Which is in stark contrast against other major tech companies strategy of instead deny direct involvement, launch marketing campaigns promoting users privacy as their top priority and go as far as launching anti-privacy campaigns criticizing the privacy policies of their competitors, whilst simultaneously providing an indiscriminate fire-hose of private user data directly to the NSA.
However, I have to say this news gives me a strong reason to reevaluate yahoo. And my own feelings about this makes it clear to me there is a market in customers who are interested in having their rights respected. I'm looking forward to the new wave of strong security, and corporate user rights policies as a feature.
Like much of this sort of thing, I think its brand hating for the hates's sake.
I have never "liked" yahoo or been a "fan", but I know I use it, I know it works, and I know it has been grief free. It just works.
Technically I've had a lot of trouble with Yahoo mail, and those types of problems have been typical for me with every service of theirs I've ever tried in the past.
For example, I often have trouble emailing people who have yahoo accounts due to bizarre spam filtering policies, some of which have no resolution path. I also have a Yahoo email account, and my mail client complains almost daily that it can't connect or my password is wrong.
It's just my personal taste but aesthetically, I can't tolerate their interface design. I'd be willing to bet Godaddy recruited their web designers from Yahoo.
I started noticing them as a 'brand only' company when I was in Japan in 2003. A local telecom was marketing a Yahoo branded DSL services. I suppose they where trying an AOL play (at least they had a focused business goal, and they've updated their design sense this century), but the combination of all this product noise (i.e. unrelated service offerings), combined with bad UX make the Yahoo brand ephemeral to me. Other then an email service, for the life of me, I can't put my finger on what they do. Crawl around the web and put a yahoo sticker on anything they think is cool?
Now however, maybe their brand can start to represent something I care about, but they'll have to actually do some useful things too.
And then there's this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email_address
I suspect that the backlash from those actions may have led the company to appeal the FISC orders, fearing similar potential future liabilities.
Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/11/yahoo-calls-withh...
In America there are appeals processes, so Yahoo could avail themselves of those.
So Yahoo may well have had a consistent "fight for the users" policy, but were constrained differently in different jurisdictions.
But of course this is only about the Big Bad Government.
It's an interesting cultural difference how privacy suddenly becomes in issue in the US now that it's about the government, and totally fine when people were being tracked an profiled for profit.
When it's the government, there's a chance a big black van will pull up next to you and haul you away for the rest of your life.
A corp is likely just trying to manipulate you into buying their worthless junk. Not good, but at least you're not dead or imprisoned.
Good for them, but also perhaps motivated from poor PR resulting from this episode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_C...
People who learn from their mistakes deserve at least as much praise as the ones who got it right from the beginning (the list of which seems to be exceptionally short in this case).
They had this sort of issue in France a while back didn't they?
Why? and how vulnerable to Eve, not using HTTPS?
I'm not sure who to believe that this point. This whole thing is messier than cold war politics and it was probably orchestrated that way.
It kind of reminds me of how a certain president received a nobel peace prize yet the actions conducted under his policies (or rule) are in contradiction to the ideals of what the prize is named after, but I digress.
There is always a choice to be made…
Department of Homeland Security - Department of State Security
Public Safety - Police
Department of Defense - Department of War
Enhanced interrogation techniques - Torture
It makes more sense that Apple's lack of attractive cloud/internet service presence delayed their eventual adoption.
Small things, but it is a very nice user experience if what you're after is the weather.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Yahoo!#Acquisition_a...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-co...
[3] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/07/microsoft-has-fed-p...
[0] hyperbole
But it is confusing.
You mean prison time, like what happened to Joseph Nacchio? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
No, there isn't, in case you haven't been paying attention.
When it comes to NSA, there is no "they" anymore. In the eyes of NSA, a company is not a whole, but rather a group of individuals that can face jail time, individually.
And yes, "legally" speaking, companies and individuals supposedly can fight back, but they are coerced into doing it in secret. Doing otherwise can lead to the labeling of individuals as national security threats or even potential terrorists, after which all gloves are off.
So let me ask you this - if the populace at large doesn't do anything, why do you expect a company of a few thousands to be up in arms about it? That's a really screwed double standard.
