Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Boycott Yahoo!
They Can't Be Trusted
I think I've posted earlier that while I have some reservations of folks like Yahoo and Google 'censoring' their search results in China, that didn't bother as much as Yahoo's assistance in tracking down a pro-democracy blogger and helping Chinese authorities put him in jail for eight years. Now, this morning I stumble upon this on Andrew Sullivan's blog.
(Instapundit disproves this one...) But yahoo is still suspect if you ask me.
Seems that Yahoo won't let you use any combination of words that spell "Allah" in your email ID, which would suck if your name was something like C-allah-an or something. Funny enough you can use Jesus, Buddah, Jehova and even priest or quran.
Has yahoo succumb to the threats of intimidation by islamists? Communists? Perhaps, but I certainly won't be trusting them with all the data that is generated by my web searches, and you probably shouldn't either.
Search engines generate a wealth of information about us as users, we should support companies that treat that information with respect and confidentiality, at least in terms of handing it over to government authorities...yahoo seems to rank pretty low in that regard.
I think I've posted earlier that while I have some reservations of folks like Yahoo and Google 'censoring' their search results in China, that didn't bother as much as Yahoo's assistance in tracking down a pro-democracy blogger and helping Chinese authorities put him in jail for eight years. Now, this morning I stumble upon this on Andrew Sullivan's blog.
(Instapundit disproves this one...) But yahoo is still suspect if you ask me.
Seems that Yahoo won't let you use any combination of words that spell "Allah" in your email ID, which would suck if your name was something like C-allah-an or something. Funny enough you can use Jesus, Buddah, Jehova and even priest or quran.
Has yahoo succumb to the threats of intimidation by islamists? Communists? Perhaps, but I certainly won't be trusting them with all the data that is generated by my web searches, and you probably shouldn't either.
Search engines generate a wealth of information about us as users, we should support companies that treat that information with respect and confidentiality, at least in terms of handing it over to government authorities...yahoo seems to rank pretty low in that regard.
