Action Item: No More Flicker!

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No less than a week after I finally opened a flicker account, I have just deleted my account.

Flicker is owned by Yahoo who passively bottomed to the Justed Department by giving over personal data of its search engine users.

I encourage others to do the same. Lets show these assholes that taking it up the ass from Alberto Gundtzales will cost their company’s stock price big time in addition to the measley price of their souls burning in the hell of their choice.

Kudos to Google for not giving in to these fuckwads.

UPDATE: I’m also deleting my Yahoo 360 account in a few days.

Comments

25 responses to “Action Item: No More Flicker!”

January 22, 2006

RedMonkey

I agree with your decision. Not only am I deleting my account, but also writing Yahoo! as to why. Every (insignificant) bit counts.

Reply
1. January 22, 2006
  
  Madge
  
  Excellent! please share the email which you are writing to.
  
  Reply
  1. January 23, 2006
    
    Straight Chris
    
    They’re free so I’ll be using them as well as the Flock browser that does some very clever things with del.icio.us and blogger.
    I do support Google’s stand on keeping confidential. I think this data is as useful as the intelligence coming out of Uzbekistan; “dross”.
    How you getting on with OPML Madge?
    
    Reply
    1. January 23, 2006
      
      Madge
      
      OPML is great but i stil can’t get the fucking OPML rendering plugin for turdpress to work for me.
      
      Reply
      1. January 23, 2006
        
        Robert P.
        
        Hey Madge. Have you watched Raymond’s screencast on the OPML rendering plugin thingie? It helped me out… Link
      2. January 23, 2006
        
        Madge
        
        That’s not the OPML rendering plugin. THat’s the OPML post to wordpress which is totally different.
January 23, 2006

Leo Vegoda

I never liked Flickr because they don’t let you show really big pictures. I’ve been using Fotopic.net for a couple of years now, and I think it’s way better. Apart from enything else, even the free account lets you use your own domain in the URL. That way, you can move the whole site to a new host if the whole system goes bad. And the folks who run Fotopic are good people.

Reply
January 23, 2006

Dave Calderbank

Toss your Windows laptop too while you’re at it.

http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2006/01/microsoft_takes.html

Reply
1. January 23, 2006
  
  Madge
  
  Right.
  
  Reply
  1. January 23, 2006
    
    Andy
    
    Forget corporations who are only out to get money, then turn around and give your information to the government. Switch to open source software.
    
    Reply
    1. January 23, 2006
      
      Andy
      
      Audacity
      http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
      
      LMMS
      http://lmms.sourceforge.net/
      
      Open Source Software CD
      http://osscd.sunsite.dk/
      
      SourceForge.net
      http://sourceforge.net/
      
      Open Source Software for Windows
      http://osswin.sourceforge.net/
      
      The Open CD
      http://www.theopencd.org/
      
      Just a few programs and websites that will help you ditch major corporations that give your private info to the government.
      
      Reply
January 23, 2006

Andy

Yahoo Messenger is gone…working on Yahoo Photos & Flicker. Also…don’t forget that del.icio.us is owned by Yahoo.

Reply
January 23, 2006

bicyclemark

Not gonna do the delete part. Spent too many hours putting photos on flickr to suddenly delete it now. Will gladly recommend that others not use it and look into buzznet dot com. Also will send yahoo the letter. But deleting everything.. not going to rush into that.. too much energy spent….

Reply
1. January 23, 2006
  
  Andy
  
  I agree, it is a lot of work. But, I just deleted over 100 photo albums from Yahoo! Photos. 3 years woth of photos. But I agree, it is a lot of work.
  
  Reply
2. January 23, 2006
  
  Dave Calderbank
  
  Not gonna delete Flickr either, although i did delete my Yahoo 360 6 months ago ’cause they asked too many questions and their privacy policy sucks.
  
  If the U.S. justice dept. wants search data let ’em have it. What are they gonna find out? That the MTA is being run by Al-Qaeda and have been printing special NYC subway maps with secret terrorist codes for years?
  
  Reply
January 23, 2006

David

There was absolutely no private information in what was turned over though. Just an aggregate collection of search terms without ips or anything that could possibly identify anybody. Even one-off search terms weren’t in the data, so if you happened to search for your sister’s name or something similar, that wouldn’t be in there. It was just a more detailed version of the standard Zeitgeist/Buzz index that both Yahoo and Google provide which I have never seen anybody complain about – http://buzz.yahoo.com and http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist.html
The main difference was that along with the more detailed aggregate search terms, the list included the URLs that these search terms mapped to. Google’s main beef here is that revealing detailed information about this search term to URL mapping will give competitors a way to discern the size and breadth of their index. The pricacy angle was just a convenient PR stunt that has seemingly fooled a lot of people.

Reply
1. January 23, 2006
  
  Andy
  
  I still say it is wrong, if they wanted the information they could have got it themselves without having to ask Yahoo or the others to turn the information over. I refuse to use Yahoo & the others because WHAT ELSE will they be willing to turn over in the future.
  
  Reply
  1. January 23, 2006
    
    Madge
    
    Of course it’s wrong. It’s NONE OF THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS! NONE! Whether or not we can coceive of the evil the government can do with the data is entirely irrelevant. It does not belong to the government any more than your scrotum does.
    
    Reply
January 24, 2006

Andy

Does anyone know of anything that I can replace del.icio.us with?

Reply
1. January 24, 2006
  
  Madge
  
  Your mom?
  
  Reply
2. January 24, 2006
  
  bicyclemark
  
  shit your quitting delicious too? everyone needs to breathe for a second.. these moves are extremely small and bear no political or economic consequences on the government or those companies.
  Naturally I have a great deal of respect to anyone who takes an initiative and starts a movement.. but.. this is too small potatos for me.
  If you do want an alternative to delicious which is such a great tool, there is Doc Searls’ old favorite FURL http://www.furl.net/
  
  Reply
  1. January 24, 2006
    
    Dr. Hannibal Lector
    
    and next to furl.net there is
    
    Reply
    1. January 24, 2006
      
      Dr. Hannibal Lector
      
      blinklist.com
      
      Reply
  2. January 25, 2006
    
    Anthony
    
    I agree with Mark and glad he said it. I am happy to see so many people willing to take a stand regarding this privacy issue, but will it make the change we need? At least in spirit it is motivating people to make a small stance, but it won’t impact the larger issue. To me, boycotting Yahoo is up there with the vegans who do so to stop the mistreatment of animals.
    
    Reply
February 20, 2006

A?va

Does anyone know of anything that I can replace del.icio.us with?

Reply