Yahoo Stops Honoring 'Do-Not-Track' Settings 300
An anonymous reader writes "When web browsers started implementing 'do-not-track' settings, Yahoo got some respect for being the first of the huge tech companies to honor those settings. Unfortunately, that respect has now gone out the door. As of this week, Yahoo will no longer alter their data collection if a user doesn't want to be tracked. They say there are two reasons for this. First, they want to provide a personalized web-browsing experience, which isn't possible using do-not-track. Second, they don't think do-not-track is viable. They say, '[W]e've been at the heart of conversations surrounding how to develop the most user-friendly standard. However, we have yet to see a single standard emerge that is effective, easy to use and has been adopted by the broader tech industry.' It looks like this is another blow to privacy on the web."
Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:2, Insightful)
Horrible decision, a standard isn't being honored "EVERYWHERE" so you decide to undermine it entirely without replacement? What's the REAL reason, money?
Sell your assets and gtfo!
Re: Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:3)
Re: Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not how it works, it's not a list unless they make a list. Not to mention they championed the idea and were early adopters.
Yahoo pretended to support Do Not Track only because they figured anyone stupid enough to actually use Yahoo for anything was too stupid to figure out how to turn it on.
Then Microsoft made it on by default in Internet Explorer, still the most widely used browser and probably used by 98% of the people stupid enough to use Yahoo for anything. All of a sudden, Yahoo didn't think Do Not Track was such a good idea any more.
Re: (Score:2)
Internet Explorer, still the most widely used browser
No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
(still the most widely used browser) and (probably used by 98% of the people stupid enough to use Yahoo for anything)
are two different clauses. If they weren't, he would have said:
still the browser most widely used by 98% of the people stupid enough to use Yahoo for anything
Re: Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Informative)
"On by default" is not an entirely accurate description. When you first run a version of Internet Explorer that supports DNT (IE8), or Windows 7 or 8, you are presented with several configurable options, one of which asks if you want to allow tracking by advertisers. While the "yes" radio-button is pre-selected, users do have to actively accept this choice. It is not as if Microsoft invisibly enabled this feature without alerting the users.
Admittedly, many users will just accept the defaults and press "OK", but they are still making that choice. Given the choice people generally do not like being tracked, and - although most people have been trained to just press OK - were they properly educated about the issue most would likely enable DNT anyway. Moreso, few people complain that Microsoft also includes software to avoid phishing sites (e.g., SmartScreen) which are enabled by "default" similar to DNT; these capabilities are added because the end-users find them useful. Microsoft is just protecting users from skeevy internet marketing, and just because some firms depend on this sort of underhanded tracking in no way excuses them from their deceitful practices. Features like "Do Not Track" were created because advertisers pushed too hard in one direction; now they ignore user's attempts to bring balance to the equation. I have no sympathy for the Googles and Yahoos and Facebooks; they broke the social contract first.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Informative)
Horrible decision, a standard isn't being honored ANYWHERE so you decide to undermine it entirely without replacement?
FTFY.
The simple fact is that Do-Not-Track was a damned bogus idea from the outset. Saying to the massive web of advertising conglamorates and third parties -- all of which make more money the more they can identify you down to an individual -- "Won't you kindly not track me? That would just be great, thanks" is akin to asking the mob nicely not to burn your place down when you refuse to pay protection money, or calling up the NSA and asking them nicely to stop spying on your personal affairs.
If you don't want to be tracked, you need to take steps to make it happen yourself. The tools are there -- use them. If enough people start blocking all forms of advertising, perhaps the intrusiveness and privacy violation will recede. Or maybe the entire advertising industry will collapse (one can always dream).
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the problem is what I believe to be a flawed business model for marketers. They feel that they need to somehow "steal" people's information and use it to "force" adds on them. The phrase "targeted" adds suggests a hostile approach. My impression is that most people want to see informative adds for products that they might buy. If it were easy for customers to craft their on online profiles so that they would see adds of interest to them, advertisers would be able to directly provide relevant information.
