Criticism of Yahoo!

In March 2004, Yahoo! launched a paid inclusion program whereby commercial websites were guaranteed listings on the Yahoo! search engine after payment.[1] This scheme was lucrative but proved unpopular both with website marketers (who were reluctant to pay), and the public (who were unhappy about the paid-for listings being indistinguishable from other search results).[2] As of October 2006, Paid Inclusion ceased to guarantee any commercial listing and only helped the paid inclusion customers, by crawling their site more often and by providing some statistics on the searches that led to the page and some additional smart links (provided by customers as feeds) below the actual URL.

Yahoo! has also been criticized for funding spyware and adware — advertising from Yahoo!'s clients often appears on-screen in pop-ups generated from adware that a user may have installed on their computer without realizing it by accepting online offers to download software to fix computer clocks or improve computer security, add browser enhancements, etc. The frequency of advertising pop-ups for spyware, generated from a partnership with advertising distributor Walnut Ventures, who had a direct partnership with Direct Revenue, could be increased or decreased based on Yahoo!'s immediate revenue needs, according to some former employees in Yahoo!'s sales department.[3][4]

While technologically and financially you [Yahoo] are giants, morally you are pygmies[.]

— Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (2007)[5]

It's complicated.

— Michael Callaham, General Counsel, Yahoo!, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee (2007)[6]

Yahoo!, along with Google China, Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, Nortel and others, has cooperated with the Communist Party of China in implementing a system of Internet censorship in mainland China.

Unlike Google or Microsoft, which generally keep confidential records of its users outside mainland China, Yahoo! stated that the company cannot protect the privacy and confidentiality of its mainland Chinese customers from the authorities.[7]

Critics say that the companies put profits before principles.[8] Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders state that it is "ironic that companies whose existence depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of censor."[9]

As a result of media scrutiny relating to Internet child predators and a lack of significant ad revenues, Yahoo!'s "user created" chatrooms were closed down in June 2005.[22] Yahoo! News' message board section was closed December 19, 2006, due to the trolling phenomenon.[23] In addition, in mid-October, 2008, Yahoo! deleted all information in millions of user profiles with no advance notice and little explanation.[24]

On May 25, 2006, Yahoo!'s image search was criticized for bringing up sexually explicit images even when SafeSearch was on. This was discovered by a teacher who was intending to use the service with a class to search for "www". Yahoo!'s response to this was, "Yahoo! is aware of this issue and is working to resolve it as quickly as possible".[25]

Yahoo! is a 14.95% owner of Alibaba, which facilitates the sale of shark-derived products.[26] After investing in Alibaba, Yahoo! executives were asked about this issue, and responded: "We know the sale of shark products is both legal in Asia and a centuries-old tradition. This issue is largely a cultural-practices one."[27]

Geocities was a popular web hosting service founded in 1994. At one point it was the third most-browsed site on the World Wide Web.[28] Yahoo! later purchased GeoCities in 1999. Ten years later Yahoo! closed Geocities,[29] deleting millions of web pages in the process.[30] In September 2009, a month before it was closed, GeoCities received 10,477,049 unique visitors.[31]

In August 2010 Yahoo! Groups started rolling out a major software change. This change was denounced by a vast majority of users.[32] On September 29, 2010, Jim Stoneham, Vice President of Yahoo!'s Communities products, announced that based on members feedback, Yahoo! Groups would be rolling back the recent changes.[33]

On 20 May 2013, Flickr, Yahoo!'s image and video hosting website, unveiled a redesigned layout and additional features, including one terabyte of free storage for all users, seamless photostream, cover photo and updated Android App.[34][35] The redesigned layout fills the page with dynamically re-sized photos and, on the home page, displays recent comments on photos. Tech Radar described the new style Flickr as representing a "sea change" in its purpose.[36] Many users criticized the changes, and the site's help forum received thousands of negative comments.[37]

Yahoo! Answers underwent a format change in early September 2013.[38] The new format has been criticized for being aesthetically unattractive and difficult to navigate.[39][40] The color scheme was changed from green to purple.

In January 2014, a large scale malware attack was discovered by Fox IT in the Netherlands that was targeted at Java and dated back to December 30, 2013, especially affecting users in Romania, France, and the UK and being delivered to 300,000 Yahoo! users per hour when they discovered it. Yahoo! was criticized for not providing any public guidance on the number of users affected or advice on what the affected users should do.[41][42]

In December 2016, Yahoo began forcing users of their email service to include a phone number with their profile, the lack of which denies access to their e-mail accounts.

The company reported two major data breaches of user account data to hackers during the second half of 2016. The first announced breach, reported in September 2016, had occurred sometime in late 2014, and affected over 500 million Yahoo! user accounts.[43] A separate data breach, occurring earlier around August 2013, was reported in December 2016, and affected over 1 billion user accounts.[44] Both breaches are considered the largest discovered in the history of the Internet. Specific details of material taken include names, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, dates of birth, and encrypted passwords.[45] Further, Yahoo! reported that the late 2014 breach likely used manufactured web cookies to falsify login credentials, allowing hackers to gain access to any account without a password.[46][47][48]

Yahoo! has been criticized for their late disclosure of the breaches and their security measures, and is currently facing several lawsuits as well as investigation by members of the United States Congress. The breaches have also put into question Verizon Communications's July 2016 plans to acquire Yahoo! for about $4.8 billion.

Yahoo Terms of Service[49] allow them to cancel a user's account, without notice, at their own discretion. Some users have lost access to their data, including personal pictures, with no means of recovery.

Scott Ard, a prominent editorial director, fired from Yahoo in 2015 has filed a lawsuit accusing Mayer of leading a sexist campaign to purge male employees. Ard, a male employee, stated "Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of (an employee performance-rating system) to accommodate management's subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo's male employees". In the suit Ard claimed prior to his firing, he had received "fully satisfactory" performance reviews since starting at the company in 2011 as head of editorial programming for Yahoo's home page, however, he was relieved of his role that was given to a woman who had been recently hired by Megan Lieberman, the editor-in-chief of Yahoo News.[50][51]

The lawsuit states: "Liberman stated that she was terminating (Ard) because she had not received a requested breakdown of (his) duties. (Ard) had already provided that very information as requested, however, and reminded Liberman that he had done so. Liberman's excuse for terminating (Ard) was a pretext."[51]

A second sexual discrimination lawsuit was filed separately by Gregory Anderson, who was fired in 2014, alleging the company's performance management system was arbitrary and unfair, making it the second sexism lawsuit Yahoo and Mayer has faced in 2016.[52][53][54]

In October 2019, A former Yahoo engineer named, Reyes Daniel Ruiz pleaded guilty to charges of illegally accessing user accounts by a federal court in San Jose. He had hacked about 6,000 user's accounts including his friends, co-workers and many young women during his hacking campaign, seeking sexual images and videos.[55][56]

On July 23, 2020, Yahoo! officially suspended all comments.[57][58]

"Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting. In the meantime, we welcome your feedback to help us enhance the experience." —Yahoo!

Since the closing of the comments section, some Yahoo users have noted that the comments section often contained criticism of both Yahoo's perceived quality of journalism and political biases.

As of November 11, 2020 Yahoo quietly removed the comments section completely from all articles on the site.

As of 1/22/2021, the comment section has not returned.

[59]

• Criticism of Apple
• Criticism of Facebook
• Criticism of Google
• Criticism of Microsoft