RE: Yahoo! censors Oakland peace group

["Saundra Lund" <sslund@moscow.com>]

Mr. Force wrote:
"Reasons? They don't need no stinking reasons!
<snip>
What do you expect for free?"

This is totally OT for Vision 2020, so I'll keep this short, but . . . 

I don't agree that a Yahoo email account is free  :-)  Even if Yahoo
doesn't charge a monetary fee for their (free) basic account.

It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, but I find "free" email
accounts to be *much* more costly than the costs of using reputable
fee-based providers.

For me, the *huge* cost of so-called free providers like Yahoo, Hotmail,
Juno, etc is the loss of privacy,  responsibility, and accountability.

If you've got a Yahoo email account and get a lot of spam, you need look
no further than Yahoo itself to figure out how you're getting a lot of
it.  Even before their recent changes in Marketing Preferences (in
which, by default, Yahoo set so that everyone would receive everything,
in some instances overriding the opting out customers had already done)
associated with Yahoo IDs, they were sharing your information with
so-called business partners, "trusted" and otherwise.  They also use
cookies & Web beacons on their Web sites *and* in email messages from
them to you -- things you can't opt out of.

And, let's not overlook the advertising revenue they generate by using
you and your email messages!  They are *making money* off of you and
your information, so I don't consider the service to be free at all.

And, for those who don't already know, Yahoo may be editing the messages
you send from your Yahoo email account if you use HTML format.

I also think it's wrong that they can & do yank your service, whether
it's an email account, a Yahoo ID, a Yahoo Group or whatever without
having to provide an explanation.  Providing explanations for actions
they take -- or don't take -- seems to me to directly relate to
responsibility and accountability, not to mention good customer service.
Yahoo is well-known for its capricious actions, and taking action
without explanation reminds me of how the Gestapo worked with anonymity.

Now, I have no idea why LMNOP's email account was shut down.  Maybe
there was a violation of the TOS, but I can also tell you that many,
many individuals and groups have had service terminated by Yahoo for no
real reason while Yahoo has refused to take action on legitimate
complaints of things like child pornography, copyright violations, and
harassment.

The only thing that surprised me about the LMNOP situation was their
success at reaching live people at Yahoo.


Saundra Lund
Moscow, Idaho

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to
do nothing.
Edmund Burke