Yahoo You're Terminated
Yahoo and I parted ways today. It was not something I wanted to do. In fact, I was in the process of strengthening my relationship when I discovered Yahoo was unfaithful. Without much fanfare and little (if any) notice, Yahoo launched a service called Yahoo Pulse. Pulse is a Facebook like product. It allows you to share your personal information and make all kinds of “connections” around the world.
This is not an optional service and that is the problem. If you have a Flickr account or participate in Yahoo groups, you have a Pulse Profile page. You may not even know about it. Your profile could have been in the public view for months. So what? It is not like any information was posted or shared right? It would be just an empty page. Sadly, no it is not just an empty page.
Yahoo didn’t think we would mind, so they took every bit of personal information we gave to the other services and put it on our profile pages for us. They felt this would just save us effort. What is on this profile? It couldn’t be anything important right? Nothing important - just your full name, gender, age, birth date, home address and confidential email address. All this harmless information shared on the profile by default without you or me ever having to lift a finger.
If you trusted Yahoo (or Flickr before it became Yahoo) and provided real information to establish any of the other services then you gave some very personal information. This information was given based on statements made by Yahoo that sharing of the information only happens when we physically opt into sharing. Otherwise, it remained within the confines Yahoo’s dungeon somewhere. The rules changed with Yahoo Pulse. Pulse was given the keys to the castle and the information is freely flowing.
Pulse automatically posted all information to the profile page for us. Then as an additional courtesy, Yahoo automatically starts making friends, hum connections on our behalf. Hey, there is this stalker guy who is just waiting to see the next exclusive photo of a 1955 Chevy chrome bumper posted to Flicker. He must be a friend - connection. We also see somebody is interested in amateur radio and belongs to the D72 discussion group. Well, there are all these other amateur radio operators who must also be friends as well - connection. Chevy, Nikon, HamCity, and a billon other companies must also be your friend: connection, connection and connection. Hey, you like to go to the beach and party all the time. Well you must surely want connections with hotels, airlines and travel agents not mention Bacardi Rum and Zima. Is Zima still around? That was so 90’s; connection, connection, connections and connection. There are connections everywhere. Before we know it, we a have a thousand friends - oops I mean connections. And golly gee, we get points for all these connections. Never mind nobody says what the f’k we are suppose to do with all these points. My profile said I had 108 points. Yahoo got to keep the points in the divorce.
I wouldn’t have mind it so much if I could change the privacy and sharing settings. There are dozens settings sprinkled across 19 or so different links. Some settings override others. Turning on one privacy settings is overridden by settings in other links. Making a change in one area turns on settings in other areas you just turned off. If that wasn’t enough of a strain on the brain, some configurations have no keys, indexes, words or explanations. There are just images that change color such as a picture of an envelope. No explanation of what the colors mean. The envelope just changes color. I think I may have told Yahoo to give my bank account to a Nigerian king who needs my help to get his inheritance. I cannot be sure if the the Nigerian king was the white envelope or the gray envelope. Does anybody know?
Even if you manage to get all the settings configured correctly, the profile still exists. People can still search for you and get basic information to be a general pest in your life. Furthermore, Yahoo reserves the right to reset your options whenever it feels.
Here is where Yahoo went wrong
1. We should have been told that by signing into and existing Flickr account, an account for a new service somewhere else was being created and that this account included creating a public profile. Yahoo should have then explained the Pulse service to us and how this service is sharing information collected from Flickr and Yahoo groups.
2. We should have been given a chance to say "no thank you Yahoo" parting ways right then and there prior to creating the account and sharing any information.
3. Yahoo should never assumed that all information needs to be shared to everybody. The default has to be don’t share.
4. Under no circumstances should Yahoo arrange blind dates without permission. I pick my own friends thank you.
5. All configurations and settings has to be displayed on one page in an easy to follow layout with a simple Y or N check box. No mind puzzles that undo settings. A no is a no - not a maybe and not yes when our backs are turned.
6. When sharing of information is turned off, I (or anybody else) should not be able to still see my picture, my name and my basic information. It should not be publicly searchable and viewable. In fact there shouldn’t even be a page.
I went looking to disable Pulse - it cannot be done. You have to terminate all contact with Yahoo. So tonight, I will be going out and celebrating the divorce along with my new found freedom. I guess I better change my Facebook status to available.