Cranky Customer

The same "legalese only a lawyer could understand" problem exists with software EULAs. I know it's intended to protect the company's business interests, but I've never understood how software companies -- or banks, or any business with a TOS contract -- expect users to follow the rules if we can't figure out what they are!

Even more interesting is that if you're signing a contract at the business, they don't seem to want you to read it. I read everything I sign -- if I'm going to put my Andi Newton on it to say that I read and agree to it, then I'm going to read and agree to it first. But so often when I'm reading it, the company's representative interrupts me to say, "Oh, that's just telling you..." I'm sure it is -- but I'd like to read it for myself, thank you very much. I'm sure if I didn't, then signed it, and later violated the terms, the company would say, "Well, it was in the contract that you signed indicating you had read and agreed to the terms." And if I told them that their employee told me that I didn't need to read it, he'd just summarize it for me, they wouldn't give me any leniency.

Very nice rant.

I've been using the 'net since the days of 2400 baud modems. When Yahoo first became known, my 1st thought was 'What a stupid name.' I think I may have inadvertantly wound up on their site about 3 times since then, and left as soon as possible.

The reason? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_%28literature%29

You have only yourself to blame for your problems with this company Randy. If you had done due diligence and looked them up before becoming entangled, you may have thought twice.

Then, of course, you wouldn't have had an article for CrankyCustomer, so I suppose it all evens out in the wash.

I'm just curious how Yahoo expects you to keep people outside the U.S. from viewing the ads. Do they think only Americans have access to the internet? Is there a "Block international viewers" button that I'm missing?

It's fairly simple to check the I.P. address of surfers, and subscribe to a service to block certain I.P. ranges from accessing the site -- if one has access to the server to install software and is fairly adept at filtering. That of course leaves out the vast majority of small webmasters. -rc

Funny. I'd never have thought that Yahoo would not want to allow foreign users to view their ads; if I am not mistaken, the owner/developer of Yahoo is from my hometown -- Victoria, British Columbia, CANADA. tsk, tsk. We have a deserter on our hands.

I gave up on using Google AdSense on my site because they wouldn't allow me to block categories of ads (I don't want drug or herbal medication ads on my site, which is most of what was showing up.) I'd hoped that Yahoo might provide a useful alternative with their "category" option. Oh well - guess I'll have to stay ad free.

Don't rejoyce at that, readers: it may mean she won't be able to update her web site as much or as often. -rc

I ran into Yahoo some years ago, when they bought the web host I had my site on, and according to their TOS, anything posted on the site became the sole property of Yahoo.

Excuse me?? I cleared that site in a heartbeat! I'm constantly amazed that the antics of Yahoo. Taking care of the customers seems to take a back seat with them. I agree with the comment above about boycotting Yahoo. I refuse to use their service, and if someone sends me a link to an article posted there, I ignore it. Keep up the great work!

It seems to me it's Yahoo's place and obligation to supply the ability to comply with their somewhat esoteric requirements. Surely, there is a way to pass enough of the viewer's info back up the line to the ad placement software to be able to block "inappropriate" ads being shown to "inappropriate" viewers.

Another way would be for Yahoo to explain to their clients that the internet is in fact an international phenomenon and they should just cope.

Lots of ways to solve the problem. Some might even be reasonable.

I am contanstly amazed that a company like google cannot write the code to deliver ads that would be helpful. My site matches house mates and house minders and usually delivers ads from competitive services instead of helpful ads like moving companies, cleaning companies, furniture sales, pet grooming, gardening services and so on. Is anyone thinking?

From the "internet user" perspective (someone who browses content and occasionally makes purchases) I must admit that I'm taking active steps to block advertising on my browser. Why? Because a lot of sites aren't as discreet about it as Randy's. They have twirling, flashing, moving, popping, brightly colored annoyances that use up my bandwidth, hard drive, and processor in order to try to sell me something.

There are times that I want to purchase items online. In those cases, I go to Google's Froogle, or a shopping comparison site, or just search for the item using a search engine. The rest of the time, I'm not shopping and I won't click on advertisements.

The electronic ad purveyors, such as Yahoo, have earned my distrust by attempting to take over my computer with intrusive tracking and measurement systems, as well. At least with TV ratings, the Neilsen and similar organizations use volunteers to measure success. This disrespect may be the worst part of all.

The company I work for has an internal network that spans the world. Any person using that network for browsing the internet will be using a proxy with a US based IP address.

So, it is NOT necessarily as easy as looking at the IP address in trying to determine if a person visitng a website is US or non-US.

When an IP range belongs to an International company, do you block or allow?

To be sure, I refuse to play Yahoo's games, and do not check the IP addresses of surfers. I have dropped the YPN ads until they change their policy -- at the very least. -rc