Further clarification about the Yahoo! Profiles photo announcement
Because it seems that the first clarification I posted about the recent Yahoo! Profiles photo notification seemed to generate additional questions and concerns, I wanted to give it another try.
First, I want to reiterate that this announcement only pertains to adult Yahoo! profiles which can be found at http://profiles.yahoo.com (to see your profile, type your Yahoo! user ID at the end of the URL as indicated here – http://profiles.yahoo.com/YID). This notification has nothing to do with Adult groups themselves, including their photos, and Yahoo! Groups will NOT be affected in any way.
- As of April 9th, there will no longer be an adult wall protecting underage Yahoo! users from viewing Yahoo! Profiles marked as adult (or adult Yahoo! Profiles). Because there are millions of pictures on Yahoo! Profiles that are currently marked as adult (again, I am not talking about groups here, just profiles), we have made the decision to remove pictures marked as adult in an effort to protect the privacy of our users who have adult pictures and eliminate the risk of a unveiling sensitive information to minors. We understand that many of you with profiles marked as adult don’t necessarily have “adult pictures” and we hope you will check our help pages to learn how to save the picture you currently have displayed and take the steps to upload a new picture on April 9th when the edit tool will be fixed.
- As of April 9th, you will be able to add a new picture in your Yahoo! Profile and also be able to share this picture across the Yahoo! network (i.e. if you have decided to share your Y! Profiles picture across Yahoo!, and then post a review on Yahoo! Local; you will have the same picture displayed next to your review). Because some properties, like Yahoo! Local, don’t have an adult wall, we have decided not allow adult content, including an adult picture, in your profile. In the meantime, check our help pages to learn how to save the adult picture you currently have displayed.
- As of April 9th, mature content will not be allowed on Yahoo! Profiles, both pictures and written content. While the picture associated a profile marked as adult will be removed and deleted on April 9, all other content deemed offensive based on community feedback will be reactively removed as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We will not be deleting entire profiles without giving you the opportunity to remove any content deemed inappropriate as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
- As of April 9th, we will be screening all new uploaded pictures to profiles and removing them if necessary based on the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
- Last, we will be removing profile pictures based on the status of your Yahoo! profile at the time the notification was sent. This means that if you changed your profile status from adult to non-adult since receiving the notification, your picture will still be removed.
Jami
Groups Community Manager
Nisa said,
April 1, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
You said: “Last, we will be removing profile pictures based on the status of your Yahoo! profile at the time the notification was sent. ” What if we did not recieve the notice?
Not everyone recieved with an adult profile recieved such notice. I did not. My picture is G rated and nothing offensive is in profile. It is no longer “adult” as I un checked the box. However, I and many other adult profile holders DID NOT recieve the notice. Does that mean becvuse I did not recieve the notice and my profile is “no longer adult”, am I safe from yahoo deleting my picture?
One more question. Are profile “names” next? Some are blantantly sexual, some like mine, only slightly risque and not blantantly “adult”. Are Profile names that are questionable next to go?
Shyanne said,
April 1, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
Good question Nisa! As well what about the groups that have questionable names, are they on the road to extinction as well? I have noticed looking through the groups listings, there are a LOT of them there that should be designated as adult but are not. Then there are groups like mine that is NOT adult that keeps getting dumped back into the adult category and I have to take the time 2-3 times a month to ask Yahoo to put it back where it should be with all the other groups of it’s nature.
Louise said,
April 2, 2008 @ 5:06 am
Yahoo said,
“This notification has nothing to do with Adult groups themselves, including their photos, and Yahoo! Groups will NOT be affected in any way.”
By complying with Yahoo’s requirements and removing the adult designation option from profiles, adult lists will now be populated by members with general/universal profiles. That indicates a contradiction in terms of privacy to me.
In Yahoo T.O.S. it very clearly states,
2. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE:
” Please be aware that Yahoo! has created certain areas on the Service that contain adult or mature content. You must be at least 18 years of age to access and view such areas.”
Yahoo also states:
3. YOUR REGISTRATION OBLIGATIONS:
“In consideration of your use of the Service, you represent that you are of legal age to form a binding contract and are not a person barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States or other applicable jurisdiction.”
