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Spam Businesses Privacy

Yahoo Reminds Users That 'No' Doesn't Mean 'No' 519

Posted by michael from the jurt-trying-to-be-helpful dept.
rawg writes "Looks like Yahoo is resetting their 'Marketing Preferences' again. In an email I received from Yahoo today it states, 'Starting January 1, 2004, Yahoo! will begin to send you messages, via email or postal mail, about our own products and services. You can control the types of messages you receive by visiting your Marketing Preferences at any time'. It also states, 'And, as always, you can delete your Yahoo! account altogether at any time, for any reason, by going to the deletion page.' I deleted my Yahoo account a month ago. I guess they are lying, because I'm still getting their SPAM."
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Yahoo Reminds Users That 'No' Doesn't Mean 'No' More

Yahoo Reminds Users That 'No' Doesn't Mean 'No'

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  • "No" (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:16PM (#7530065)
    After 15 years of marriage I am well aware of "No means No" !
    • After 15 years of marriage I am well aware of "No means No" !

      There are a lot of things that mean "No" in a marriage...

      10. "No,"
      9. "Maybe,"
      8. "I have a headache,"
      7. "It's that time of the month,"
      6. "It's your turn to change diapers,"
      5. "My mother's coming to the house tomorrow,"
      4. "Did you take out the trash?,"
      3. "I just want to cuddle,"
      2. "Could you give me a backrub?,"
      1. "Yeah, that's what we need, another kid,"

  • I mind the electronic spam -- my Yahoo! Mail account keeps getting clogged. Don't mind the paper, though, because they're paying the bulk of the cost anyway and I have recycling at home.

    • Re:Mind the electronic spam, don't mind the paper. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jpsst34 ( 582349 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:22PM (#7530146) Journal
      I mind the paper. Even though it's easy enough to throw it in the recycle bin and wash my guilty conscience of it, I'd still feel better if it were never created in the first place.
    • Says the person with a normal size mailbox. I recently had to call a dept store to tell them to not mail me their catalogues. I get one for me, one for the woman, in this tiny little apartment building box.

      Yes, I *COULD* get a postbox, but my mail box is meant for mail, not bulky items that bend and fill it up.

      -s

    • Re:Mind the electronic spam, don't mind the paper. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hollins ( 83264 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:43PM (#7530422) Homepage
      I agree with you. Even though it takes more effort to throw out a credit card offer than delete an email, the fact that they had to pay around $0.30 to send it in paper and bulk mailing costs makes me not mind. Bulk email, which approaches free, has entirely different economics which makes it much more insidious by my perspective.

      However, I don't feel the same about telephone solicitations. They've always outraged me, even though there is a cost involved. Before DNC was implemented, I encouraged everyone to keep phone solicitors on the line as long as possible without purchasing anything. I hoped that the ratio of per call cost to hit rate could be increased sufficiently to make the process no longer worthwhile. Others advocated this also, but it never seemed to catch on.

    • mind the paper. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I actually love getting all the credit card applications. They, along with any other spam snail mail which includes a "no postage necessary" envelope, are a convient way to recycle. I strip off any identification marks on the ads which may let them trace to my address and stuff them full of all the other garbage that comes to my address and send it back to them. If I could find thin lead bars to fit in the envelope, that would be more fun but at least this way my recycling bin is nearly empty.
    • I mind the electronic spam -- my Yahoo! Mail account keeps getting clogged. Don't mind the paper, though, because they're paying the bulk of the cost anyway and I have recycling at home.

      I'm the exact opposite. I can filter my spam, and click "delete" if that doesn't work. Bulk mail sits around until I take out the grabage, and irks me a bit more.
  • Dear Yahoo! Member,

    Last year we announced changes that affect how we communicate with Yahoo! members about Yahoo!'s own products and services. However, we have not yet implemented those changes for all our registered members. Because of your previous account settings, Yahoo! has not yet sent you marketing communications under the new program. Before we do, we want to remind you how to set your preferences, and let you know what has changed and what is not changing.

