Member Account (password/security) and Groups / 3rd party websites usage
There have been several posts inquiring how members should work with 3rd party websites; below are some clarifications based on the Groups Guidelines that every Y! user should adhere to when dealing with 3rd party sites (please note that the Groups Guidelines are tied to Yahoo’s general Terms of Service and sho uld be followed by all Groups users and moderators):
- If you are considering providing your Y! username and password to a 3rd party site which stores that information on their own site, please carefully consider the risks before doing so. Giving access to a 3rd party can be very unsafe as the 3rd party site can access your Yahoo account as if it was you accessing your own account. For example, they could access your address book and send emails to your friends, change your account settings, or gain access to your personal information. Under Section 5 of the Yahoo! Terms of Service “You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the password and account and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your password or account.” For more information please also refer to section 5 of Yahoo’s Terms of Service .
- Group Moderators have the responsibility and the right to enforce their own membership guidelines for their group. The guidelines can relate to how group members deal with or interact with 3rd party websites. If a member is part of a 3rd party website in which the site accesses the group content using the member’s login information and/or the user’s email and then makes this content available to other users, this behavior could put them at risk of having their membership to the group revoked by the moderator or for having their Yahoo! account closed entirely for a TOS violation. Moderators have the right to protect their group’s content along with the privacy of their members and can and should enforce this at their individual group level. For more information, please refer to section 11 of the Groups Guidelines , section 12 of Yahoo’s Terms of Service and privacy/security information .
Groups owners and moderators should take every opportunity to protect their group members’ privacy and integrity of the Groups community and as such, Yahoo’s Terms of Service and Groups Guidelines should be referred to when dealing with all situations including 3rd party websites.
Thank you,
Groups Team
Papa Ivey Lawrence said,
February 15, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
This was the biggest issue of who had the rights of control of their groups.
It is plain with this post that as an owner, and because of TOS violations, members who join 3rd party sites allowing them to obtain archives of our groups via giving their ID/password can now not only be banned from the groups legitimately, but can be reported to yahoo for the TOS violation and could be in jeopardy of their own Yahoo account.
This made it plain.
Thank you,
The LONE Pappy
Sandy said,
February 15, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Could you be a little more specific please, more so about Grouply? It appears Grouply is working with group owners to make adjustments and it apears a very well run site with good intentions.
So what the statement is saying: “Moderators have the right to protect their group’s content along with the privacy of their members and can and should enforce this at their individual group level”
But what is Yahoo doing about this? Is Yahoo going to delete groups or Yahoo ID’s found to be at Grouply, or a 3rd party site??? Has Yahoo even looked into this site? Is Yahoo monitoring the activity at Grouply and the zillions who have already joined?
Srihari Yamanoor said,
February 15, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
So how is any of this new information and of what use is it to anyone? Group owners should already know all this from reading Yahoo! TOS.
And yes, zillions have joined Grouply and will continue to join other list enhancement services when they become available. Yahoo! should not listen to a portion of list owners and decide against the many others who obviously don’t mind using Grouply freely on their groups.
While individual list owners may or may not want to use Grouply or any other service, making the service unavailable to all list owners is an over-kill that will not be welcome.
Logan said,
February 15, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Bub, I wish you’d get your head out of your hind end and realize that we, the group owners and mods are not a bunch of blind fools that you can lead hither and yon at your discretion. Yahoo has stated that giving out our usernames and passwords to you is pure and simple a NO NO, and you don’t like it. Too bad, the majority of us will not be joining your whack job group, I don’t care if you’ve got two million members that, to me and to others who care about their groups, is only two million idiots who you’ve managed to hoodwink. To think that you’ve got the gall to say that “Yahoo! should not listen to a portion of list owners and decide against the many others who obviously don’t mind using Grouply freely on their groups. ” “While individual list owners may or may not want to use Grouply or any other service, making the service unavailable to all list owners is an over-kill that will not be welcome.” Go back under the rock from whence you crawled and take your misbegotten idea with you.
Logan
Srihari Yamanoor said,
February 15, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
How eloquent Logan!Thank you for being so educative.
Hooty said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
I for one am pleasantly surprised that Yahoo management has taken the time
to address this GROUPLY situation. It is of major concern to many owners and
moderators in my Owners group, as it should be. To start with, I think it is asking
for trouble when you give anyone your Yahoo ID and Password to begin with.
Wouldn’t that be similar to giving a stranger copies of your house and care keys?
Good luck with that dudes and dudettes. My owners group has been up in arms
over this grouply thing. Super Yahoo Powers? How the heck did they get that
I have to wonder. I must say, I thought that Yahoo management was the
actual partner pushing GROUPLY, since they have the Super Powers. I am glad
to find out from your response that you too, see it as a possible danger to
owners and all their members. Grouply probably has best intentions, but the risk
factors are just too enormous to not only yourself, but to all your members.
It is sad to think of their growing membership that apparently think there is no
risk. That is just sad. I hope they do not end up letting their members down from
Grouplys future actions , or a hacker that gets into grouply and busts your
members chops with a thousand sand fleas of SPAM etc.
