Not me, at least not anymore.  I decided today that their service isn’t viable for me anymore.

The final straw was a Flash ad that was displayed this morning when I logged into my email account.  Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, as they’ve been using Flash ads for a while.  However this particular ad features sound, which came blasting out at me while I was in the office.  I occasionally check email through Yahoo while I’m at work and I don’t find this acceptable.

Online ads have become more and more intrusive lately, as people have become more resistant and as advertisers aren’t willing to spend as much for advertising.  Yahoo seems to be following the trend.  The first thing I noticed was the use of pop-unders, which started a few months ago.  I consider pop-unders to be obnoxious, but I was willing to put up with them (after all Yahoo Mail is supported by ads).  The next thing was Flash ads that moved across the whole page.  These were annoying, but fairly harmless.  Then they tried a Flash-based pop-up ad that obscured the mail controls—you had to clear the ad before getting to use the service.  That one didn’t seem to last long, though.

But the Flash ad wasn’t the primary reason.  It just got me motivated to take action.  I started getting really annoyed with them yesteday when I started getting spam mails from a “service” that they call “Yahoo! Delivers”, which is where they send you email advertisments from outside companies (they just act as the delivery agent).  I had opted out of this “service” yet I still received email from them.  I sent a complaint to their “Customer Care” department, but got back a form letter saying that I needed to route my request to the appropriate contact point (although they didn’t deign to tell me who that was) for faster service (right).  I looked through the links they provided but didn’t see any way to contact a person.  I’m not surprised by this, as their so-called help pages are designed to prevent you from actually contacting them.

Don’t get the impression from this that I expect to get something for nothing.  I was always aware that Yahoo was advertising supported.  Up until now the advantages of their service were such that I accepted the advertising (i.e. the value-for-value trade was equitable from my perspective).  Unfortunately, in failing to live up to their own privacy policy (i.e. sending me spam against my clearly expressed desires), they have lost my trust, which is also a factor in the relationship.  The loss of trust outweighs any gain on my part from using their services.  If I can’t trust them not to send me emails (despite a clearly indicated choice), why would I want to trust them with the info contained in the Yahoo! Wallet service?

This is unfortunate for them, because I would have been willing to pay for the convenience of web-based mail service without advertising (but they don’t offer this—their pay services are expanded mail storage and POP3 mail access).  They’re also going to be losing out in other ways because I will no longer do business with any company that requires a Yahoo! Wallet to complete a sale.  I will also avoid any transaction where it appears that Yahoo is getting any of my personal information.

After being with Yahoo since 4/5/2000, I feel like I’ve been betrayed in a way.  Yahoo wasn’t like this when I started.  But then, I guess nothing ever stays the same.  Oh well, I can always set up web access to email on my own site (it’s included in my hosting plan).