And:
“Yahoo! is concerned about the safety and privacy of all its users, particularly children. For this reason, parents of children under the age of 13 who wish to allow their children access to the Service must create a Yahoo! Family Account. When you create a Yahoo! Family Account and add your child to the account, you certify that you are at least 18 years old and that you are the legal guardian of the child/children listed on the Yahoo! Family Account. By adding a child to your Yahoo! Family Account, you also give your child permission to access many areas of the Service, including, email, message boards and instant messaging (among others). Please remember that the Service is designed to appeal to a broad audience. Accordingly, as the legal guardian, it is your responsibility to determine whether any of the Service areas and/or Content (as defined in Section 6 below) are appropriate for your child.”
At no point in Yahoo’s T.O.S. is the subject of the safety of minors, specifically 13 years to 18 years, addressed. Furthermore, there is no mention made of this particular age group anywhere in Yahoo’s T.O.S.
And:
6. MEMBER CONDUCT:
“You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, tags, or other materials (”Content”), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. This means that you, and not Yahoo!, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available via the Service. Yahoo! does not control the Content posted via the Service and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content. You understand that by using the Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. Under no circumstances will Yahoo! be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via the Service.”
This seems in flagrant contradiction to the censorship that Yahoo! is now imposing on its clients.
Question. Will Yahoo answer directly and truthfully to the popular charge that Yahoo Adult groups are in jeopardy of being summarily, or not, closed down?
By way of the issues being raised by Yahoo’s clients/members it seems to indicate that this question should be addressed immediately, honestly and openly.
Thank you for your time.
RS said,
April 3, 2008 @ 7:21 am
Yahoo has made no comment yet concerning the long term fate of Adult Groups, but I see absolutely nothing here suggesting any kind of risk to your adult groups at this time.
The only reason it is showing up in the YG blog is because profiles.yahoo.com (aka members.yahoo.com) is the profile system used for Groups. Groups has its own built-in “adult wall”, but not every Y service has that. Rather than upgrade all their other products with some kind of “adult wall”, they are downgrading to the lowest common denominator. I’m sure this is easier than tackling the internal “silo system” Yahoo was reported to have at one point (see my blog for links to details).
If the sole reason for doing this was the “adult wall”, then I would surmise that your adult groups are as safe as they have ever been, since the content of your group can be “walled off” from the rest of the net, an ddoes not feed to any outside Yahoo product.
Since your profile cannot be “walled off” (ie it feeds to “non-walled” Yahoo properties), it must be neutered.
Make sense?
Jami: What we don’t have yet, that might settle some folks down, is a statement from Yahoo that specifies that at this time there is no plan (short or long term) to remove adult groups themselves. Without that, you wil probably still see people worrying about this for awhile. If you are at liberty to offer such a statement, it might help the nervous types out here.
I would hope people don’t take the lack of such a statement as a bad omen, since there’s no basis for that yet, besides our own alarmism.
Amie said,
April 3, 2008 @ 7:46 am
Ok, so, if Yahoo is going to remove all the pictures based on their status at the time the announcements were sent, WHY were there instructions as to how to change your profile from adult to non-adult coming from Yahoo in relation to this announcement? Can’t y’all give a straight answer and get your crap together? So, no matter WHAT i do, the photo on my profile, featuring my white Husky, will be deleted, just because Yahoo can, and no matter what i do to try to mitigate that and lessen the amount of work that Yahoo has to do?
Again, Yahoo seems hell bent on not only alienating people, BUT making additional work for themselvs, not to mention completely missing the photos in the non-adult section that ARE adult. Louise is right on the money, up above.
How’s that piece of gum doing in the Hoover Dam?
Amie
P.S. When i post comments to the blog, i always click the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” and give my email addy so that can happen. i have NEVER gotten a notification, and this is the third time i’ve posted. Way to go, Yahoo. Fix something that IS broken, before you go messing with other things.
Pim Muller said,
April 3, 2008 @ 7:58 am
Where is the freedom?
Where is the privacy?
Simmie said,
April 3, 2008 @ 8:50 am
I know with other changes to areas of Yahoo, an announcement is posted on the main page where you sign in — could this not be done (in an abbreviated form) on the Yahoo and Yahoogroups homepages, directing them to this blog, so that folks understand what’s going on?
I received an email from a Yahoo staff member telling me how to sanitize my ALREADY clean Yahoo profile (I’d checked the adult box only because some group owners required it) and told me that’s all I had to do — leading me to believe that if I did that, I needn’t worry. But Jami’s post here leads us to believe that all we need to do is save the picture, as they’re going to delete it anyway.