RitaLynn said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
I think it such a relief to know that Yahoo is not behind grouply.
I think there is still a lot to learn here(from one another).
Thank you everyone for the Info recieved so far.
I’m pretty sure that throwing daggers at those who think differently,
Is not going to make a difference in the out come of things.We could learn
from them as well,since they are in that grouply group.
We may or may not agree,but I am all for hearing information about it.
I never slam doors I haven’t walked through.
I have took all efferts to protect my groups just in case. We need more info.
To find out if what we have done so far is enough.
Barbara said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Thank you! I really wish grouply was an OPT-IN and NOT an OPT-OUT for us listowners. There are many listowners who really have no idea this is going on and many of those groups have sensitive information in them (addresses, personal information about families, children, spouses) simply because the group is small and private.
I hope Yahoo remains about these sort of data-gathering websites. As more and more listowners are educated and close places like grouply off from access, hopefully less and less places like grouply will try and take over our groups!
Wendy said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Thank you Yahoo for taking a position on this. Grouply is not like other email aggregates – they REQUIRE a member’s password and ID so that they can then enter groups and download archives which clearly violates copyright laws and Yahoo’s TOS.
What I would like to see from Yahoo is INTERNAL controls for list owners to block these kinds of third party entities. Right now Grouply is allowing list owners to go and “opt out” thereby blocking Grouply’s access to their groups. But, this requires list owners to know the problems and actively go to Grouply’s site and “opt out.” It also requires a certain level of trust that Grouply will actually continue to allow this blocking…and since Grouply members do not have to show a grouply.com email address, there is no way for a list owner to know if Grouply is or isn’t inside their group. Troublesome? Yes.
For true security and privacy, and to ensure that copyright laws are being followed, Yahoo MUST provide a system which internally blocks these groups to being with….
I look forward to seeing Yahoo’s solution to what they have already recognized as a huge problem.
Thank you,
Wendy
Lee Duke said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Education in grammar does help
as in the above example. When directing a comment to
a named individual, A comma [this little bugger--->,] is
required after the word ‘eloquent’.
That, folks, is what is known as educative!
I am now done speaking, ergo, I relinquish the soap dais.
RitaLynn said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
RitaLynn said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER WITH GROUPLY TO FOLLOW THESE STEPS***
I have gone in and disable every group I own and encourage all of you that own yahoo groups to do the same!!!
1:Go to this link: http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php
2: Go to your http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups and
copy the group name from there and paste it into the
box. I have a lot of groups so it is quickest to do it this way.
3: Click the ‘Send Mail’ button
4: Grouply will send an email to the group owner with an access code: copy that access code, so receive your mail.
5: Paste it into the access code box
6: Click the ’submit’ button
7: Make sure Disable is checked (this option is on the next page after you press the “submit” button on the previous step).
8: Click the SAVE button
FYI: I HAVE DONE THIS SAME PROCESS FOR ALL MY GROUPS ON YAHOO!!! (and you will have to do each one individually)
I DO NOT MIND IF YOU PASS THIS INFORMATION ON TO OTHER GROUP OWNERS THAT YOU KNOW!!!!
Protect your groups Owners! Have a better day!
JazzyCarol said,
February 15, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Remember the masses of naive people who joined the religious cults of the 60’s & 70’s? They were duped out of their monetary & personal belongings which became the property of the prospective cult leaders… Well to join Grouply is the same as giving over your ID to thieves. Identity theft is rampant and used by no-goods to further their own cause, eg Terrorists & illegals. If you are dumb enough to hand over all your information to a bunch of unknowns (who may be selling your info to pedophiles) then may God save your families.
Jazzy
Babe said,
February 15, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
I too am very worried about this grouply thng as a group owner. When going into mangagement and then membership, it looks as though most all members have been changed to a grouply.com address. All but 1 that I have removed say they never went to grouply or signed up with them. I don’t know how to get rid of it and I don’t want to go in to the grouply site for fear of what is happening to some I know. They are being bombarded with spam and porn, and then their groups and sites get shut down. I do hope that yahoo can do something about what is happening and not take it out on the group owners as they are not responsible for what is happening. Grouply is saying they are affiliated with yahoo and next google. I am very scared of this thing, and have been looking for help every where, but to no avail. No number to call, no person to talk to.
CWGI Executive Director said,
February 15, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
This is a good start, Yahoo, but more must be done on your end. Groups need owner controls that allow/disallow third party access to group information. If we had this from the start, Grouply never would have been able to tap our resources and Yahoo member accounts would have been more protected.
PLEASE add these controls to our management section and protect the investment we have placed in you.
This Grouply issue is likely the beginning of a long string of group attacks and list owners won’t stick around too long if we feel our organizations, not just lists, are compromised often and long. Take action now while time is ripe and let your members know they can trust you.
BTW, list owners, Grouply has kindly provided opt-out for list owners. See http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php Unfortunately, you’ll have to manually opt-out every group you own and trust Grouply to uphold your request.
