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posted by janrinok on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-little-too-late? dept.

gishzida writes:

"A Reuters release notes that Yahoo Inc will stop letting consumers access its various online services, including Fantasy Sports and photo-sharing site Flickr, by signing-in with their Facebook Inc or Google Inc credentials. The move marks the latest change to Yahoo by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who is striving to spark fresh interest in the company's Web products and to revive its stagnant revenue.

The change, which will be rolled out gradually according to a Yahoo spokeswoman, will require users to register for a Yahoo ID in order to use any of the Internet portal's services."

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by snick on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:12PM

    by snick (1408) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:12PM (#11429)

    The move marks the latest change to Yahoo by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who is striving to spark fresh interest in the company's Web products and to revive its stagnant revenue.

    ... by making it harder to log in???

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by geek on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:15PM

      by geek (3368) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:15PM (#11431)

      She's an idiot. The only reason anyone even knows who this moron is is because she dated one of the founders of Google and they gave the ditsy bitch a job in the process. She's done nothing but screw Yahoo since she got there.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:51PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:51PM (#11457)

        Wait,
        How is it possible to screw up Yahoo? That ship sailed a long time ago.

        --
        Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:28PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:28PM (#11476)

        To be fair, how many cases have you ever heard of where some outsider was brought in as CEO for a company in decline, and this CEO was actually highly competent and managed to turn the company around? Heck, forget the turning the company around part, just concentrate on the competent part. Most CEOs simply aren't very competent; they're just boneheaded management goons who have connections and can bullshit their way into these jobs. The CEOs who are really smart and effective are the ones who started their companies and are intimately familiar with them. Steve Jobs is a prime example of this; love him or hate him, he was one of the founders and knew what products would sell. Back when Hewlett and Packard were running their company, it was a legendary place too, but those guys were the founders; after they left, the place went down the tubes. I can't wait for Mark Zuckenberg to move on to something else, so I can finally watch Facebook implode (not that he's all that competent either, but anyone who replaces him is bound to be much worse).

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:04PM

          by edIII (791) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:04PM (#11494)

          I'm not ashamed to admit that when Facebook starts to decline in the way you mention, I will metaphorically be on the couch laughing hysterically eating junk food with spittle coming from my mouth, and possibly throw the sour cream dip at the TV.

          Think of that scene in Harry and the Hendersons.

          Never has a company or product been so hyped and over valued in this history of economies, with the possible exception being that of the Emperor's New Clothes.

        • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:51PM

          by EvilJim (2501) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:51PM (#11511)

          wasn't there some superstar ceo looking to take over dell a while back? which would make the answer to your question 1 in all my living memory.

        • (Score: 1) by efitton on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:13PM

          by efitton (1077) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:13PM (#11522) Homepage

          Lee Iacocca

          So that is my one. And ummm...

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bd on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:27PM

      by bd (2773) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:27PM (#11442)

      She wants fresh interest by advertising agencies, not users.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:48PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:48PM (#11484) Journal

        Kinda like Slashdot Beta.

        "Rolling out gradually" a change means a change they know users will hate, because that's why they have to roll it out gradually - check.

        Figured the only people on Yahoo were 12 year-old girls, FBI agents pretending to be 12 year-old girls, and the creepy old men trying to court them.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by ngarrang on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:13PM

    by ngarrang (896) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:13PM (#11430) Journal

    From TFA: "Yahoo is continually working on improving the user experience," the company said in a statement, noting that the new process "will allow us to offer the best personalized experience to everyone".

    Translation: We want people to have Yahoo! IDs to access Yahoo! functions to more easily allow us to track user behavior for more effective ad targeting and any other way we wish to use that data.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:25PM (#11440)

      Meh.. I dunno if this is a bad thing really. I never really liked or understood why so many companies sought some kind of facebook integration.
      Do you somehow find it logical to feed more information to facebook or google about your activities on a website that are not actually related to them?
      Or is it that you feel that it's soo convinient? It's also convinient to have a post-it with your passwords on your computer monitor or to have your pin code taped to your credit card but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:53PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:53PM (#11459)

        Agreed, mindless facebook integration (or even ID linking) is just plain stupid, as is anyone actually using such.

        --
        Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:58PM

          by Angry Jesus (182) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:58PM (#11492)

          Mindless facebook integration (or even ID linking) is just plain stupid, as is anyone actually using such.

          It's great for the websites which do it. If they use the full-blown "log in with facebook" (not the lowly OpenID which TFA is talking about) they get tons of information about the user and if they shell out for the deluxe package they get tons of information on every "friend" of that user too.

          Here's a screen-grab of all the different database fields facebook gives to a website when somone logs in via facebook - single-sign-on FTW!
          https://twitter.com/TheBakeryLDN/status/4275319342 94880256/photo/1 [twitter.com]

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:15PM

            by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:15PM (#11495)

            Hmmm, I thought most websites that Do this, do it out of lazyness, (too much trouble managing a log in system) and have no real need of all that data, and wouldn't have the capability of using it even in summary form.

            In any event, thanks for the image. Reinforces my point about how foolish it is to log in anywhere with a facebook account.

            --
            Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
            • (Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:13PM

              by Angry Jesus (182) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:13PM (#11521)

              I bet a good number of them don't know what to do with it.

              But fundamentally they are all just selling eyeballs, this info lets them better quantify those eyeballs and thus charge a higher rate for ads. My expectation is that there are drop-in modules that suck-up that data and re-package it to feed into various advertising networks.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:18PM

        by edIII (791) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:18PM (#11498)
        The very concept of OpenID is flawed and deeply deeply deeply stupid.