Right now I'm not in the market for a car - all the adds in the world won't do any good. In a few years when I am ready to buy, I will want to see information on the types of cars that I might consider buying. The way things are set up now, immediately after I buy a car I will be flooded with car adds - despite the fact that a recent purchases is the least likely to buy again.
Re: (Score:2)
Advertisers bend over backwards to find out your interests voulontarily and send you targeted information. Google lets you know what it thinks it knows about you [techsupportalert.com] and, at least the last time I saw it, lets you edit it. Or at least gives you the impression that you can edit it. Fill out online surveys, etc. They try to make it VERY easy.
And yet, they're resorting to tracking why? Because the vast majority of people won't voulontarily tell advertisers what
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think the tools are well known. For instance I didn't know I could get at my google info.
A more serious problem is the lack of trust. There is a concern that you will only be able to add information, not remove it, and your spam levels will just increase. (this may not be true, but its a valid concern).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its not being honored because some geniuses decided that it would be a great idea to make DNT a default setting-- which made it UTTERLY PREDICTABLE that websites would eventually stop honoring it.
Good call, though guys. We won the ideological fight by making it the default, even if practically speaking we shot ourselves in the foot. Now we can continue to criticize Firefox and Chrome for defaulting DNT off, and praise IE for singlehandedly tanking the idea!
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Informative)
Google and Yahoo make money by selling information that they collect from users. Microsoft makes money by selling software. The typical person is a Microsoft customer, but a Google / Yahoo product.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
Google and Yahoo make money by selling information that they collect from users. Microsoft makes money by selling software.
Microsoft is losing the battle for online advertising, so they are instead trying to poison the market. In MSIE 10 and 11, the "do not track" is on by default, which means the user never actually made a decision to set it. Microsoft's original plan was to diminish the ability of ad agencies like Google to collect information. But instead, they gave those agencies an excuse to ignore the setting, since no human made a decision to set it. Some more ethical ad agencies check the browser ID and only ignore the setting if it is MSIE. Unfortunately, ethics and advertising seldom go together.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:2, Insightful)
When the privacy/security decision is left up to the advertiser, it is deeply flawed and an unfeasible solution. Additionally the DNT header grants the tracker additional entropy for which your identity can be singled out with.
It was a really silly idea, nobody really expected these guys would honer this, even if it did have legislative backing.
Re: (Score:3)
It was a really silly idea, nobody really expected these guys would honer this
Except that they were honoring it, before Microsoft poisoned the well.
... even if it did have legislative backing.
The laws/regulations required them to honor "user requests" not "browser settings". Once the browser setting is on by default, it no longer indicates a "user request" and there is no legal requirement to honor it.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:4, Insightful)
Privacy/Security != Anonymity
There are subtle differences depending on the interpretations.
Re: (Score:2)
So you are arguing that privacy/security on by default is a bad thing?
Yes. Because, in practice, having "do not track" on by default, is the same as not having it at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Only given unethical scumbag advertisers (which makes any sort of honor system non-viable). Very few people want to be tracked by strangers. I would guess there are more people who want to be whipped until they bleed.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few people want to be tracked by strangers.
If you ask "Do you want to be tracked by strangers?", then of course nearly everyone will say "no".
If you ask "Do you want web services personalized to your needs and preferences?", most people will say "yes".
Re: (Score:2)
Then it's up to the advertisers to come up with a way to personalize ads without being able to track the users. It can be done.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You just don't understand the bit about "most people", do you?
Re: (Score:2)
"Do not track" was supposed to represent the user's preference. MS turned it on by default and broke the standard, which is SOP for them.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody's arguing that. The mistake is in thinking of DNT with a privacy/security mechanism. If that's what it were, Microsoft's decision would be defensible or even good. But DNT is something totally different. I'd argue two things:
1) DNT is for expressing a user's preference. Not even just a preference, but the user's preference. It is impossible for any application's default setting to express a user's preference for anything. (Your editor can default to a white background, but it can't, out of the box, honestly tell other people that YOU prefer swiss cheese over provolone. The person who wrote your editor might have some strong opinions and could even show some polling information, but in the end, he doesn't really know what kind of cheese you want. He can only take a guess.) MSIE's default DNT:swiss header is a communication between a web server and Microsoft Corporation, rather than a communication between a web server and a user.