Logan said,
February 15, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
That’s just it can we trust Grouply to honor our decisions or are we gonna be stabbed in the back by this group. I can’t see their claim that “zillions have joined Grouply” to be anything more than what it is an attempt to make them seem to be more important than they are. From what I got from Yahoo’s answer to the Grouply problem, is that they are not affiliated with Grouply and yet here is Grouply making this claim. Srihari seems to think that by disallowing them to access to our accounts and groups that we are causing them, GROUPLY, a great disservice and that Yahoo has no right to do so. They seem to forget that no matter what they want it’s up to us as group owners and mods to say whether we want a third party to have access to our accounts. I know for a fact that none of the groups I am associated with do, and I would like to think that Grouply’s claims that they have the right to do what they want to our accounts without fear of retribution from us or Yahoo and that if anything happens while they are in our accounts that they are not responsible, to me that’s like saying to your tenants if you own a apartment building, “If the walk is not shoveled or salted to be ice and snow free and you fall and break your arm or leg, management is not responsible.” Now that’s just as foolish as their claims of non-responsibility.
Sandy said,
February 15, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
Yahoo’s statement is generic and contains nothing new. There’s nothing in there that says protection and prevention, pretty much “use your own good judgement”. Yahoo should disable such sites than their own users.
Grouply also isn’t responsible for the flood of spam to any group, spammers are every where and if a group is being flooded by spam and porn, hello adjust the group settings. You don’t need Grouply for any of that to happen to any group and that issue has been going on for YEARS. Group owners are responsible for content in their groups regardless.
Yahoo needs to be more proactive in their support and action, and be more specific of their protection of ALL yahoo users
Phillipa said,
February 15, 2008 @ 11:41 pm
There is no way that I will allow a 3rd party access to my group. I have a small membership and they have been asked to leave if they wish to stay with Grouply before I remove their membership. Luckily no-one has been silly enough to join Grouply.
Barry said,
February 16, 2008 @ 4:48 am
From the Grouply Blog dated 15th February.
Quote “Yahoo issued clarifications today regarding password security and third-party websites. ”
The ‘clarification’ was a link to this very thread
Quote “When Yahoo provides an API for Yahoo Groups, which we understand is being worked on, then Grouply will no longer ask users to provide their Yahoo password.”
Is this true or just more hogwash from Grouply ???
Stephanie Hunt-Crowley said,
February 16, 2008 @ 5:15 am
Simple and quick question – I received this by e-mail BUT there is no indication as to whether or not we can forward to our own groups. I would like to send it in its entirity – it would save me a lot of time instead of providing a written analysis that “Yahoo says….”
Please give permission to re-post on our own groups!
Thank you
heidi lee said,
February 16, 2008 @ 9:02 am
grouply says they are affilated with yahoo then google??
and both of them say it is 3rd party site.. duhhh, where is the no-brain in ones believing anything grouply says now? with no contact support availabe, nor ID’s of their own revealed.. some are just asking to be hacked, aren’t they..which IS esentially what grouply does, and by the way..is illegal. if group ownere have to opt out, when they have never opted in, grouply has already hacked yahoo, amen??
yahoo NEEDS to take stringent leagl action on this one.
for all of you that don’t have time to manage groups you’ve joined…why join them?
guess we need to begin a site that all we require is your credit card number personal pin and social security number and ‘promise’ we are working on ways to keep that secure…lol. what will we do for you? manage all the buying that you don’t have time to do out here while you’re having to opt out of the grouply scam. thier site is NOT secure server.
(:
thank you to everyone that sends grouply warnings thru and is concerned. better to see them twice then not at all.
it still isn’t fair that group owners have to go to a site and opt out, there-by giving this un-known organization any info. what they are is true terrorism, instilling fear daily of being on any groups, yahoo or google.
amen.
JazzyCarol said,
February 16, 2008 @ 9:27 am
No wonder Yahoo stock shares are falling on world markets! I for one am moving my groups to MSN UNTIL Yahoo pulls up it socks and ends this invasion of Grouply. BTW my stepson is with the RCMP Fraud Squad and said this is a dangerous setup
Jazzy
Gipsy said,
February 16, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Well, I for one am not a native English speaker, so I don’t understand everything, but what I know for sure, is that I don’t trust Grouply at all! I’ve owned groups for years, they’re not the first ones to try to “steal” your lives! Whatever Srihari may write, he’ll never convince me, my groups are set on “disabled” at their site, even if I wonder if that isn’t another way of getting info about us, but if ever I find out that any of my groups members is part of Grouply, they’ll be out in no time. If I come on the Net and join or start groups, it’s for my pleasure, not for feeling spied or in danger. And Logan writes clearly what we all have on our mind, which means I agree with him. The way you write “zillions have already joined” makes me shiver… Reminds me of those crazy people leading sects… Now I hope Yahoo will go further in protecting us against such hacking, but I’ll do all I can to protect my members, whatever it takes! And to my opinion, being a group owner should give us more tools agains those “internet terrorists”! Yahoo, the ball is on your side!
shadoedove said,
February 16, 2008 @ 10:23 am
I shouldn’t HAVE to opt out of Grouply. None of us should. And I am a bit paranoid of even clicking on their links to do the opt out. We are all warned constantly about clicking on links from people you don’t trust. So why in the world are you accepting their offer for an opt out? There is no way that I am going to a website and giving them the link to my yahoo group. Why make it easy for them?