    Background Information
    Over the years, we've sent emails to some registered Yahoo! members about Yahoo! products and services. We've also delivered promotional messages to Yahoo! members on behalf of our marketing partners. When you first registered with us and created your Yahoo! ID, our system presented a single "Yes" or "No" option for receiving all types of marketing communications. At some point you said "No," and after that we no longer sent any of these types of messages to you.

    In March 2002, we began rolling out an updated marketing communications system. Instead of just a single "Yes" or "No" choice, we created a new Marketing Preferences page where you decide:

    * whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about our own products and services, and separately, whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about the offerings of our marketing partners;

    * whether you want to hear from Yahoo! about certain types of Yahoo! products and services but not others (For example, you can select specific categories such as "Managing personal finances" or "Using Yahoo! for research and surfing the Web," and de-select other categories that might not be of interest to you.);

    * whether you want to hear from Yahoo! (or not) by postal mail or telephone, in addition to email.

    When this updated system was first announced in March 2002, we told you we'd begin sending you messages about Yahoo! products and services across all categories, even though you had said "No" to messages under the old single choice system. We also told you that you could still say "No" to these messages by visiting your Marketing Preferences. But we did not completely implement this change until now.

    What's Changing on January 1, 2004
    Starting January 1, 2004, Yahoo! will begin to send you messages, via email or postal mail, about our own products and services. (We will not send you postal mail if you have given us a mailing address and have opted out of contact via postal delivery.) You can control the types of messages you receive by visiting your Marketing Preferences at any time.

    What's Not Changing on January 1, 2004
    As in the past, you will not be sent messages on behalf of our marketing partners. We will not call you on the telephone to market products or services. If you ever change your mind about any of these choices you can let us know by visiting and updating your Marketing Preferences at any time. Every marketing email you receive from Yahoo! will continue to include instructions for how to unsubscribe from more marketing email. And, as always, you can delete your Yahoo! account altogether at any time, for any reason, by going to the deletion page.

    Please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information. We look forward to serving you.

    Sincerely,

    Yahoo!

  • I got one of these as well (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:17PM (#7530085) Homepage
    Amusingly enough, though, SpamAssassin filtered it out and it ended up in my spam folder.
    • They may well have tested on SpamAssassin prior to sending the mail. They very likely *want* their mail to get caught by spam filters. That way, people don't see the mail, and therefore don't go and change all of the "Yes you can sell my personal info" flags off again.

  • That sucks but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SpaceCadetTrav ( 641261 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:18PM (#7530090) Homepage
    If you don't like it, let them know and take your money somewhere else. If you're not paying for it, then you don't have anything to complain about.
    • You're saying because Yahoo! provides a free service that gives them the right to ignore the request to not receive spam from them? If this is the case, I am setting up a free webmail service. Of course you will have the ability to opt out of future communications, however, in the next few months I plan to change that and sell all your information so I can make a profit. Regardless if they keep the correspondence internal or if they sell your information to a third party, they are going against your wishes

    • that's not the point (Score:4, Informative)

      by dubiousmike ( 558126 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:48PM (#7530482) Homepage Journal
      see, just by signing up with them, they have something they can monitize - my information.

      Instead of saying, to be able to get free email, free gmaes, free claendars, music, ect you must allow for us to market to you, they think its ok to just change their word (word is SUPPOSED to be bond). But tell me that and don't tell me you wont sell my information and the DO IT!

      I don't know about you, but I take it personally when someone tells me one thing and does another.

    • That is absolute BS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 )
      If you don't like it, let them know and take your money somewhere else. If you're not paying for it, then you don't have anything to complain about.

      Bullshit. Zero cost does not give someone license to behave in a despicable manner. If someone offered a free cleaning service for your home or office and then used their access to rape your spouse, you would be perfectly in your rights to complain bitterly and have them arrested (hell, if you catch them in the act, you have the right to shoot them dead in m
    • If you're not paying for it, then you don't have anything to complain about.

      Wrong. I got one of these letters too, and I've never had an account there!

