From SimpsonDan@aol.com Wed Apr 03 12:09:12 2002
Subject:Re: OT: Yahoo! Spam -- PLEASE READ

The issue is simple economics, like it almost always is. Yahoo's financial condition is poor. In order to improve it and stay in business at all, they need more revenue, which in their case comes from advertisers. In order for advertisers to pay, they need to be able to reach their audiences. Research tends to show that banner advertsing is pretty much a waste of money, so other vehicles are required.

The net result is that Yahoo is going to offer its advertisers access to everyone on the Yahoo list, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF people who specifically request to be left off. This kind of access is not new in itself, but the defaults are usually "no" unless otherwise specified. Yahoo has changed the defaults to "yes" unless otherwise specified. To those that actively manage their choices, it makes no difference. Go to the preferences page and select No - Yahoo will honor it. For the great majority of those who don't manage their preferences, prepare to get bombarded.

The practical issue is that it is indeed very important to get to your Yahoo preferences file and make your choices. The policy change is quite public and will not take effect for another 45 days or so (60 days from the announcement by Yahoo, which was a few weeks back).

The underlying issue is that nothing is free at the end of the day. Yahoo needs money to stay in business at all. There is a cost to using their network for our list. Instead of paying dollars, we pay in privacy - UNLESS we actvely elect to remain private, in which case we don't pay at all (at least for now). If Yahoo fails to generate enough revenue from this to be a viable enterprise, then they will start charging real dollars. I believe both they and Hotnail are going to be converting to a change system for E-mail.

Hope that provides perspective. I've changed all my preferences to No, and you probably should as well.

Dan