There is nothing stopping Grouply from hijacking our personal information except us and Yahoo. Yahoo has already stated their position on the matter. There’s not much more Yahoo can do at this point except possibly close the grouply yahoogroup. If you, the group owner, decide to allow Grouply to access your list info, then you must also accept the consequences that may entail. Yahoo has already provided you with the knowledge of how to keep your group safe from these parasites.
Kathleen said,
February 16, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Shadoedove, I did not sign up, agree to, or give permission to Grouply to include my groups in their beta testing. Several members in groups I own/moderate chose to give up their Yahoo IDs and Passwords so they could use Grouply. That gave Grouply access to my groups, basically bypassing the safeguards I placed on my groups.
At first it was simple to remove Grouply subscribers by their Grouply email addresses. However, Grouply now allows people to use their service under existing addresses. That makes it basically impossible for owners/moderators to find Grouply members in their groups through the logs or the membership list.
What is the Yahoo Grouply group? There a several Yahoo groups discussing Grouply, but none to my knowledge is owned or moderated by Grouply. If you are saying Grouply is a Yahoo entity, I don’t think it is. Grouply is a new, separate enterprise, not affiliated with Yahoo. Grouply accesses Yahoo’s archives, etc. through the IDs and Passwords provided by people who join Grouply. Ths sign up has the Yahoo logo and looks like a Yahoo feature, but Grouply is not a Yahoo feature or part of Yahoo as far as I know. It is a 3rd party.
I agree wholeheartedly. I shouldn’t have to opt out my groups from Grouply, one by one. But, Grouply didn’t give me a choice. They entered my groups through members who signed up for their service. They offered the opt out feature AFTER the fact. Yahoo hasn’t given me any tools to stop the 3rd party invasion beyond the security Yahoo put in place long ago. Grouply, armed with members’ IDs and Passwords given willingly by group members, can bypass that security. I did not say Grouply *does* that. I say it *can* and that is troublesome.
logan said,
February 16, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
Here we go again. Another wing nut trying to take advantage of a nasty situation for their own gain. Prospect Relationship Marketing, whoever these clowns are just posted their ad for all to see along with their services offered. Just when are these people gonna be stopped from trying to get our information. This is another third party with the same agenda from the looks of things and shouldn’t be allowed in this forum. They are not here to discuss the matter of Grouply and their facetious claims but, in fact, are here trolling for new business. This is just another example as to why group owners need more control over their groups. We get phony messages to block someone who, we are told is a hacker, or someone is a virus or a mass murderer thru our groups or phony virus scares over and over again. To me this is just a waste of time and energy on both group owners and mods. Another thing that really bothers me is that someone can be denied access to a group due to the fact that they are known in the community as a troublemaker or a ripper and run whining to Yahoo claiming that we are breaking TOS or sharing hard core or kiddie porn and Yahoo instead of investigating will shut that group down allowing it to be snapped up by the whiner. We’ve all heard of this happening and if you’re like me am appalled by it. To allow a bunch of thugs like grouply access to our group information because they demand it and then having to spend time watching for members who have joined is more than a bit daunting to me. We, as owners and mods should have the final say in who we allow in our groups without Yahoo sticking their nose in and closing us down. Yahoo should investigate the complaint then if the group is found to be doing what was stated, then, yes, shut them down.
Sorry for the rambling and going off topic for a bit but I felt that these issues are just as important in their own way and in a way are related to what Grouply is trying to do. Grouply’s administration stating that Yahoo not allowing them to access to list owners at all will not be welcomed is nothing more than a thinly veiled threat aimed at Yahoo. The ball is now in their court to reply to that and if it were up to me, the solution would be to shut them down and bar them from ever accessing Yahoo groups or Yahoo itself again.
TD said,
February 16, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
Srihari said, “…zillions have joined Grouply …”
False. The percentages are miniscule. For example, the 27k+ member NY City Freecycle group has only SEVEN grouply users. Chicago the same. Somewhere around two or three tenths of one percent. The EmailList-Managers group, with over 3300 members, has less than 1% Grouply subscribers in it (the idea is not selling big to list managers). No doubt many of those are beta testers and curiousity seekers, and two are Grouply employees. Even the Grouply fan club “Grouply Improvements” group, with around 150 members at the moment, has only about 10% Grouply users … and that group is focused on working closely with Grouply on fixes and improvements (long uphill climb), and includes memberships held by Grouply employees.
Zillions? Throughout YG, it will be some time to come yet before they average even 1% of all YG users, if they survive long enough to get out of beta. It is nowhere near 1% of all YG members now.