Yes, a DNT:swiss default is a bad thing (just as bad as a DNT:provolone default). By doing that, Microsoft undermined DNT and helped the ad industry justify ignoring it. If you're a user, you should be angry at MS about this (at least so far as DNT is important at all).
2) DNT is nearly useless for protecting a user's security. If you want security, then you must deny capability to your adversary, or put costs on things, not merely politely ask him to behave in a certain manner. That means having your browser not initiate certain connections, or not send certain things (or send noise) over those connections, or .. whatever.
I have to say "nearly" useless because at least DNT could signal that some users care, but just don't care enough to stop sending intell. But it looks like this subtlety was lost on .. damn .. nearly everyone, I think.
Up to now I've thought of DNT as a basically good idea (a weak one, but still positive), but maybe it's time to accept that if nobody understands DNT then it can't possibly communicate anything meaningful.
Re: (Score:3)
Defaults should represent a best guess as to what most people will want. For once, for whatever reason, I'd say MS got it right.
If the ad agencies don't believe that to be the will of the users, they are deluding themselves. Nobody likes to be stalked.
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is losing the battle for online advertising, so they are instead trying to poison the market. In MSIE 10 and 11, the "do not track" is on by default, which means the user never actually made a decision to set it
It's on by default, but it is also part of the setup questionnaire when you first start up Windows 8 so it's not like the user isn't presented with the choice...
Re:Yahoo, kill yourself! (Score:4, Interesting)
Horrible decision, a standard isn't being honored "EVERYWHERE" so you decide to undermine it entirely without replacement? What's the REAL reason, money?
Sell your assets and gtfo!
As far as I know Google doesn't honor it either on their services, but Microsoft do, which is an interesting situation
That's because Microsoft, despite whatever flaws they may have, makes all their money selling actual products -- Windows, Office, Games for Xbox, etc.......
Companies like Google and Yahoo, on the other hand, have no actual products. Their revenue depends entirely on advertising. YOU are the product and you are being sold to advertisers.
Nothing surprising at all about Google and Yahoo not honoring Do Not Track.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. What you're thinking of as a 'product' is more accurately described as 'bait'. Calling it a 'product' is akin to calling a fisher's lure or net the product, rather than calling the *fish* the product.
Re: (Score:2)
For all we know Microsoft could be tracking us via the OS. if it was true someone would have found packet traces by now but who knows, but in theory it could be done. I'm also going to bet MS tracks everything done via Xbox Live. That's some good info right there to sell to gaming companies and now upcoming video streaming.
Code words for... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is corporate speak for, "we decided we could make more money this way, so here is a bs reason for us to change, when we really just want more money."
Re: (Score:2)
It was a dumb idea anyway. Asking a web server to honor the "do not track" setting is like asking my dog to guard a plate of cookies. If you want this to work, you've got to control privacy from the client, somehow. Alternately, you need a legal remedy of some sort.
People still use Yahoo? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:People still use Yahoo? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Track beta!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:People still use Yahoo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone savvy enough to care about this issue stop using Yahoo long ago anyway.
You are equating "care about this issue" with "don't want to be tracked". That is not always true. I care very much about my privacy. But, in most cases, I want to be tracked. I get a more personalized experience, and I see fewer ads that are irrelevant to me. When I want privacy, I open a new private browser window. There is a tradeoff between privacy and personalization, and not every informed user wants, or should want, 100% privacy 100% of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, thank you.
I agree 100%, I see ads of things I actually want, from brands I don't know.
The google cards on my phone are great, finding information about products I searched for, and news updates about subjects.
The personalized experience is fantastic.
Re: (Score:2)
The ads are not "relevant" to you, they are what advertisers want you to see. If you are a young male expect lots of scantily clad women waving stuff in your face. If you are a mother you will probably be hit with more "one weird trick to shed pregnancy pounds" or Jezebel ads. Six months after you buy a car you will still be getting ads for them.
