Do you Yahoo? Not Anymore!

from c|net on March 21:

The company said it will begin charging for a feature that lets people check their Yahoo e-mail messages from outside services. In addition, the company will limit public access to its data storage service in hopes of persuading people to pay for it

About a week before this email went out I decided I was seeing too much SPAM in my inbox and so I reverted my Yahoo! email account back to web-based (no pop access). I specifically went through a made sure all my settings were changed as such, no offers, etc. A week later I recieved the email informing me that I could no longer check my email via POP access starting April 24th. I laughed it off at that point, as I had already made the switch…and none too soon.

MY parents on the other hand, who had already been screwed by the @home mail switch, were using Yahoo! more permanently (as I had done in the early days). Thus into our next problem:

from c|net on March 27:

Yahoo users will now automatically have their marketing preferences set to accept updates from a smattering of Yahoo’s businesses. Previously, users were offered one option to either accept or reject product notices when first registering on the site.

Users will have to click “no” to opt out of receiving e-mails from a selection of 13 Yahoo products, ranging from job listings to new media products to inclusion in Yahoo’s user surveys, among other things. The page also has an option for users to opt in to the Yahoo Delivers service, which sends product pitches from third parties.

What they fail to mention is the fact that if you opt-out of marketing (MANUALLY!) then you can no longer check your email via POP access regardless of the April 24th deadline. Now I am not sure if this procedure will change when the pay services take effect on April 24th, but I for one am not waiting around to find out. I have used Yahoo! for the last 5+ years and I am heavily reliant on a lot of their paid services: Bill Pay, and PayDirect to name a couple. As well as, everyone I ever met in the industry has ahalvor@yahoo.com as an email address. I cannot and will not be party to this crap.

I understand from Yahoo!’s point of view that they need to make money…and I have no problem with that. It is the underhanded way of going about it that gets me. I would rather use MSN where I know I have to check marketing preferences constantly, than Yahoo! who earns my trust only to destroy it in a week. I don’t have huge pull or anything, but I have signed more than my fair share of people of Yahoo!.

As of now I am cancelling ALL of my paid services with Yahoo!, and I soon as I get my Bill Pay set up on PayPal, I am gone.