  • Whatever (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:19PM (#7530100) Journal
    Yahoo ignores my preference to not get spammed by them, I ignore all software EULA's that I click through... I think it's a fair trade... :)
    • They think so too, as it means you missed the part where they installed Gator on your machine.

    • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ergonal ( 609484 )
      Yahoo provides a free, stable, POP3 service. Their "Yahoo! Delivers" advertising emails are very easy to filter out, so it's a very effective free POP3 IMO. Just filter their bullshit, and you will have no problems.
      • They used to provide free POP3. Now they charge for that as an extra service.
        • I've been using smtp.mail.yahoo.com.au for years without any hickups.

        • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Informative)

          by mkettler ( 6309 )
          Correct. I'm a paid POP3 subscriber on my yahoo account (a whopping $19.95/yr).

          They have not messed with my marketing preferences so far.. I just checked them today.. all still set to "no" and no notice sent. We'll see if they reset only the preferences of free users or all users..

      • Do they have a free POP3? Looks to me like they charge $29.95 a year [yahoo.com] to use POP3... If you can point me to something that says different, I'd appreciate it, because I was looking for that...

      • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Informative)

        by 87C751 ( 205250 )

        Yahoo provides a free, stable, POP3 service. Their "Yahoo! Delivers" advertising emails are very easy to filter out, so it's a very effective free POP3 IMO.

        /me shakes head to clear the effects of the timewarp.

        You are aware that Yahoo stopped the free POP3 service a couple of years ago, right? That's a $19.95/yr premium service now. And no, they didn't grandfather anyone in, because I used to use the POP3 service all the time (with a filter to autodel the required spam). I was disappointed (but not piss

        • Re:Whatever (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Gunfighter ( 1944 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @05:29PM (#7532073)
          I, on the other hand, was extremely pissed when they stopped the POP3. A couple of years ago, I went ahead and paid Yahoo! to register a domain name for my "premium service" personalized mail address. I even renewed it for a second year. When I received the "no more POP3" notice in my inbox, I assumed that didn't apply to me because I was already a premium user. Wrong! They still wanted to dip into my wallet a little deeper and charge extra for POP3. There's already enough vendor lock-in in the world. The last thing I need is another company trying to nickel & dime me (I get enough of that with my mobile phone bill).

          What morons. Giving POP3 access away for free saves them server space and bandwidth, so the only explanation I can come up with is that they want more eyeballs on the ridiculously huge ads they embed in their webmail interface. Screw that. I have better things to do with my time than wade through Flash ads while I'm trying to read email.

          I canceled the premium service, switched the domain away from Verisign (I'll tell you where you can shove your damn SiteFinder), and now Yahoo! doesn't get a single cent from me... EVER AGAIN. Now I can check my email via webmail, pop3, or imap4 and I have better virus and spam controls than Yahoo! ever offered (thank you Spamassassin).

          I feel sorry for the non-geeks out there who put up with crap like this from the likes of Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft etc. because they don't have the time or patience to investigate the alternatives.
    • "I ignore all software EULA's that I click through"

      Just when I went to click to add you as a friend for saying this, I noticed that you already are one!

      I ignore all EULA's as well. What's the point? They all say, don't do anything wrong or we'll sue. Okay, I won't do anything wrong, so they won't sue. Simple enough.

      Every living creature knows right from wrong. (Except maybe Darl McBride.)

  • Spam by default (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cloudless.net ( 629916 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:19PM (#7530105) Homepage
    The default preferences assume that you want to receive spam. But I'm not complaining, because it is a free service.

    • Re:Spam by default (Score:5, Informative)

      by seanmeister ( 156224 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:21PM (#7530141)
      I'll second that... I received the update notification yesterday, and I figured I'd have to go click a zillion "no" boxes to get everything straight again. I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything was still opted out. No complaints here!
      • Maybe I'm missing something here, but i'm pretty sure the article mentioned January first... I'm going to step out on a limb and guess that you didn't need to change your preferences because...... Its not January yet!!!!!

        +1 Informative
        -1 Flamebait
        I'll let the mods fight it out

        • The message clearly states that the marketing messages start getting sent out on January 1st, but you can change your preferences *now*.