The advertisers don't have enough information to to give you really relevant ads. Many of the most relevant products might not even be advertised on Yahoo anyway. A
Re: (Score:2)
Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
Then isn't the solution, if you want what the GP professes to want, less privacy?
Ironic that you're citing one of the biggest data-aggregating advertisers out there today as a relevant source, when you appear to be arguing against exactly what t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For example, you don't drink coke because you like sugary carbonated drinks, you drink it because you now unconsciously associate sugary carbonated drinks with Coke. This way when it is time to pick your beverage, instead of cognitively-intense process of evaluating available choices you default to "the usual". Every time you are blasted with Coke ad this connection gets reinforced... you do you think there anyone left on Earth
Re: (Score:2)
Please, nobody want to see ads. There are people who blocking them, and there are people who don't know how.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
There's no technological barrier to ignoring robots.txt, yet Google, Yahoo and the rest obey the standard meticulously. Does this mean that my own right to privacy is given less regard than a web server's?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Commercial search engies must skate a fine line between fair use and copyright violation. There is at least some potential that ignoring robots.txt could land them in legal trouble.
At the moment, lacking contrary legislation, user-identifiying information that is transmitted to a server is considered property of that server owner. If there was legislation defining that information as property of the user, much like Canada (among others) defines metered electricity usage information as belonging not to the u
Re: (Score:2)
Simple enough to fix (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You may remember exactly every service you use(d) that had a Yahoo email account as the main or fallback address, but the majority of folk out there don't. Admittedly, some of the fault is their own, but they are locked-in to a service that has now decided to abuse them for cash.
I am willing to sacrifice. (Score:2)
I am fine with sacrificing user friendliness for my privacy. Do not track me or I won't use your services. I have two yahoo emails which incidentally are used as account/spam dumps. I won't even use them for that if this is how Yahoo has chosen to do things.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny..my Yahoo account is a spam dump too.
I find it comical that when I empty my spam folder an advertisement pops up in the window. Sad
My Standard (Score:5, Interesting)
>'we have yet to see a single standard emerge that is effective, easy to use and has been adopted by the broader tech industry.'
Here is my 'standard'; NoScript and AdBlock Plus.
Re: (Score:2)
Ghostery does it much better with less overkill that noscript tends to be guilty of.
Re:My Standard (Score:4, Informative)
Just a suggestion: Consider replacing Ghostery with Disconnect. Ghostery embraces the Dark Side [businessinsider.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You could also use Ghostery but not enable the data sharing feature mentioned in that article.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You also probably want Better privacy too. It gets rid of supercookies.
Hopefully some more ideas will come out of this thread.
The WWW is dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, they want to provide a personalized web-browsing experience, which isn't possible using do-not-track.
But the user clearly does not want a personalised web-browsing experience.
Ghostery, Secret Agent, CS Lite and NoScript are essential today, and nobody should EVER go online without those, or some equivalent. Let them personalise that.
The Web has been hijacked and is now fundamentally broken. It is being transformed into a locked-in content delivery platform, something like cable TV with a camera that records your every movement. It needs to be handled with gloves and goggles, like you would when accessing a chemical weapons research facility.
We'll need to develop another Internet, this one has been taken over by marketroids and is beyond saving.
until IE 10 broke it (Score:3)
> But the user clearly does not want a personalised web-browsing experience.
Until MSIE started lying about the user's preferences. The standard specifies what should be sent if the user has not expressed a preference. IE 10 lies and says the user requested a uncustomized version when they didn't. That makes the whole thing useless when browsers lie about what preferences the user expressed.
Re: (Score:2)
For the tech-savvy and even past that these days, there are options like ad-block available.
Neither are allowed under the standard (Score:2)
> That's not lieing anymore than telling the server that you've opted in when you haven't.
Both of those would be a lie, which is why neither are allowed under the standard. ... the user has not yet made a choice for a specific preference".
The standard says that the browser "must not send a tracking preference expression if a tracking preference is not enabled. This means that no expression is sent for each of the following cases:
See:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD-t... [w3.org]
Re: (Score:2)
First, they want to provide a personalized web-browsing experience, which isn't possible using do-not-track.
But the user clearly does not want a personalised web-browsing experience.