Srihari adds, “Yahoo! should not listen to a portion of list owners and decide against the many others who obviously don’t mind using Grouply freely on their groups.”
We can count the group owners who are active Grouply users or fans on fingers and toes. I guess if you’re not big on counting, maybe that constitutes “many.”
Unfortunately, it takes no more than ONE Grouply user to compromise a group by surrendering their password to Grouply so that Grouply can mirror its message archive to their site. Just one Grouply user in each group is all that takes.
Yahoo, we need a firewall to block 3rd party access, internally, not by going to each 3rd party and begging them for a block. Yahoo can arrange for owners to open doors in the firewall for 3rd party services the owners want to let into their groups.
And while you’re at it, we need to be able to ban domain names, not just single ID’s or addresses.
TD said,
February 16, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
Correction … NY and Chicago Freecycle massive groups? About 0.02% Grouply subscribers. Two hundredths of a percent. Maybe three, as the Grouply spam guns (”Invite a Group” and “Invite a Friend” messages generated by Grouply.com) continue drawing curiousity seekers.
Andy Swarbrick said,
February 16, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
As far as I can see the majority of comments here are interpreting Yahoo’s statement incorrectly.
What Yahoo are saying is do your own risk evaluation for you as a Yahoo Group member and/or owner of your groups. Further, of course giving out UserID’s and Passwords CAN be unsafe. Importantly they are not saying that it IS unsafe in a given instance. Instead they are saying make your own personal judgement and come to your own personal decision.
For me that means anyone who wants to use any third party tool or website can do so, and give out their Yahoo ID and password, providing they are sure it is safe to do so. For example, this may mean asking is the tool or serice coming from a bona-fide company.
If they agree to that risk that means that they get any benefits from using that tool or service to access emails from any Yahoo Group. The only further exception is if a given group owner decides not to permit it for their group.
So, the group owner also has responsibilities. And for example a particular group owner could elect to block Hotmail addresses, or indeed Grouply addresses. In a similar way an owner can elect to make a group’s archives public or private. As stated above Grouply have reacted to this need by providing an opt-out service aimed at group owners.
Gipsy said,
February 17, 2008 @ 11:26 am
The more I read here, the more I feel like clicking on the link to opt out is just giving Grouply more tools to hack us! And if owners are responsible for their acts, and at their own risks, I’m sorry but they put other people in danger, as members are part of bunches of groups! Do we have to go as far as Court action ? Can’t we just enjoy our hobby without feeling somebody’s watching us all the time ? Just so you know : your liberty to swing your arms stops where mine begins!
Cordial said,
February 17, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
How can we find out if we have group members who are already members of grouply? How can we find out if our YG’s files or group security has otherwise been compromised by grouply?
Papa Ivey Lawrence said,
February 17, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
We need HELP as owners/moderators of our groups now, Yahoo.
The owners of Groiuply have now changed their settings such that they have given the members a way to hide any association with grouply from the owners/moderators.
NOW we have NO way of detecting who they are, leaving no option to remove members in association with grouply. NOW our archives can be violated while we are helpless again.
PLEASE HELP!
The LONE Pappy
Sandy said,
February 17, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
you have to read what Yahoo wrote carefully. they generalized 3rd party sites, although some may read into it some hidden messages, Yahoo never directly said anything response towards any one site.
“If a member is part of a 3rd party website in which the site accesses the group content using the member’s login information and/or the user’s email and then makes this content available to other users, this behavior could put them at risk of having their membership to the group revoked by the moderator or for having their Yahoo! account closed entirely for a TOS violation- ”
they used words like “if” and “could” in their statement.
this would then mean any 3rd party sites that do not make content available to other users is ok- which is where grouply makes their statement from, since they do not make that available to anyone but the member of a particular group. I cant log on and read archives via another grouply member of a group I do not belong to.
owners who want to make their own groups rules, Yahoo says have at it, it’s your right to have any rules you want. grouply does nothing with files or any other group feature. this is similar to Incredimail- if owners want to dictate how and where their members read group mail, you may find less and less members. the only threat is to those who use grouply themselves, however none of that has been reported and your ID can easily be compromised on any given day of the year but rarely does that compromised ID affect a group, unless they happen to be an owner of a group. that threat is still a possibility regardless of these irrational idea’s of what grouply is or what their capable of.
bottom line, your groups are just as susceptible to foul play as they always have been for years and years. grouply does not at all add to that. it also is a shame to remove good members of a group due to this.
Papa Ivey Lawrence said,
February 17, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
You have convinced me.
So that leaves only one other option for me.
I shall now store all archives in another place.
then delete the archive in me groups
then remove all members and close me groups.
then use a private post board they cannot touch.
IF grouply is that much of a theif to wish to harvest our very personal messages for it;s :”marketing informations” even when it is so very sensitive.
then I am absolutely positively they are crooks beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And if Yahoo will not help in protecting us from this issue, then Yahoo itself has become something I cannot depend on anymore.
This will take time, but….
Once I get me members safe again…
I shall be sending and posting to many news media sites about this issue such as Drudge, and maybe even Youtube.
