E-Mail Procedures
Yahoo Problems

The Project E-lists are at present run from a server which has been acquired by Yahoo. Previous owners of the server had gone to some trouble to protect member E-Mail addresses from being harvested by junk mail ("spam") senders. The Yahoo Era introduced different rules. Yahoo will sell your address to junk mail senders, complete with any marketing information you have given them in setting up your Yahoo ID. The simple answer is not to establish a Yahoo ID. Unfortunately, a Yahoo ID is required for archive access, and archive access is a major advantage of the list (if we merely wanted to distribute E-mail messages, we could do so without Yahoo's help). This makes the Yahoo-hosted list less attractive to many (and see further at the end of this message), but as of this date, no convincing alternative has been found.

Choosing a Yahoo ID Name

It is no longer possible, in setting up a Yahoo ID, to opt out of the junk mail flow. You will have to rely on your institution's unwanted mail ("spam") filter, or a program of that type which you instal yourself.

In choosing a Yahoo ID name, you will find that you cannot use your regular name, or your E-mail address, or any other entity already registered with Yahoo. It must be different. This is a pain, but there is no way around it. For your own comfort, try not to make your Yahoo ID Name too cute, so that you are ashamed to use it, or too enigmatic, so that you tend to forget it. The same applies to your corresponding Yahoo password.

Yahoo and Security

It is only right to add (as of November 2005) that Yahoo in China has a policy of cooperating with Chinese government requests for E-mail records; this policy has apparently resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of at least one individual. Some feel, as a matter of conscience, that they do not wish to be associated with Yahoo, even to the extent of receiving mail from a list hosted by Yahoo. We respect these feelings, but the majority sentiment on WSW has been that moving from the list archive (as would be required if another server were chosen instead) would be an unacceptable cost for a mere gesture of departure. As of this writing, then, the WSW list (and other Project lists) remain with Yahoo.

Far more effective, because more specific and more audible, is a letter to the management of Yahoo expressing concern with its international security stance, and more effective than that is giving wide publicity to human rights violations in which Yahoo may be involved. Management does read the newspapers. We recommend these courses to those to whom these issues are important.

30 Nov 2005 / Contact The Project / Exit to E-Mail Page