Nobody can give me a "personalized" experience unless they can somehow read my mind.
Do I want to constantly see ads for XYZ just because I once searched for XYZ or once visited the XYZ website? Fuck You Yahoo, Google and anyone else talking about a "personalized web-browsing experience"
Re:The WWW is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
But the user clearly does not want a personalised web-browsing experience.
The geek may not want the personalized browsing experience. But the geek doesn't speak for everyone.
The Web has been hijacked and is now fundamentally broken. It is being transformed into a locked-in content delivery platform, something like cable TV
What did you expect to happen when hundred of millions of people with no preconceptions of what the web and the Internet "should be" began purchasing broadband services? You can't even assume anymore that a user is accessing the web through a general purpose computer and browser ---
and not an HDTV, WiFi Internet radio, e-book Reader, video game console, smartphone, tablet or some other device.
We'll need to develop another Internet, this one has been taken over by marketroids and is beyond saving.
Go for it.
But you are building nothing but an echo chamber, a walled garden for the geek.
Nothing but a bubble --- and bubbles burst,
Privacy only works when it's in your own hands (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with "do not track" is that it was entirely up to the website to honour the browsing session. Most don't. And the ones that you'd reallywant to not have track you are the ones that really ignore it. It's therefore useless.
It's like a system of street privacy that relies on people being trusted to close their eyes when you walk by. Just because you ask them nicely. People will look, and you can't stop them.
If you want privacy you have to be the one in control of what is being revealed. You can't rely on others to keep your privacy for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. It was always a pretty bad idea. In fact, it reminds me a great deal of the RFC 3514 "evil bit" [wikipedia.org]
Do-Not-Track is basically a "Don't be evil" bit. It makes a plea on behalf of the end user and the end user hopes some distant system honors it. Any time you implement some version of the evil bit, you should expect that it's not going to work.
(Then again, there are a lot of tech features in use now -- such as a PDF owner_pass edit lock, or phone service Caller ID blocking -- which are also based on "plea
They still exist? (Score:2)
The thing is, I strenuously avoid Yahoo. After the latest Firefox update, though, typing a search in the address field doesn't go to my preferred (in settings) search engine, but instead to Yahoo.
Yahoo search results are terrible, but most of the screen is filled with jumping icons a million other things I was not searching for.
Re: (Score:3)
You probably want to use "duckduckgo" instead of google as your default search provider.
Google tracks a lot of information about you- even when you are anonymous. Last I heard it was 57 different things. I also keep googleleadservices and googleanalytics disabled in noscript.
Re: (Score:2)
Startpage is cool too.
Re: (Score:2)
You probably want to use "duckduckgo" instead of google as your default search provider.
I would love to promote duckduckgo, but in reality the results that site brings up are seldom relevant, and normally suck.
I've recently switched to using Startpage for searches, as it protects my "anonymity" and pulls relevant search results, since it uses Google search on the back end.
Re: (Score:2)
After the latest Firefox update, though, typing a search in the address field doesn't go to my preferred (in settings) search engine, but instead to Yahoo.
Firefox stores data about which search engine to use in a set of XML files. If something else gains access to those files, it can edit them to keep the name and icon of, e.g. google, but send the actual search to goatse (or wherever). If you delete the files, then the "restore defaults" button on the "manage search engines" panel will enable, and restore the originals.
Do not honor Yahoo (Score:2)
Sigh: personalized web-browsing experience (Score:4, Interesting)
First, they want to provide a personalized web-browsing experience, which isn't possible using do-not-track.
This is one of the phrases and behaviors that annoy me the most about various sites, especially search sites. I search for both personal and work related things, don't want searches tailored to anything other than the specific thing for which I'm searching at that time. I generally don't care what I searched for 24h ago (looking at you Google side-bar).
In a related rant, I can't stand the Google side-bar, Instant and Suggestions and make every attempt to disable and or strip them out (using Proxomitron) though now that Google has switched to HTTPS, that makes things more difficult for me - sigh.
Dear Providers, Don't "help" me unless I ask for it.
