I log onto Yahoo this morning (yes, I still have an active Yahoo account and I only log in to keep it active), first to see this picture. Then, second, I quickly notice that Yahoo has attempted to turn itself into sort of FaceYahoo (I guess that's what the picture is). Finally, and most importantly, I quickly discover that I have a Yahoo profile, and they've decided to share my information with all of my “connections.” Even better, spammers have decided to comment on my various profile entries. I don't think they can see them because I don't actually have any connections yet, but apparently they can see that some of the particular items in my profile have changed.
So this is the latest brilliant assault on one's privacy by deciding the the thing I'd just forgotten to do myself was share as much information as possible with the world, and helping me out by doing it for me.
I'll be slightly fair. All of the defaults that share anything are to Connections Only and there aren't any connections until I create them. Okay, so they switched the power on but nothing happens until I actually plug something in. I'd much rather the power be OFF, since that was my tacit assumption, until I turn it on. I consider that a much safer and saner approach. Maybe that's just me.
If you're a regular Yahoo user, you'll already probably know about this. If you're an occasional or casual user, you'd better log in and carefully see what's going on.
So now we add Yahoo to the list to which this advice applies:
Check your privacy settings early and often!