          They aren't going to change the preferences to "Yes" on January 1st.

          I'm on Yahoo and all my preferences are still set to "No". If I want to get any of those marketing messages that start on January 1st, I can change the preferences ahead of time, because I sure wouldn't want miss any of those oh-so-good informative messages!

  • o_0 (Score:5, Funny)

    by nubbie ( 454788 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:19PM (#7530111) Homepage
    Internet portal Yahoo may want to think about changing its advertising slogan from "Do You Yahoo?" to "You DO Yahoo."

    More like "Yahoo DO You."

  • that does it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Savatte ( 111615 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:19PM (#7530115) Homepage Journal
    I'm going back to using the telegraph and smoke signals.

  • Spam filtering (Score:2, Informative)

    by pdrome4robert ( 532173 )
    You can mark e-mail as Spam in Yahoo! e-mail. When you do that, you can create a filter or send the e-mail to Yahoo!. Will Yahoo! allow their own homemade spam to be treated the same way? What would happen if everyone sent the spam back to Yahoo!?

  • Not "Again" (Score:5, Informative)

    by wren337 ( 182018 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:20PM (#7530129) Homepage
    The email was a reminder to change your preferences if you don't want to be marketed to. When they changed them to yes (a year ago?) they didn't actually act on the change. Now that people have had a year to reset their preferences, they are going to start marketing.

    Not that it doesn't suck, but the article header is wrong. They changed your preferences once, a long time ago.

  • a real user-friendly feature for Yahoo mail (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NumLk ( 709027 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:21PM (#7530138)
    I use yahoo mail myself, and saw the message yesterday. Quite honestly, it doesn't bother me, companies evolve, businesses change, etc. etc. etc. Sometimes policies need to be updated, and, as long as it isn't a weekly thing, I'm ok with it. What I would like is a 100% simple, opt-me-out-of-all-marketing button. I.E. make the "This message is Spam" button in Yahoo automatically take me off Yahoo's mailing list if I mark one of their messages as Spam. Quick, concise, user-friendly, achieves the same result as going through the various screens to set my user preferences.

    Ok, rant off.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:21PM (#7530140)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • They did the same thing when they bought Launch and Hotjobs. Those two companies started to send me spam immediately when Yahoo bought them.

    I just don't get how they can make wholesale changes to your preferences (not necessarily the privacy policy). If I say I don't want to be contacted, that doesn't change just because they want it to.

    But Yahoo is fairly useless to me these days. Unless I want to play pool or free fantasy sports.

    But then again, Yahoo is super shady in other areas. Good luck if you
  • Not that I really like yahoo, I kind of think they suck, but I need easily accessible from anywhere email... but my marketing preferences have not been changed since I set them when they first came out. I've never had a problem with yahoo sending me spam... its everywhere else that sends me spam that I have a problem with. nemui

  • Good Yahoo Alternatives? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Houn ( 590414 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:26PM (#7530198)
    Alright, I think I've had about enough. My first e-mail address was from usa.net, who was purchased by netaddress.com. I liked it because it was free, simple, and had pop access. When netaddress purchased it, and a few months later turned it into a pay service, I decided it was time to switch.

    After some research, I found that Yahoo had the largest storage size AND pop access at the time. So, I hopped on and singed up.

    And now here we are, a few years later. No more pop access, constant attempts to spam me - I think I've about exausted my patience after getting this e-mail from them this morning. So, I guess I'll do a mini Ask-Slashdot for all the peeps using Yahoo:

    What E-mail Service do YOU use/recommend?

    Or, alternatively, how much of a hastle would it be to just run my OWN mailserver? I've got a box I could do it on, but I'm worried that it'd be a pain keeping spammers from using it for outgoing if it was found (granted, I know nothing about running a mailserver).

    Anyway, for myself and all those like me, suggestions?

    • Re:Good Yahoo Alternatives? (Score:4, Informative)

      by stipe42 ( 305620 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:34PM (#7530316)
      1. Register a domain for $50 for a couple years.
      2. Host it on Pair for $8/month including ssh access.
      3. You now can securely check your email via SSH anywhere that you have a network connection. Since you own the domain, you don't have to worry about your email address changing two years down the road.

