Yahoo.com Users furious at Sudden Opt-Out Status

Indignation is building over Yahoo's resetting of accounts to indicate that its users have allowed personal data to be made available for marketing pitches. The company is altering preferences about access to personal information and informing users that they may change these back: an opt-out system. In some cases, this means revealing address and phone data that was given in the context of particular transactions rather than directly to Yahoo.com itself.

Emails going out to users explain the change and how to reset preferences. However, the move has upset both Yahoo.com users and the wider community that regard the sudden change to opt-out as bad for the building of online trust. Yahoo.com is a very popular service provider and is seen as likely to influence people's willingness to trust well beyond its own services.

This fear arises in part because Yahoo has changed its existing policy, giving rise to concerns among users that other companies may follow suit and also because of the phenomenon of 'net-blur', where those new to online services view everything as 'the internet' rather than as individual retailers or companies. These people, as a result, reject whole categories of websites due to poor service or badly designed sites. Visit UN news story: Poorly Designed Websites Hurt Entire Industry, says Abbey National for more on net-blur.

For a good discussion of the Yahoo.com changes and what impact they may have, see Wired News's coverage on the website below.

International Yahoo sites have not been adjusted in this way, so it is not anticipated that UK users will experience these changes directly - yet!

Associated Link: Wired News: Yahoo's 'Opt-Out' Angers Users

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