If this is real... (Score:3)
IIRC yahoo is worth less than nothing at the moment. Re: www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-17/is-yahoo-s-business-worth-less-than-nothing
Why would I listen to a company with such outstanding performance?
The single standard is: (Score:5, Informative)
Noscript, only per session cookies, and surfing trough a proxy.
Do not track was flawed from the start (Score:2)
No effective standard? (Score:3)
"However, we have yet to see a single standard emerge that is effective, easy to use and has been adopted by the broader tech industry.' It looks like this is another blow to privacy on the web."
I don't know about you, but I can think of one fairly effective and extremely easy to use "standard"... AdBlock.
Time for the legal system? (Score:2)
Maybe it's time for the legal system to get involved. If entities won't honor privacy, maybe we need the equivalent of the "Do Not Call" list for telephones implemented for the internet. Of course companies like Google and Yahoo will then just alter their service agreements to state that you do in fact agree to be tracked.
Honour? (Score:2)
Yahoo! Groups is bloated with spam that can't be blocked by its admins.
Yahoo! Messenger is so fraught with bugs and bloatware that users are fleeing in droves.
The main Yahoo! website is dated and mindless.
Yahoo! Mail is an abomination of unusable kludges and missteps.
Lastly, who uses Yahoo! to search for anything anymore, anyway?
Put a wooden stake in it, this thing is dead.
IE 10 broke by DNT lying (Score:2)
The DNT standard specifies what should be sent under three conditions:
a) The user expresses that they DO want customization
b) The user expresses that they do NOT want customization
c) The user doesn't express any preference
IE 10 lies and says b when the truth is c. That makes it impossible to know who actually chose DNT. The whole thing is useless now that it doesn't to indicate the user's stated preference.
Re:IE 10 broke by DNT lying (Score:4, Informative)
From http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft... [ietf.org]
"5. Header Syntax
The Do Not Track HTTP header, "DNT", must take one of two values: "1" ...
("opt out") or "0" ("opt in"). All other values are reserved.
6.3. Default
A user agent MAY adopt NO-EXPRESSED-PREFERENCE or OPT-OUT by default.
It MUST NOT transmit OPT-IN without explicit user consent."
The standard explicitly allows opt-out as a default
that proposal voted down years ago. standard says (Score:2)
The proposal you linked to was voted down several years ago. The last call standard is:
Key to that notion of expression is that the signal sent must reflect the user's preference, not the choice of some vendor, institution, site, or network-imposed mechanism ..
A user agent must have a default tracking preference of unset (not enabled)
See
FARK.com (Score:2)
Does Slashdot get all its news stories from FARK.com?
I read most of the current crop there first.
Question (Score:2)
EFF release an alpha of Privacy Badger (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is the ad industry (Score:2)
Any standard that's effective and easy to use will not be accepted by the advertising industry, so making the "success" of a standard contingent on that last is nonsense. The DNT standard does serve one useful purpose whether or not it's accepted: it provides a single, easy-to-interpret, unambiguous indication to advertisers as to whether or not the user has consented to tracking. It removes their ability to say "Well, they didn't say otherwise so we assumed they're OK with it.". It does that whether or not
Re: (Score:2)
I've always said that the time to stop using a company is when they do things that aren't in your interests - or indeed the interests of any logic.
Companies that "rebrand".
Companies that give poor customer service.
Companies that gobble-up and retire old, famous brands.
Companies that force you to move to their "new" interface / app / whatever (take note, Slashdot!)
These things achieve nothing that a customer would want them to achieve and actually hint at lots of poor, cyclical management decisions in order
Re: (Score:2)
What do they offer than other companies don't offer, better, and without the lack of respect?
Yahoo Groups?
Re: (Score:2)
YMMV, but the quality of various groups is dependent on the members of the group, not Yahoo and they had groups long before Google did.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't imagine why I would ever go near a Yahoo site. Yahoo Answers? Seriously? Didn't Stack Exchange demolish that nonsense?
Hey, now - Yahoo Answers is still a great place to get terrible advice from trolls. Like when I was looking for a humane way to put down my gecko, and the top rated response was to put him in the freezer.
Re: (Score:2)