get any notification about it.

[kalirion]

I got two yahoo accounts, and haven't received one of these "privacy minders" in either one. Maybe its because I insist on using their classic email interface instead of the web 2.0 mess?

Still use Yahoo!??

[ATestR]

• Yes, I still have a Yahoo address.
• Yes, I do check it... every month or two, to dump the SPAM.
• No, I don't use it for real mail
• Why do I even keep it? It is a handy, last resort mail drop, assuming GMAIL and my private mail server both die.