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Tish TOS
Yahoo/Geocities, Other "Free" Sites Can Still Rip You Off
By David "Spam Me and Die" Fiedler
What a week.
The whole thing started almost innocently the other morning when I saw Mark Welch's note about Geocities adopting a rather harsh Terms of Service (TOS) agreement from Yahoo...one that effectively gave them carte blanche to do what they want with your content without further compensation to you. I checked it out and turned in my usual vehement column.
Then all hell broke loose.
After getting lots of supportive email from lots of people I didn't know, I did some more checking and found that Yahoo wasn't alone...there were quite a few other sites that did the same thing. Somehow this got me so mad that I decided to create a protest site.
I subsequently found out that there already was a "Boycott Yahoo" protest site, but my concern was that once Yahoo saw the light and changed their TOS document, a specific anti-Yahoo site might decide its job was done. I've decided to keep mine on target until all these sites get it together.
Let's face it, if you sign up for what you think is free Web space, and then discover that one of the clauses in that document most people click "Yes" on without reading gives the Web host the right to sell your content, wouldn't you feel a bit...cheated?
How about if you found out they actually owned it instead? Suppose you had posted a prototype for a new Web site as a test, one that could be the next...well, perhaps not the next Yahoo, but the next eBay...and the hosting company stole the entire idea...legally? Or you wrote a great song, posted the MP3 with a copyright notice, but then found that the company was selling it on CDs and you couldn't collect a dime?
No way, you say...they wouldn't do that!
But they could, based on the agreement. Now go to this page and tell me that Virgin.net, a multi-million dollar corporation, has your best interests in mind. I don't think so.
And Yahoo doesn't either, based on the half-hearted change they made Tuesday afternoon, or the more heartfelt "addendum" they made on Thursday. But hopefully, the brouhaha that you've helped raise (alerting major media like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal) will help some more.
If nothing else, creating that protest site has given me lots of experience with NetObjects Fusion for an upcoming review (you don't think I'm just playing around here, do you? :-)
-- D. Fiedler
David Fiedler is Editor-in-Chief of WebDeveloper.com, and his opinions are definitely his own.
Last modified: Wed Sep 22 06:18:10 EDT 1999
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