A few thoughts: 1. It is highly unlikely -- to the point of being an absurd allegation to make -- that Yahoo Groups is "censoring" a peace group because of its stand on international politics. Yahoo currently lists 899 groups in the "peace" category of Yahoo Groups; certainly no purge has taken place: http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Cultures___Community/Issues_and_Causes/Peace_and_Nonviolence 2. It is far more likely that LMNOP has been accused of spamming, there's a misunderstanding, or something is going on that we don't know about. 3. I don't believe "censorship" is the best word to use here. I generally use the word to describe what governments do; this is at best a contractual dispute over a terms of service agreement. 4. It would be helpful for Yahoo to clarify. 5. I'd never trust a free email service with important mail. Better to get a shell account or POP account and pay for it; you'll be taken more seriously if you have a problem. -Declan --- Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 19:51:45 -0700 To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> From: [deleted] Subject: Yahoo! censors LMNOP, an Oakland peace group (Fwd) Declan, Thought this might interest you. P.S. Please don't include my name and/or email in any public posting. >Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 11:30:59 -0700 (PDT) >From: "Steve Wagner" <bayiparalegalat_private> >Subject: Yahoo! censors LMNOP, an Oakland peace group >To: nlg-interactat_private > >Yahoo! censors LMNOP, an Oakland peace group > >My wife & I have been active in Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace, an Oakland antiwar group, since it started during the Gulf War in 1991. (For a history of LMNOP & more information about the group see <http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP>). > >Three years ago we got an email address for the group, lmno4pat_private This seemed like a good way to stay in touch with other groups & people. We also used it to notify people of upcoming events, & other activities. > >On August 8th, 2002, however, we found that we were no longer able to access our email address at lmno4pat_private Email sent to the address was returned as "Undeliverable because the account has been discontinued or disabled." We had been "deactivated," the Yahoo! computer told us, "because of a violation of the terms of service agreement." > >I downloaded the Yahoo! terms of service agreement & read it again: There was absolutely nothing I could find that we had done that would constitute a violation of the agreement. > >Emailed & snail-mailed inquiries to Yahoo! were simply ignored. Yahoo!'s attitude appeared to be in keeping with their terms of service agreement: They will provide you with an email address, but they will also block you from using it & delete everything you might have stored in it whenever they feel like it, for any reason or no reason at all, & there is nothing you can do about it. Ignoring our inquiries simply underscored these arrogant policies. > >My wife, Beth, telephoned Yahoo! at (408)349-3300 earlier this week, & again yesterday. Her conversations with four different people there were most revealing, even if we are still barred from getting into our account. > >Earlier in the week Beth spoke with Laurie. Laurie is a supervisor in the Yahoo! Customer Care unit. Laurie told Beth that Yahoo! did not have to tell her what the alleged terms of service violation was, nor would they. She also said that the decision to shut down an account is made by a human, not the computer, so someone had pulled the plug - but there was nothing we could do about it. Laurie also said that it is "their policy" not to give their last names. > >Yesterday Beth talked with three different people at Yahoo! The 1st was a woman in Customer Care who transferred her call to Public Relations. The guy in Public Relations (Brian) said that his department only deals with the media, so basically there was really no reason to talk with him at all. Brian wasn't sure why the Customer Care person had transferred her to him, & he transferred Beth to Pablo, a supervisor in Customer Care. > >Pablo assured Beth that lmno4pat_private had not been shut-down for political reasons, but he also said that it is "their policy" not to say what the actual reason was - &, most important, he said that a decision to shut down an account is not made "unless a complaint has been made." This confirms our suspicion that the LMNOP account WAS shut down for political reasons - There was no violation of the "terms of agreement" by us, & Yahoo! refuses to say what the alleged violation was, because there was none. > >We don't think that Yahoo! pulled our plug because they think we're some sort of threat to civilization as we know it. We think Yahoo! overreacted to a complaint by someone who disagrees with our politics, especially our public support for peace & justice in Palestine. Yahoo! figured that we are simply an obscure local group in Oakland, so they could treat us anyway they wanted to. Now that we are demanding answers & questioning their draconian "terms of service agreement" Yahoo! is stubbornly sticking to "their policies" - i.e., once they've shut you down there is no recourse, & they will not reinstate your account, nor even let you rescue any information that was stored there. > >We had over 200 names on our email list stored in the lmno4pat_private account, & we had messages that we had not yet answered before Yahoo! pulled our plug. We have learned the hard way to never store anything in a Yahoo! account that you are not ready to have some misguided bureaucrat or political zealot delete. > >I know these are troubled times, & the problems of one small peace group in Oakland are miniscule compared to what is going on in the rest of the world. But it bothers me to think that a company like Yahoo! can sabotage our work in such a heavy-handed way with no recourse whatsoever. > >I tell you all this for three reasons: 1). To warn you to be careful when you deal with Yahoo!; 2). To ask if anyone has any ideas how we might bring Yahoo! to account for their reckless political sabotage; & 3). To see if anyone else has had similar experiences with Yahoo! or any of the other email service providers. > >- Steve Wagner, Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized >for Peace, (510) 763-8712. http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? 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