Why not run a new list of adult profiles and deal with those who haven’t fixed things? That would seem to me to be less time-consuming, wouldn’t it?
Simmie
Rich said,
April 3, 2008 @ 10:12 am
So what are we left with?
Fluffy bunny profiles?
Thought the point of a profile was to profile who we are for the benefit of others. If we are to be highly restricted in the how we describe ourselves then what is the point of having a profile at all? I hope that you are also restricting the things that I find offensive such as anything religious or is it to be that only those people who express any sort of freedom that are to be chained and gagged.
It is time that the people who find these things offensive took resposibility for their and their childrens actions instead of the balme others culture that has been developed. Personally I will stop using yahoo and venture off to pastures new where people are repected for who they are instead of being branded as unacceptable.
Rich
Todd Kes said,
April 3, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
While this deletion is going on, will someone at Yahoo try to weed out the obvious spam names/IDs in Yahoo as well? I.e. anyone with ‘aaaaaa’ as the first six letters of their name is quite likely a bot.
loraine said,
April 3, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
aaaaaaahhhhhh HA! So, you’ve finally admitted that not only will pix be deleted, but any ‘content’ that doesn’t agree with Yahoo’s inquisition Judge of the moment. Yahoo TOS descriptions of what is not acceptable is so vague that it could be applied to anything, depending on the person viewing it. There’s your payback Rich, go thru the new profiles when Yahoo is done ‘cleaning house’ and lodge complaints about the ones you find offensive and Yahoo will delete them for you. i too am going to be spending a lot more time elsewhere.
bttmbboyy said,
April 3, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
is my screen name suggeting anything yahoo ??? Yes i’m a gay & happy man.
since yahoo took away the local area adult rooms, i have started using other ISP’s more often. And if you take away the ADULT listing, does that mean that anyone can now see your profile ? Even those that are not 18 years old ?
You can uncheck your adult listing & remove the adult pics, but the text remains there & most who are online can READ. I THINK IT’S TIME TO STOP USING YAHOO AS YOUR ISP…………..!!!
There are a lot of other choices out there.
Stretchinohio63 said,
April 3, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
You know i been a part of yahoo here for over 12 yeas or more. And it just seam to be going the way of MSN ,Soon they will shut down all the chat room to .
willyneu1 said,
April 3, 2008 @ 9:11 pm
I have read the notice that came out regarding removing adult content. That’s fine. I just removed the check mark for adult content. The only think adult about my profile is the I checked off adult content. There is nothing wrong with my fully clothed photo!!!!! In fact it is “G” rated. Go figure!
Conan said,
April 3, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
One other thing that isn’t explained is how different sections of yahoo don’t seem to know what the others are sending out…the yahoo abuse dept. identifed the address the notice came from as a non-legit yahoo address…which would mean that it was a fake & possibly sent by a hacker…either that or the different yahooo depts. don’t have a clue what the others are snding out & what the legit addresses are…
-C
lacyntastee said,
April 4, 2008 @ 3:46 am
Although I do understand the need to limit pictures from minors what about protecting groups from allowing minors into the groups like making sure minors put date of birth before completing a profile? This would not be shown but will protect yahoo and groups from minors getting into adult yahoo groups? I know not all the minors will put the real date of birth upon signing up but this will help protect yahoo and adult groups from allowing those to sign up in the adult groups? Maybe have a block put on those underage accounts from being able to browse adult groups? Just an idea to help protect everyone. Or is this something that is already being done? I wouldn’t know since I do not have any young children who have yahoo.
Lacy
Lady Domina2 said,
April 4, 2008 @ 8:25 am
Putting this in perspective of their historical behavior:
They have consistently been chipping away at anything considered adult. I know of several groups that got deleted by Yahoo because they didn’t like the BDSM content that was there (this was about 3-4 years ago).
So this is just another step in their process of getting rid of adult anything. They don’t want the adult sections to go away instantly because it would really affect them financially. So I guess they are doing it slowly to avoid any shock to the stock price of yahoo.
Personally, looking at this as a long term behavior of yahoo, I don’t see much more reason to have an account here.
LD
d said,
April 4, 2008 @ 10:27 am
this is bs! every time we get comfortable with the way things run yahoo has to mess with it. why not keep the minors and adults seperate. i have no need for a kid to access my profile. why spend money on another change that has no finacial gain?