Thanks for your so very helpful information.
The Lone Pappy
Sarita Alicea said,
February 17, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
I agree of what they are doing for personal protection.
Thanks.
Sandy said,
February 17, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
I hate to tell you Papa Ivey Lawrence~ it is a mail provider. just as my own e-mail serves to me and saves all my incoming mail, well so does grouply. grouply is not a theif and members can read their group mail from any where they want, really. the public library for that matter. and just like incredimail, you’re not going to know whose using it. incredimail has been around for a long long time as well. seem any groups stolen?
if you have some High Level National Security archives, you shouldn’t be using a web based group to begin with. grouply isn’t the threat, a regualr every day troll is. but go ahead and do all that work. it wont make it any safer from average Joe Hacker.
ungrouply said,
February 17, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
Andy Swarbrick said:
“… an owner can elect to make a group’s archives public or private.”
Unfortunately, currently for a group that has restricted its message archive for viewing only by moderators, or even if they turn off archive access altogether, if just one member of that group is a Grouply.com subscriber and the moderator does not know about it, or does not know about Grouply, or does not know how to block Grouply access (i.e., as with most moderators so far), because of that one member’s usage of Grouply, that group’s message activity is mirrored to grouply.com and their mirror archive is then made accessible to other Grouply subscribers in the group. Therefore, grouply.com overrides moderator control of access to the archive. Bad, and contrary to the Yahoo TOS.
BTW, grouply.com is bound by the Yahoo TOS, because its CEO and at least one other executive are YG subscribers. They post frequently to Yahoo Groups such as the GrouplyImprovements group, and, according to one of their postings, they have created Yahoo groups for testing and promoted their use to Grouply subscribers for testing via Grouply.
Therefore, if there is a TOS violation in the retransmission (theft) of group archives, and it their overriding moderator control of archive access, among other possible violations of the spirit or letter of the TOS, it is not merely by individual Grouply subscribers foolish enough to surrender their passwords, it is by executive officers of iGroup, Inc., owner of grouply.com.
If not a TOS violation in Yahoo’s estimation, it is ungrouply behavior, a BIG turnoff to owner-moderators.
For more about this, see the new Ungrouply Behavior group at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ungrouply
Sandy said,
February 18, 2008 @ 7:17 am
for a more accurate, unbiased, reliable source:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GroupManagersForum/message/25132
Papa Ivey Lawrence said,
February 18, 2008 @ 7:49 am
I hate to tell YOU, Sandy…….
But the fact of the matter is…..
What you may not consider is of vital importance is so simply because it is a place where folks can be reached easily, and supposedly with at least a semblence of privacy. The disabilities group actually has members there looking for help… some mental, emotional, AND physical. You would not be able to get them into a real place without first being able to counsel with them and obtain informations from them, and they just don’t trust folks easy. But they do deserve the consideration to be able to discuss it and mayhaps find some answers as to what they could do, or who might help them, etc. No, it is not doctors, psychologists, etc, but it is folks who care and wish to help those find places they ARE able to go really, in real life. Sometimes we are able to make contact with the ones who can help them in their area. And they then come in and begin the process of guiding them as to what to do and how to do it, ending in good results, we all hope. But ALL OF THAT INFORMATION is of HIGH CONFIDENTIALITY and not to be obtained through a crunch algorithm sorting out for “marketing purposes”.
The same is with the group of finding people. You know… one was adopted as a child, and is now looking for their families…. or anything about them.
We have been successful in making contacts many times… but the info about any research we make as a group entity is shared here for all who get involved in the searches….. yet not ever to be used for any other purposes and is very sensitive in most casis. NOT FOR MARKETING INFORMATION AT ALL.
I could go on and on about other groups I know of that has purposes and information of this type. HIGHLY IMPORTANT NOT TO BE MOVED OUTSIDE THE GROUP FOR ANY REASON. And no member would do that IF they were aware of how grouply would rape the archives for their own purposes.
And apparantly, Yahoo now as well, has taken the stance that it is up to us to keep the security enforced in spite of the fact, they encouraged us that it would be secure.
And the very uncaring stance Grouply has about it, saying… “we won’t show it to anybody else, but we still are going to obtain copies for our own use” shows that they are theives when it has not one thing to do with marketing anywho.
Now dunno what your purpose was to post that reply since I had thanked you for that info from you which helped make me decision about closing groups and moving them to more secure private board interfaces and keep me members safe. For then it would not matter if they belong to grouply at all.
they STILL won’t be able to obtain any info at all from a private server.
And I would know (as well as the ones I also use to help me with security) by the logged IP#s who accesses and who doesnt.
It is just a simple matter of deduction now.
NO serious group about anything with meaning and sensitive information at all is no longer safe in Yahoo or any other “social service” group.
Hope that clears some of the fog from yer head.
