Story

-2.2
Impact

Yahoo Using Dirty Tactics to Switch Google & Firefox Users?

Flag As Inappropriatesigriffin sigriffin about 1 year ago about Yahoo

Andy Beal warns people about Yahoo!’s attempt to take over their desktops:

”...a recent upgrade to Yahoo Messenger includes an innocuous ‘auto-update’ option. When the user gives Yahoo permission to ‘update’ – what they think is just Yahoo Messenger – the updater… then proceeds to hijack many browser preferences – including search engine settings.”

Firstly, the updater associates all web links with Internet Explorer instead of your default browser (very annoying for Firefox / Opera users!). Secondly, it pops up an ambiguous error message telling you that your search settings have been changed and that you can either “fix” them or “allow change”. Thinking that they’re about to lose their browser defaults, most people will click “fix settings”. Upon doing so however, they’ll find that their default homepage has been switched to Yahoo! And for its final trick, the updater switches IE’s default search engine to Yahoo! without your permission. Nice work :-(

When Andy complained about this to Yahoo!, the response he received (from Yahoo! spokesperson Terrell Karlsten) said “This is an industry-wide practice.” Great stuff. So if everyone else is doing it, that makes it OK does it? What would his Mum say? “If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would Yahoo!?”

(see also: Etre)

239 people found this important

  • sigriffin
  • jarkko
  • soccerTOOLsu
  • Loren
  • ryan
  • rhjr
  • beng
  • steve91
  • mikaln317
  • daniel
  • emchilds
  • kelly
  • bostonvaulter
  • shannon
  • lilmeowmeow
  • mikkel
  • wilby34
  • mfpb4000
  • Robert
  • panoptican
  • felipevaz
  • precid
  • mushumax
  • aBitGone
  • migraineboy
  • oyvind
  • sveskemus
  • olrs
  • Nils
  • nasdaquiri
  • RPaulH
  • colin
  • Niloofar
  • Jolee
  • bmoseley07
  • Chealion
  • bowenmark
  • shawny
  • jackzheng
  • sv
  • techcrunch
  • xavierlouveau
  • hauntedtapedeck
  • headlessness
  • PurpleCow
  • mitu
  • yoda
  • dkamm
  • billpapa
  • Gus3284
  • geek27
  • tuckerlee
  • lyndon
  • riviera
  • adverteasement
  • chitalian
  • Andrew
  • BloatedBunny
  • GradyTripp
  • bdielman
  • ilkeryoldas
  • scrambledheads
  • monoid
  • david28078
  • DieBuche
  • webg
  • binsch
  • sona
  • doconnor
  • richard
  • mitnosam
  • johnnysoko
  • malekshda3wa
  • llnull
  • raprat0
  • tasovi
  • thierry
  • rowlando
  • qwerty73
  • tparlin
  • AdamJacobMuller
  • wadexyz
  • prowsej
  • philipkd
  • eestes1
  • bsaitz
  • vscarpenter
  • avocade
  • Gabriel
  • Krazy
  • sumo27
  • petitpiet
  • ilves
  • keithzhl
  • wkinney
  • yingqi
  • lookitsbeige
  • gopher
  • rajesh
  • ngandriau
  • fh11375
  • dmaw
  • webonics
  • psheehan
  • toaddodger
  • michaelbenson
  • Heartofgold
  • mojen
  • Michaelblake
  • tommyswf
  • significance
  • sicc
  • chickentonight
  • Jebrooks
  • spectre240sx
  • ashleycharee
  • Robse
  • thefunnyman
  • rolandog
  • bitcloud
  • klayborg
  • raffo
  • Omnituinen
  • p11b
  • kidnapyourmate
  • Kavok
  • nocturn
  • Lucanos
  • piglith
  • komodododo
  • MattHarwood
  • siu02db
  • Partyworm
  • Reines
  • RedeyeAP
  • hdar
  • Devin
  • m00dc0ntr0l
  • prodaea
  • StandardSociety
  • dansage
  • escriba
  • erikwas
  • iamthepinkylifter
  • glauser
  • evaunit
  • sleeknbasic
  • edgesmash
  • datarock
  • jolietjake
  • Veinor
  • alland
  • strandist
  • punzak
  • indianaugust
  • ham666bone
  • miko023
  • viriiman
  • theckhd
  • wasylm
  • bubbalitz
  • softmax
  • sarroid04
  • forexproject
  • curtis1984
  • grelf
  • Meltdown721
  • Rudes
  • VegasRex
  • tommyk
  • Bearymore
  • odiyya
  • roothorick
  • jaysonwhelpley
  • cigarettevoodoo
  • Beerden
  • Mercion
  • silvertoes
  • Josh
  • boboroshi
  • serhio
  • belmonster
  • ClobberHead
  • mojokelt
  • Math
  • Dysalot
  • kens8
  • CaveatKenny
  • Theo
  • greymaxcat
  • undergroundman
  • osipov
  • Isht
  • DeleteMe
  • Marshall_Banana
  • justelite
  • plus-media
  • ltgeo
  • kell_pt
  • KaneElson
  • vineetb
  • rjmatm
  • RobertDuncan
  • twitmer
  • tdkpetrus
  • skyiscool
  • needium
  • JCSaint
  • bored911
  • Katee
  • Mysk
  • ngardam
  • cham0169
  • jefffm
  • Czernobog
  • pr0teus
  • mercury76
  • minidore
  • jerrett
  • jO3Design
  • peterpixel
  • hectica
  • Hoobahopp
  • mgirando
  • DragonFly
  • Michael
  • kanotoa
  • johngalt2099
  • sparklygirl
  • Marshall
  • IronZerg
  • LucaMasters
  • VTSara
  • huangcjz
  • sdemessieres
  • Keiji
  • StevenChen
  • abhiz
  • elixai

