Xoopit - avoid it?

[Ron Whitfield]

Yahoo Mail now offers Xoopit, a My Photo application, but it warns that according to the Terms of Agreement if you allow it, it automatically shares your photos/info with... with exactly whom? Just the world, or more sinister eyes? http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/dev...einfoapis.html
Hmmm, where's Dick Cheney?

[pzarquon]

Re: Xoopit - avoid it?

Yahoo! bought Xoopit, and recently cut off Gmail users, so presumably it will soon become an integrated part of Yahoo! Mail. But it looks like for now, technically, Xoopit is operating as an external application that interacts with Yahoo! users via its API. So the terms you link to basically say that you are letting Xoopit interact with your Yahoo! account.

Note that many terms of service in place for web services will have very broad provisions for sharing, republishing, redistributing, etc. It's a good idea to always read the fine print, but in most cases (at least for large, reputable providers), language like "you hereby authorize us to share, republish, redistribute, etc." is basically what's needed in order for them to do what it is you've engaged them to do -- take your stuff and show it to other people.

Is it possible it's written broadly enough to mean that your fantastic photo of the Koolau mountains could be sold to Kodak for use in an ad, for which the service gets $20,000 and you get nothing? I suppose. But if you don't want your stuff stolen or used by others, the best advice is to keep it off the web.

[surlygirly]

Re: Xoopit - avoid it?

Personally, I think Yahoo's coming into the game too late and trying to get their stuff out too fast without working out all the bugs/possibly bad senarios. Oops!