>Doing otherwise can lead to the labeling of individuals as national security threats or even potential terrorists, after which all gloves are off.
Are you suggesting that if in the event of a CEO or shareholders of multinational corporations deciding not to comply with secret orders then they will be labeled by the state to the public as terrorists and national security threats? Can't wait to see the headlines on Bloomberg for that…
>So let me ask you this - if the populace at large doesn't do anything, why do you expect a company of a few thousands to be up in arms about it? That's a really screwed double standard.
If one needs the populace at large in order to discern whether the actions undertaken by the state or any of it's outsourced entities are reprehensible or not, they we have bigger problems at hand…
Yep. I guarantee that as well as taking the process through the courts, they have also been obeying the existing law. They have no choice.
"Are you suggesting that if in the event of a CEO or shareholders of multinational corporations deciding not to comply with secret orders then they will be labeled by the state to the public as terrorists and national security threats?"
or child molesters, or rapists, or tax fraudsters, or anything that can be found and has the smallest chance of sticking. There is a pretty good history of this, including Assange, and the CEO of some telco whose name I forget. It is a pretty standard way for Intelligence departmentsto get what they want, see the history of intelligence companies.
The NSA have access to all our communications, finding something to use as blackmail isn't going to be hard.
"If one needs the populace at large in order to discern whether the actions undertaken by the state or any of it's outsourced entities are reprehensible or not, they we have bigger problems at hand…"
we honestly do. The actions of the state are moving beyond the common understanding of the social contract.
In a society governed by laws, and enforced with guns, you don't have a choice about complying with laws, unless you want to be hauled off and put in a dank cell (some admirable dissidents do that, but nobody should expect that level of commitment from their email provider).
Let's not mix this up with Obama's Nobel Prize. I don't think anyone outside the Nobel Committee, including even Michelle Obama, thought it was an appropriate selection at the time or today.
But submitting oneself the court system of the state to overturn the the secret rule of the state, on face value, looks like an exercise in futility…
And like I said below, being rewarded a golden star from the EFF to stick upon Marrissa's Fridge while remaining complicit and receive praise from those in the tech community for "trying", is quite amusing to watch. They could have been much more effective publicly denouncing such secret order and face the ramifications as a multinational corporation… you know, like HSBC's slap on the wrist for laundering drug money that the state says is always going to the terrorists.
>In a society governed by laws, and enforced with guns, you don't have a choice about complying with laws, unless you want to be hauled off and put in a dank cell (some admirable dissidents do that, but nobody should expect that level of commitment from their email provider).
Or you pull a snowden and watch the global state trip all over its own laws and the sovereignty of other nations to try and catch you.
True, but by submitting to the will of the court (system), they effectively made their choice. They could have made an public announcement of such secret order and dealt with the legal repercussions, Which in my eyes, would have be more of a blow to the surveillance state (than some golden star given by EFF that they can put on their fridge, while still being complicit with the state) and set a precedent for other companies to do the same…
>or child molesters, or rapists, or tax fraudsters, or anything that can be found and has the smallest chance of sticking. There is a pretty good history of this, including Assange, and the CEO of some telco whose name I forget. It is a pretty standard way for Intelligence departmentsto get what they want, see the history of intelligence companies.
Some would call this getting into tinfoil hat territory, but what you state what has happened is more palpable to the public than to declare such individuals, that so many people look up to, as terrorists (effectively putting them in the same light as those who the state alleges perpetrated the attacks on 9/11 that justifies the ongoing combat in countries that we are not at war with and the death of thousands of civilians caught in the cross-hairs [of whom of which is has been documented that the state has given weapons, aid and intel to on multiple occasions]).
>The NSA have access to all our communications, finding something to use as blackmail isn't going to be hard.
But of course the information the NSA collects, that is outsourced to the BAH's (which apparently any sysadmin can get their hands onto :P) who are owned by the Carlyle's wouldn't dare blackmail their portfolio company CEO's or fellow shareholders in order to not damage the potential profits of their companies… ;)
>we honestly do. The actions of the state are moving beyond the common understanding of the social contract.
Agreed… but somehow, this is the elephant in the room for many people…