Not important? Don't rate! Why? Your Impact Rating

Log In To Submit Your Rating

Digg this!

Comments

ryan
Verified representative for dotherightthing.com

ryan about 1 year ago

Industry practice huh? Does gtalk do any of the above-mentioned settings invasions?

Flag As Inappropriate
soccerTOOLsu

soccerTOOLsu about 1 year ago

Industry-wide practice VS Industry-leading practice

This may be part of the reason, YHOO is only $30 and GOOG is $500. Go figure.

Flag As Inappropriate
Loren

Loren about 1 year ago

Hopefully Google takes the high road here and doesn’t respond in kind.

Flag As Inappropriate
kelly

kelly about 1 year ago

I don’t think Google will ever do this. If only because it promises “Not to be evil.” This kinda seems slightly evil to me.

Flag As Inappropriate
Robert

Boo!

Robert about 1 year ago

No, not like a ghost – but “boo” as in “bad move Yahoo”. I hate tactics that try to switch my defaults. Mess with my search engine of choice, and you’re rm’d from my system.

Flag As Inappropriate
aBitGone

Really, really, really bad

aBitGone about 1 year ago

Dreadful practices – and as for it being standard practice in the industry? If you count the ‘badware’ pushers as industry, then yes – it is. Even Microsoft tells you clearly what each option is going to do.

Flag As Inappropriate
RPaulH

Share Price v Mkt Valuation

RPaulH about 1 year ago

i agree with all the comments here—customer trust needs to be valued, not stomped on.

anyway, i would like to point out that per-share price does not matter – total market value that multiplies it by number of shares does.

yahoo is worth $38 billion ($28/share) google is worth $150 billion ($495/share) berkshire hathaway is worth $165 billion ($106,700 /share)

share price is only psychological and relates to behavioral economics. share splits yield a 5% rise, for no fundamental reason than perceived “affordability”

thank you class – finance 101 is done for today.

Flag As Inappropriate
geek27

idoits

geek27 about 1 year ago

yet another reason to stay with google

Flag As Inappropriate
adverteasement

another day, another typical business decision

adverteasement about 1 year ago

As long as white collars try and run the Internet, we will never really see its potential. Hijacking is just bad, and sad.

Related Image

Related Image

Flag As Inappropriate
Niloofar

Niloofar about 1 year ago

Dirty Trick!

Flag As Inappropriate
ilkeryoldas

Yaboo!

ilkeryoldas about 1 year ago

Why do they bring down people’s trust like that..

Flag As Inappropriate
MigsDavis

Food for thought

MigsDavis about 1 year ago

about google… refer to one of my favorite bloggers… Danah Boyd’s article a practice broken

But anyway, a confusing process, seemingly deceptive in intent, is a sign of desperation or possibly malice- simply bad customer service. Company’s with bad customer service don’t usually do to well… I think?