    • Re:Good Yahoo Alternatives? (Score:4, Informative)

      by nicky_d ( 92174 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @04:56PM (#7531749) Homepage
      I can recommend fastmail.fm [fastmail.fm] - I found it via a /. comment, in fact. Web interface and IMAP access (working fine with Mac Mail), and a range of prices from free upwards. If you pay more, you get more space / functionality and access to the fastmail SMTP server, for ISP independence. I'll be paying for it soon, I'm sure. Since the goons at work implemented their 1/4-assed mail filter, it's been a godsend. The web interface is also nice and clean, and the whole thing has a nice white-hat feel to it. Check it out, anyway; I'll be recommending them when asked from now on.

  • Am I missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jpmahala ( 181937 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:26PM (#7530199)
    Why does YAHOO! get such a bad rap from Slashdot? They run almost all of their services on FreeBSD and are a huge advocate, supporter, and patron of the FreeBSD foundation. Why does the majority of Slashdotters despise them?
    • Probably because they're still a big, faceless corp. I think we all feel a little bitter towards BFCs, because somewhere in the back of our minds, we know we're getting screwed.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Set your email prefs... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dave21212 ( 256924 ) <dav@spamcop.net> on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:27PM (#7530217) Homepage Journal

    Set your email prefs... [yahoo.com] I have mine as alerts-feedback@yahoo-inc.com - this way, they spam their own inbox...
    Note that you will need to add the address as an "alternate email address" for it to be available in the selection box.

    How may we contact you?
    Please verify your contact information. It will only be used consistent with the Yahoo! Privacy Policy and your preferences. Please note that Yahoo!'s ability to accurately honor your choices above, including a preference not to receive certain types of communications, depends on up-to-date addresses and phone numbers in your Account Information. If your Account Information is no longer current, please edit or update using the links below.

    Email - please select which address we should send email to:
    alerts-feedback@yahoo-inc.com

  • Driving me nuts.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:28PM (#7530231)
    I still receive spam from Yahoo under an account name I deleted several years ago. The email informs me that I may login under the userid listed in the email and change my preferences. When I go to login, it tells me that the account doesn't exist and asks if I would like to sign up under that name.

    Since Yahoo spams tend to be more legitimate than the usual penis extension mailings, I find that I feel better after going to the advertisers website, making a list of all the email addresses, and writing to them to inform them that I will be signing up for free pencams, PDAs drawings, and porn-a-day lists.

  • And exactly where are they sending this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Steve Ballmer's Fat ( 641246 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:28PM (#7530232)
    I deleted my Yahoo account a month ago. I guess they are lying, because I'm still getting their SPAM."
    Yahoo is sending these emails to Yahoo (email) accounts. I use several different Yahoo services, including the email, and I've never had to supply them with an alternate email address. Is the author saying that he/she received this at a personal account or what? I find that hard to believe.

  • Remember in highschool there was this really cute (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:30PM (#7530251)

    girl that everybody liked. But she told you "No" and you wondered if "No" really meant "Yes" afterall.

    But her parents had to call your parents to clarify that "No" really meant "No" for really positive for sure.

    It's like that.

    Maybe it was just me.....

  • No still means No (Score:5, Informative)

    by alanjstr ( 131045 ) * on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:31PM (#7530274) Homepage
    They're not resetting your preferences, just reminding you to check them. And if you had checked them instead of running to Slashdot, you'd see that they're still the same. They just aren't going to start using those preferences until next year.