RS said,
April 4, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
Bear in mind Jami said “reactively” removing other written content, meanings omeone will have to report your profile as offensive first. Same goes for groups. If it was deleted, its because the community reported it. Yahoo has far too much else to do, I’m sure.
Shalf said,
April 5, 2008 @ 1:54 am
Yes, Lacy. It is already that way.
The birthdate entered when a Yahoo account is first registered is used to calculate the member’s current age. If under 18 they are blocked from accessing groups in the Adult category.
They are also blocked, until 4/9, from profiles that have the “Adult” box checked; after that date they will not be. Personally I think removing the adult wall from profiles is a dumb idea, and I think that the blanket removal on such a short timeline is irresponsible.
A somewhat more sensible procedure would be to “grandfather” the profiles marked adult (retaining the wall) until a date at least several months if not a year off. In the interim, remove the checkbox from non-adult profiles (no new ones can be created) and remove it (with big red-letter warnings) if the profile is edited. Perhaps make an adult profile unusable in Yahoo properties other than groups during the interim. At that date certain, delete any adult profile that remains unedited.
This would protect minors from non-photographic adult content during the interim, which seems far preferable to having the minors be exposed and the content dealt with in a reactionary fashion. It would also provide an adequate interval for those with adult profiles to learn of the change and, if they choose to remain with Yahoo, make the necessary adjustments to their profile.
bi_curious_submissive said,
April 5, 2008 @ 6:20 am
I see this as the beginning of the slippery slope. Next will be adult sounding profile names, then groups. As you can see (my ID is bi_curious_submissive) is not blantantly adult, but “suggestive” and discriptive to who I am. My ID, and others like it in my opinion, will be the next to go. Adult Groups after that. Is my only option to drop this ID and create one with the name totally G rated? This is such a shame, as yahoo has the best option for groups, but they are chasing people away. If I have to, I will drop my accouunts and move elsewhere.
bi_curious_submissive said,
April 5, 2008 @ 6:22 am
Oh, I own/moderate a couple adult groups as well, and if there is more evidence of all adult content being censored, I will shut down my groups, delete them and go elsewhere.
Jo Mason said,
April 6, 2008 @ 2:19 am
As you will be proactively screening profile photos for inappropriate content, will you now be proactively screening photos uploaded to yahoo groups especially adult groups.
There is far too many inappropriate images that breach yahoo guidelines such as sexual images of children and animals as well as dipiction of excretory acts, torture and necrophilia.
If you are willing and able to screen profile pictures, will you please do this for groups especially adult groups so that they can be safe for people.
Koki Jay said,
April 6, 2008 @ 2:26 am
Is this a prelude to the takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft.?
Microsoft removed all adult groups (allowing them to be transfered to another provider) from MSN groups as I guess they did not want to be associated with the adult industry.
Assuming that Microsoft do takeover Yahoo (which many experts say seems likely) they may well apply the same things to yahoo groups and getting rid of adult profiles seems like a first step.
Richard B said,
April 6, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
All this is well and good, but it certainly would have been helpful if everyone had been notified about this early on. I never received a notice and there never was an announcement posted at the home pages of any of my adult groups. Of course, now the Edit Picture feature isn’t available, so people can’t do anything. The information about this change was passed along by word-of-mouth instead of by some official notice from Yahoo! to those who have adult profiles. There’s been much fuss, confusions and misinformation created in the adult groups as a result.
Louise said,
April 7, 2008 @ 4:04 am
Is Yahoo planning to make any changes to Yahoo Adult Groups, either immediately or long term and if so, what are they?
Thank you.
Deborah Terreson (foodandart) said,
April 7, 2008 @ 5:09 am
Okay, I understand the issue with the profiles – no problem with that by me.
My bigger concern in general is for the ONE Yahoo service I would be very upset to lose, and that is my yahoogroup.
If Yahoo gets swallowed my Microsoft, will the groups listed as ‘adult’ get shut down like MSN adult groups did? I have my artwork up in my group and it’s of course got nude studies and portraits so I put it in the ‘adult’ listing – I USED to have a MSN group so I’ve been none to happy about this impending takeover – as with all things BillGates, he’s got some odious notion that the internet should be ’safe’ for children at the expense of everyone and everything else.
Maybe I should start fingering out how to build a googlegroup?