The LONE Pappy
Sandy said,
February 18, 2008 @ 10:19 am
There is no fog in my head my friend and I do not over react. Any time you use the net you’re always at risk, always have been. grouply simply doesn’t pose a higher threat than before but it seems you’d be better served else where. My groups are also not social groups- and altho grouply would not serve well an owner, it would a member and those on freecycle groups. grouply has a better mail sorter than my own ISP does.
“I shall be sending and posting to many news media sites about this issue such” I have seen some of these already floating around Yahoo already would you be responsible for that?
my purpose is to try and stop false statements, point out there’s been other providers out there doing the same thing, and guess what, all the things flaoting around never happens.
Have a great day.
Lena said,
February 18, 2008 @ 11:23 am
Grouply displayed messages to pending members (anybody could request membership and read messages even if moderator never approved them) and to banned members. These two bugs were fixed only less a week ago. Do you still trust Grouply?
A message in Groups web-archive can be deleted by the member or moderators. If the deletion happened more than some short time (roughly 30 min) after message was posted, Grouply never notices the deletion because Grouply cannot rescan entire archive of every group multiple times because Groups throttle automatic access to Groups website per IP-address. For example, Grouply gained access to the [EL-M] group 7 months ago but so far managed to scan only 9% of [EL-M] archive once. So, hundreds % needed to notice deletions is just not real.
Note the word “should” in the Groups Team’s statement:
> Moderators have the right to protect their group’s
> content along with the privacy of their members
> and can and should enforce this at their individual
> group level.
Andy Swarbrick said,
February 20, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Lone Pappy, please can you tell everyone why you do not object to Yahoo’s adverts for sensitive groups? Also please can you tell us why Yahoo using group data for marketing purposes is somehow okay?
Andy Swarbrick said,
February 20, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Lone Pappy, please can you tell everyone why you do not equally object to Yahoo’s adverts being displayed by your definition of sensitive groups? Also please can you tell us why Yahoo using the same group data for marketing purposes is somehow okay?
Mark Robins said,
March 17, 2008 @ 8:10 am
I would like to thank the Yahoo Groups team for providing these clarifications. You can read our response on our Grouply blog.
What we’re trying to do with Grouply is improve your experience with your existing online groups. In short, we want you to love Grouply! Unfortunately, the comments here reflect several misconceptions about Grouply. We are not spammers, phishers, or identity thieves. Grouply does not expose your group messages to all Grouply users or to the public at large. You must be a member of a group to read that group’s messages in Grouply.
While it is true that today Grouply asks you for your Yahoo password when you join, in fact, millions of users have provided their Yahoo passwords to third-party sites like Meebo (for instant messaging) and T-Mobile (for Blackberry service). The main reason we use your password today is to get your current list of groups from Yahoo Groups so we can ensure you see only the messages you are supposed to. You password is secure at Grouply. It is encrypted and is accessible only by the Grouply application, not directly by a human. Grouply has been certified by TRUSTe, a leading advocate for consumer internet privacy. We are constantly improving Grouply based on use feedback, and soon you will be able to use Grouply without providing your Yahoo password.
In several discussion groups and within the comments there, it seems that some people have been confused about who are the Grouply employees and who are the enthusiastic (sometimes overly so!) Grouply users. Let me clear that up. The *only* Grouply employees who have been posting anyplace are Mark Robins (me) and Rich Reimer (another co-founder).
Please visit the Grouply blog to find out more about Grouply, or feel free to contact me directly at mark@grouply.com.
We look forward to continuing to serve our users and improve the Grouply service.
Mark Robins
Co-founder/CEO, Grouply
kashmira said,
March 24, 2008 @ 6:44 am
im not able to recover my password inspite of providing the account informatin which u demand for. please kindy help. there is smthng very important in my yahoo mail inbox. i need access to it as early as possible.. thank you.. m very dissappointed with yahoo service as it is not helpful in providing me informatin i need. my id is kashmira_86@yahoo.com
kashmira said,
March 25, 2008 @ 4:31 am
you have to love grouply.com… fantastic service, free but efficient. highly recommended for all.
RS said,
March 26, 2008 @ 7:54 am
YG should have a simple check box on the owners control panel.
Allow my groups content to be accessed by third parties: Y/N
If you select no, it can never be so much as crawled up by a search engine.
If you select yes, it’s out there for the world.
Kevin said,
May 11, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
Who actually owns Grouply? What is their prospectus? If it is sold, what happens to everyone’s id and passwords?
Where is the security in the fact that once Grouply secures a members Yahoo login and password that they won’t do anything other than gain access to the members yahoo groups? Hmmm… They sure as hell could do a lot more if they wanted. Especially without telling anyone. If they are a legitimate business lets see their business plan. That should be public.
iftikhar said,
May 27, 2008 @ 6:57 am
i am from kashmir ifoo a student obtained a b.c.a
Peter said,
July 6, 2008 @ 2:57 am
Hi everyone, I have done my self-initiation to the Pagan religion but, I want to know… How can I become a Druid?
Is it by the way of life, which I’ve read about or do I…Can anyone please help?
stretch your penis said,
July 7, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
Sad but true. Fluff is pretty much all the “new technologies” are about.