  • This is not new, really. (Score:3, Informative)

    by VirtualAdept ( 43699 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:31PM (#7530278)
    I'm not sure this is such a huge deal. What happened was back in March of 2002, Yahoo! created a whole new set of opt-out options with the intention of driving their marketing emails based off of those. The bad was, however, that they defaulted everyone to receive emails from every category. A scandal broke, please see: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/03/29/1833235.shtm l?tid=111 for more details on that scandal. Yahoo apparantly decided they weren't going to start sending mail based on those new preferences for a while. They've decided recently, though, that that policy is going to change. So anyone who did reset their preferences back in 2002 is safe. I know when I went in, my preferences were just the way I had them. That said, its still odd that they defaulted everyone to 'yes'. And that shopping from a Yahoo! merchant will get your mailing address onto that form.
  • Yahoo has said that now, to use their free email service, you must consent to having emails for Yahoo products sent to you. It's no more spam than the Slashdot banner ads are. (Ad blockers notwithstanding.) They will send you third-party advertising, too, if you haven't opted-out.

    I forget exactly, but it looks like the big change is that they changed the option from a single Yes/No option to multiple, categorized Yes/No option quite some time ago, and are just now implementing the change. Furthermore,

  • Money For Nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:31PM (#7530281)
    Lets examine the service that Yahoo provides, to users who take full advantage of it (dons tinfoil hat).
    For free, you get:
    • 6 MB webmail, with antispam
    • customizable home page with your news about your personal intrests pulled together and grouped by category
    • weather & stock info
    • access to "groups" which are like Usenet, but not really
    • a maps/driving directions page that remembers all 'your' locations

    All of this for 0 USD a month, and now they're suggesting that they may "clear" your nospam preferences, unless you turn it back on again.

    How is this evil? I've had a Yahoo profile since 1997, its been invaluable. Heck, I feel guilty not paying them a dime!

    • Re:Money For Nothing? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mr. Darl McBride ( 704524 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:50PM (#7530492)
      Bullshit.

      Yahoo! blasts you with non-stop advertising while you use the service. I had to uninstall Flash in IE and get a flash blocker for Mozilla just to be able to use the damned site without distractions. But, that aside --

      I use Yahoo! bill pay, which costs me $5/month. I use Yahoo! wallet with shop.yahoo.com for most of my online shopping so I've got all the carts in one place and all my order history in one place. Yahoo gets a cut out of every sale there as well (not to mention the monthly fees the stores pay). That's cold, hard cash they're earning -- not just ad impressions.

      I just checked and my marketing prefs haven't been turned back on. If they are, it's good-bye Yahoo!. If the Yahoo! folks are reading this, I *strongly* suggest you think twice about bending your paying users over the table.

  • Yahoo doesn't allow you to delete your account (Score:5, Informative)

    by nytmare ( 572906 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:32PM (#7530287) Homepage

    I get Yahoo's spam at a MindSpring email account.

    Yahoo requires you to sign in to your Yahoo account in order to delete that account. Since I don't know what username or password or birthdate they have on file for me, it is impossible for me to sign in and impossible to cancel the spam or delete the account. It is also impossible to contact a live human at Yahoo regarding this problem.

    The design is thoroughly irresponsible, yet they've had it this way for years.

    • Yahoo requires you to sign in to your Yahoo account in order to delete that account.

      My accidental solution--my account filled up with patches from Microsoft (which I still haven't found a way to install under Linux), and later I got a message from Yahoo saying that they had shut off my services because of the bounces, and they would turn them on if I reactived my account. Even if I had wanted to reactivate the account, I didn't have the password to do so.
  • Heh... considering on the two or three accounts with Yahoo I created, I always set my address to be someplace in Albania or some even more out of the way place, I suspect Yahoo will opt-out of sending my accounts snail mail spam on their own.

    Silly Yahoo, real addresses are for lusers.

    I got this e-mail as well, and it handily had a link that said "this e-mail address is not associate with a yahoo account." When Yahoo started their whole "Oh, we're gonna change your 'marketing preferences' for you because w
  • It seems this is becoming pretty much standard practice. There are two ways many websites refuse to respect users' opt-out wishes:
    1. The settings mysteriously get reset periodically. For some sites it seems to be once a year, for others, once a quarter.
    2. New mailing lists, which are simply modified or more specialized versions of existing mailing lists are created and everyone is opted in by default

    The two worst cases for me are Canon, which sends me new product notifications once a month and has an opt-out

  • Are they really being reset? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zsazsa ( 141679 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:44PM (#7530439) Homepage
    The Wired article linked to is from 2002. Maybe they're finally going to start spamming/calling/junkmailing people after giving them almost two years' notice. I think that's awfully nice of them.