Flag As Inappropriate
david28078

Naughty Boys

david28078 about 1 year ago

Yahoo! seem to be getting naughtier

Related Image

Related Image

Flag As Inappropriate
richard

Disappointing

richard about 1 year ago

I hated this when I did my Yahoo Messenger update, and removed all those junks immediately. It is disappointing to see Yahoo doing this. I thought “only” Microsoft does that.

Flag As Inappropriate
llnull

it is a hijacker

llnull about 1 year ago

流氓行为

Flag As Inappropriate
gopher

Yahoo is just doing what others been doing for ages

gopher about 1 year ago

I do agree that this is a nasty way to fool the novice user and hijack his browser settings but then again, I also know that IE has been doing this for ages !

Flag As Inappropriate
rexebin

rexebin about 1 year ago

that is stupid and smart. The stupid thing is that some people hate behavior like that. the smart thing is some people do not mind, especially people who use computer as a tool, they do not really understand what yahoo’ve done, they just simply accepted everything that is not a virus.

Flag As Inappropriate
Michaelblake

Unacceptable

Michaelblake about 1 year ago

This is one of the many things that really get me angry while on the internet. Companies using behavior like that is 100% inappropriate, especially a company like Yahoo, a company who many see as a “good” company. I didn’t know about this until I read this here. This is a reason I don’t use IE anymore as well!

Flag As Inappropriate
dansage

The gap widens

dansage about 1 year ago

This just goes to show the difference in corporate culture at places like Yahoo vs. Google. We’ve all felt it for a very long time and maybe just not been able to pinpoint what doesn’t feel right about certain companies. It’s their entire culture which comes out to show itself in actions like this.

Flag As Inappropriate
sleeknbasic

Yahoo = NSA

sleeknbasic about 1 year ago

This happened to me. I could NOT get rid of the Yahoo redirection. I used Hijackthis, malware, spyware programs, to no avail. I had to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.0, re-install 6.0 and NO, I don’t have YAHOO MESSENGER – I switched it all to Trillian. I suggest you check this out, http://www.trillian.cc/. And the best thing, you can use it with Tor and other http overides.

Flag As Inappropriate
belmonster

I hate when they do that

belmonster about 1 year ago

It really chaps my hide when ANY software package sets preferences to what they think they should be. (Are you listening, Microsoft?)

Flag As Inappropriate
Theo

What are they thinking?

Theo about 1 year ago

And they are supposedly trying to endear themselves to more people! Nice way of going about it.

Flag As Inappropriate
DragonFly

A reason to attack the messenger.

DragonFly about 1 year ago

”..the updater associates all web links with Internet Explorer”

That’s reason enough to avoid Yahoo Messenger for me!

Flag As Inappropriate
Marshall

Yahoo's Self Destructive Behavior

Marshall about 1 year ago

Its obvious Yahoo has been losing big chunks of market share (revenue) to Google. But, trying to win it back at the expense of their customers is flat out wrong. This strategy is simply about generating short term advertising revenue, but alienating your customer base in the process makes no sense! Ahem, is it really that hard to do the right thing?

Flag As Inappropriate

Log In To Add A Comment

Yahoo

Ticker:
YHOOExternal-link-small
Website:
Visit Company WebsiteExternal-link-small

Company Description

Other recent stories about Yahoo

Flickr going the censorship way
Recently Rebekka Guðleifsdóttira got ripped off from the gallery (Only Dreemin) she was using to sell her artwork. [read more]
Del.icio.us a great Yahoo Service
Yahoo offers a bookmarking service called ‘Delicious’ or del.icio.us where I can save and share bookmarks with other people who have the same interest. One of these bookmarks is this site of course as well as other green responsible sites and companies. A great way to share interests with other same minded people. [read more]
Yahoo! Pushes Green Living
Yahoo is becoming earth-friendly by announcing the launch of “Yahoo! Green” and “Be a better planet” initiatives. [read more]
Yahoo commits to carbon neutrality this year
Yahoo just recently announced at an all-hands meeting that the company will be going carbon neutral this year. They have estimated that “Yahoo! going carbon neutral is equivalent to shutting off the electricity in all San Francisco homes for a month. Or, pulling nearly 25,000 cars off the road for a year.” [read more]
Yahoo's Flickr allows easy Creative Commons licensing
A big hurdle to releasing content under open licenses, like those at Creative Commons, is always co-ordinating and identifying this content. [read more]

Read all stories about Yahoo