Richard said,
July 9, 2008 @ 7:09 am
I ended up joining Grouply yesterday, but I cancelled my account shortly after! Grouply’s nothing but a scam! I’m glad I stopped my account before any damage was done! Nobody should get into Grouply at all! I admit I did, and I almost got ruined! If you’re into it, get out of it! If not, stay away from it! I saved myself a lot of controversy, and I believe you should, too!
judith said,
August 22, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
stop this junk from coming to my mail box
Annette Tardiff said,
August 24, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Is there anything I can do to get Grouply completely out of my system?
Ruadhan said,
August 25, 2008 @ 7:57 am
To anybody still reading this: Grouply is not a scam!
It’s a wholly legitimate business with investors that are high-profile in the Tech world. Just cos you haven’t heard of these people doesn’t mean that they’re unimportant — I had no idea who Paris Hilton was until long after she was “old hat”.
New technology like this won’t steal your soul. I find it far better stream-lined to use Grouply to read my Yahoo!Groups messages — but I belong to over 80 groups. If you belong to only a few groups, then you probably won’t get much use out of Grouply. What Grouply primarily does is basically consolidate all of one’s groups into either a “smart digest” or consolidate all groups’ web-interface into a single “message board” format — you don’t have to go to different URl’s to read the different messages, you don’t have to “junk up” your Inbox with hundreds of daily messages — and it has all sorts of other features, such as bookmarking posts for later reference, tagging threads, star ratings, all of the “Special announcement” posts are on one page while all the general discussion is on another.
And if you don’t want to invite everybody in your groups, here’s the kicker — in the sign-up-and-invite process, just click the button that says “Skip”, and you’ll avoid inviting people altogether! How novel!
Expedition said,
August 30, 2008 @ 9:38 am
Yahoo!Groups must take full responsibility for this.
It is Yahoo’s responsibility to provide internet security for its groups and members.
Yahoo, please act now!
Set up a control panel for group owners/moderators to deny 3rd party access.
This can be done with DOMAIN BLACKLISTING and ENTITY BLACKLISTING.
Yahoo knows who the entities are: web archives and pirates like Grouply.
Allan Paule said,
September 10, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
any suggestions how to make our egroup not accessible to anybody? once you type the name of our egroup, it appears in yahoo , google and other search engines and they can view all of the discussions in our group. please help. thanks a lot.
allan
Rodney said,
September 20, 2008 @ 10:10 am
A question for all you group owners:
If you took a survey of your users/members and found that say, 75% of them were OK with grouply, would you excommunicate those members?
Isn’t the point of groups to disseminate information to its members? And if the users want to better manage their flow of information, do you think that denying them that ability will endear you to them? Especially by using fear of the unknown, which has become the go-to tool for getting what you want these days.
I get the feeling that most of the group owners here regard themselves as (mostly) benevolent dictators of their groups, where being in charge is more important than anything else.
My 2 cents.
Nick said,
December 11, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
I haven’t gotten email replies when trying the opt out for my groups.
Did that Change?
Mimi said,
March 8, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
As a group owner where we already have anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 postings PER MONTH, here is why I object to my membership using Grouply, Winster, or some of these other networking websites that pirate members’ address books to spam my group:
How has that affected my Plantswap group? I canNOT know whether or not a spam message to join these networking websites actually came from our member or whether or not it came from Winster, Grouply or these other websites, USING the member’s name (as that is how it is posted to our group).
Because of this, whenever we receive such posts, we
automatically have put such members on Moderated status,
until it is shown to us that such member is not
intentionally posting spam in our group.
We have had to institute such measures in order to keep the
number of extraenous and bothersome
posts to a minimum, in
consideration of the more than 1300 members who have no
interest in reading spam, as we commonly already have
anywhere from over 3000 to 7000 posts per month as it is.
Spam messages of this type that do not pertain to the mission
of our group, which is trading, only add to the volume of extraseneous
posts in the group, and to the irritation of
most of our membership who are here for the purpose of
discussing their gardens, as well as for trading plants,
seeds, and cuttings.
Mimi said,
March 8, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
In answer to the previous post, “Isn’t the point of groups to disseminate information to its members?” The answer is IT DEPENDS. Every group owner has an INTENDED MISSION for which the group was designed. Advertising OTHER NETWORKING sites is NOT PART OF MY GROUP’S MISSION. Frankly, my members join for a specific reason NOT RELATED to the mission of Grouply, Winster, or these other networking sites. I resent having a group that I am created, managed and take responsibility for used for the purposes of furthering the interests of ANOTHER GROUP. I resent having the membership that I attract by the stated mission of my group USED as fodder to harvest and feed the membership of ANOTHER GROUP.
If my members wish to share networking sites privately amongst themselves, FINE. That is their prerogative, I have no problem with that. But don’t use my group has a public forum to do that. Each group owner should definitely maintain the mission of their group, and if that mission does not include advocating or giving voice to these social networking sites, then so be it.
Members who wish to be in a group that does that, should create their own group and allow that.