I don’t want to as I’ve been a member of Yahoo for 8 years and I know the system fairly well and I like the interface.. Really don’t want to worry about this, I’ve got enough to fret over already in my life..
Thanks,
Deb.
ryan said,
April 8, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
This is why AOL is more fun than YAHOO!
Neil said,
April 8, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Jami,
As indicated above, this process of deleting pictures on profiles was supposed to be done “as of April 9th”. I checked my profile and my girlfriends’ profile and our pictures – which were G-Rated – were deleted as of 9:30 PM EST on 4/8.
My question is this: when will we be able to add another picture of ourselves?
Thanks.
bi_curious_submissive said,
April 9, 2008 @ 5:25 am
My G-rated photo was gone last night, but back now. Strange.
Nisa said,
April 10, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Did yahoo change their minds? My adult profile photo disappeared briefly ohn the 8th, was back on the 9th and still there today. The Edit Photo feature still does not work but we can still designate our profiles as adult.
If yahoo did change their minds, FANTASTIC! If not, what’s up?
Another question. What are your plans (long or short term) fopr adult groups? If Adult Profiles will eventually go away, does that mean down the road all adult parts of yahoo (including groups) will go away too?
Jeff Schult said,
April 10, 2008 @ 9:04 am
And it’s now April 10 … and I can still see photos and adult profiles.
Jami?
Nisa said,
April 12, 2008 @ 5:36 am
It’s now April 12th, and what you said would happen never did. I’m not complaining, just curiouis why this never happened. My comments are below, in response to the group blog entry.
As of April 9th, there will no longer be an adult wall protecting underage Yahoo! users from viewing Yahoo! Profiles marked as adult (or adult Yahoo! Profiles).
Oh, really? That never happened. My Adult Profile is still designated as Adult and I still have the option to check or un-check the box.
Because there are millions of pictures on Yahoo! Profiles that are currently marked as adult (again, I am not talking about groups here, just profiles), we have made the decision to remove pictures marked as adult in an effort to protect the privacy of our users who have adult pictures and eliminate the risk of a unveiling sensitive information to minors.
This never happened either. Many pictures were removed BRIEFLY on April 8th, but returned on the 9th. A few people lost their photos, but no where near “everyone” as was implied.
We understand that many of you with profiles marked as adult don’t necessarily have “adult pictures” and we hope you will check our help pages to learn how to save the picture you currently have displayed and take the steps to upload a new picture on April 9th when the edit tool will be fixed.
As of April 9th, you will be able to add a new picture in your Yahoo! Profile and also be able to share this picture across the Yahoo! network (i.e. if you have decided to share your Y! Profiles picture across Yahoo!, and then post a review on Yahoo! Local; you will have the same picture displayed next to your review).
Really? This actually did not occur until the 10th, in some cases the 11th. However, since many many folks with Adult Profiles did not lose their pics to begin with, they did not need to re-upload their G rated pics.
Because some properties, like Yahoo! Local, don’t have an adult wall, we have decided not allow adult content, including an adult picture, in your profile. In the meantime, check our help pages to learn how to save the adult picture you currently have displayed.
As of April 9th, mature content will not be allowed on Yahoo! Profiles, both pictures and written content.
This did not occur either. T
While the picture associated a profile marked as adult will be removed and deleted on April 9, all other content deemed offensive based on community feedback will be reactively removed as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We will not be deleting entire profiles without giving you the opportunity to remove any content deemed inappropriate as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
As of April 9th, we will be screening all new uploaded pictures to profiles and removing them if necessary based on the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
Last, we will be removing profile pictures based on the status of your Yahoo! profile at the time the notification was sent. This means that if you changed your profile status from adult to non-adult since receiving the notification, your picture will still be removed.
Nisa said,
April 12, 2008 @ 5:51 am
Well, it posted before I wanted it too. Bottom line is none of what was told to us never happened. That’s awesome, as I was very disappointed in this.
So, I would like to hear from yahoo on why they announced all these changes, then as of April 12, it never happened. Not even a word from yahoo saying “we changed our minds”. We’ve heard nothing. Did yahoo in fact change their minds, or are these changes just delayed?
Funny thing I heard the other day. Negotiations fell through with Microsoft. I wonder if that’s why these changes never took place.
Yahoo Profile Photos said,
April 19, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
Yahoo’s new photo upload option will not work for my sub profiles. It only sticks on my main profile. Is any one else experiencing this issue?
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