    I just checked and everything I clicked "No" on back in 2002 is still there. I think the headline is wrong and misleading. I've never gotten any spam from them both before and after I set my preferences.

  • If yahoo sucks so much, why are you using it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by XCorvis ( 517027 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @02:47PM (#7530460)
    I think yahoo mail is great. I've never gotten an ounce of spam from them. Once a year or so I go check my marketing preferences. In fact, when I got that email, I found that all of my marketing preferences were still EXACTLY as I had left them - all "no". It's funny how people bitch about having to check marketing preferences so they don't get spam, but when those preferences aren't even offered, we hear nothing. Go sign up for a hotmail acct and see how much spam you get. Even when you turn off their "marketing preferences", you still get messages from them about once a month. Not to mention they don't have any spam filtering. Or a calendar. Or that nifty notepad.
  • Yahoo insists on an alternative email when signing up to view groups. My ISP allows me up to six email accounts. Fully aware of their history of resetting preferences, I gave them a disposable email account which is used for nothing but Yahoo. Yahoo spams it, I delete the email account. Problem solved.

    My real email accounts have been spam free since 2000.

  • Changing other preferences resets it back to YES (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JustAnotherReader ( 470464 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @03:10PM (#7530710)
    I just went to the page that the email referred me to and turned all ths "Notify me on this uselss spam" type of messages off and clicked the Save button.

    Then I noticed that my email address in the preferences was my "safe" address. The one where I never get spam. So I changed it to my "send all spam here" email and clicked save.

    Then I went back to the first page ane guess what? All the "Send me spam" opt in choices were reset to YES again. Well that sux. I changed it back to NO NO NO NO NO NO NO and Fsck No! and clicked Save again. I hope it decided that No means No this time. But resetting to a default of YES when I changed something else seems pretty sleezy.

  • On 1 January 2004, Yahoo becomes a criminal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @04:10PM (#7531274) Homepage
    Yahoo is a California-based company. They're clearly subject to California's anti-spam law. [spamlaws.com]

    They are going to get sued. Many times. At $1000 per spam.

  • if you control your own mail server, block these (Score:5, Informative)

    by Indy1 ( 99447 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @04:22PM (#7531370)
    this is all the bulk servers yahoo uses to spam. Block em and you wont have to worry about their spammy crap again, but it wont block legit email from them.

    66.218.73.32/27
    216.136.172.244
    216.136.172.247
    66.218.69.17
    66.218.69.14
    216.136.172.246
    216.136.173.191
    66.218.69.16
    66.218.69.27
    66.218.69.21
    216.136.172.243
    216.136.172.241/28
    66.218.69.5
    66.218.69.2
    mailer7.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
    mailer4.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
    mailer2.bulk.scd.yahoo.com
    qmail1.bulk.yahoo.com

  • Phone number! (Score:3, Informative)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @04:30PM (#7531433) Homepage
    I got an actual phone number.

    Call Yahoo! at 408-349-3300 if you want to talk to a real person.

    Since it's a toll call, I'm posting a partial map of the voice mail system.

    Extension 2 for Yahoo! customer support, then option 2 for customer support. This will tell you to use the web page for free support. They don't want you to talk to a real person. Sub-option 5 (report abuse) tells you to send email, and does not let you talk to a real person. Sub-option 4 puts you on hold with a recorded message saying "Prodigy values your membership. Please hold for the next available agent." I've now been on hold for maybe 15 minutes with this... This is a bad option if it doesn't get you to the right person. I hung up and tried again... This time it worked.

    They will not close an account for you. If someone has created an account which forwards to you, but you don't have all the personal information, there is nothing you can do. They don't care.

    Also, they claim that this account was created in September of this year - actually, it wasn't, it was created a long time ago to sign up for a Yahoo! group, around 2001. So, they're recreating old accounts!

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