        If I was running a ton of infrastructure and services, why would I ever let another company authenticate their users with my data? Sure, it seems like a value added service to the user as they only have to remember a single password for everything, and every time they log in I gain brand awareness.

        However, now you have a nice tidy little attack surface. Good for the small startup that no longer has to be responsible for their own security in it's entirety, but bad for the user. Flawed implementations in those other sites may reveal information to give an attacker an advantage.

        There is a reason why banks would never consider such a methodology viable.

        OpenID has always been bad for the user (they probably don't know that), and allowing smaller companies to not pull their own weight WRT security is a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a data-breach can be inevitable due to incompetence or negligence.

        It only works as long as corporations are willing to cooperate anyways.... which means it's just as stupid as websites linking to other websites to download javascript. Facebook may be more reliable than that small software developer who put up his JQuery module for people to use, but that still doesn't mean it's in either the corporations or the users best interest does it?

        OpenID is just being lazy, and laziness gets you killed on the Internet.
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @06:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @06:55PM (#11568)

          allowing smaller companies to not pull their own weight WRT security is a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a data-breach can be inevitable due to incompetence or negligence.

          Face it, companies both large and small don't pull their own weight WRT security when the ball is entirely in their court, either. Many BANKS can't do internet security properly, even today. Increased responsibility doesn't reduce incompetence and negligence, it just raises the stakes when that incompetence and negligence is exploited.

          The point of OpenID is to put your authentication security in the hands of companies which take authentication security seriously, rather than gambling your ID with every new service you sign up to.

          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:32PM

            by edIII (791) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:32PM (#11664)

            You are still far better off having faked information and separate passwords for every single site that you visit.

            For the sites that have information that's real, you progressively create more complicated passwords (proportional to the info you gave them) and demand higher levels of security from them in the form of two-factor authentication and the like.

            If somebody cracked my password here they would find no identifiable information on me, certainly not any kind of sensitive information, and a password that can only be used with SoylentNews.

            If you cracked my account with PizzaHut you could order pizzas and have them sent to my address, but you would be paying for them. I keep waiting for that to happen, but it never does. Lazy hackers.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @07:58AM (#11875)

          Because, if you have the option to log in with OpenID, a user is likely to log in if he sees one thing that catches his interest. Then, once he is logged in, he will see your other services, possibly deciding that he is interested in those.

          If, on the other hand, one needs to create an account to log in, the barrier is larger, and a user who sees one thing that catches his interest is more likely to not bother. To attract new users with this model, you need to build your image beforehand.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @06:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @06:35PM (#12265)

        No idea.
        How about asking Atlassian why there is a need to send user data to google

        -
        Privacy policy designed to distribute user data should be called Sharing Policy

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:53PM (#11458)
      Doh. If you're that worried about being tracked you'd prefer keeping things separate. Yahoo, google, facebook etc stuck in different "silos". That way Facebook/Google have to work with Yahoo in order to get the "full picture".

      In contrast if you were using the same login for everything you're an easier target to track (and if you weren't doing that, this wouldn't really affect you except it does make it harder for you to accidentally login using the wrong account by mistake).
    • (Score: 1) by gishzida on Wednesday March 05 2014, @08:51PM

      by gishzida (2870) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @08:51PM (#11630) Journal

      Yahoo Beta???!!!

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by NecroDM on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:28PM

    by NecroDM (376) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:28PM (#11443)

    As if Yahoo wasn't sufficiently in decline and yet they want to cut the integration with what people regularly use?
    You're doing it wrong, if you want people to use your services you make your services attractive by making them compatible with already existing services, otherwise who'll want to use them?
    Removing features is a good way to lose customers.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:46PM

    by VLM (445) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:46PM (#11454)

    "Internet portal"

    The 90s called and wanted me to tell you to get into the lucrative dog food delivery over the internet business LOL

    I have some more free advice, which is to forbid all mobile access to yahoo other than thru a soon to be released "yahoophone". What could possibly go wrong?

    Also scrap that clunky TCP/IP and switch to pure SNA source route bridging. Users are gonna love that 3270 terminal interface. I got some spare token ring junk out back if you need it.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:43PM

    by istartedi (123) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:43PM (#11507)

    If this means they will start removing scripts associated with FaceBook and Google from their site, then it will be one small step towards making Yahoo what it once was. It used to be a very clean design like... well.. Soylent! True story--I was on Yahoo once and it kept slowing down and even locking up. Usually I just dismiss it, but I was wondering how a major site could have such difficulty. I figured it must be my machine.

    I was able to isolate the problem to the FaceBook "like" button that appeared there. This was with IE and some extra security options enabled. What would happen is the little like button script would go into a loop. A loop! Nevermind that a button shouldn't have to be executing code at all, it actually had something that was looping. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Solution? The server that serves the button, blocked. It's still blocked even though I no longer use IE. This prevents me from viewing a lot of things on FB, although I've noticed I can view parts of FB's pages with Chrome + Notscript + temporarily enabling.

    Of course I'm not on FB, so I don't care. The whole thing could just go "poof" and I wouldn't miss a beat. Actually, it's a bit scary how much money is tied up in huge corporations that could do that and not affect me.

  • (Score: 2) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:49PM

    by EvilJim (2501) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:49PM (#11510)

    Thanks Marissa, I no longer want to use the one yahoo service I used once, I'm about to abandon my one flickr photo, if anyone would like to look before yahoo is dead and gone, please find it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/115909468@N06/ [flickr.com] the only reason I used this service once was because it was easy to drop in my gmail id to share this photo with someone, if I have to create another account, I'm not going to use your services.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by ArhcAngel on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:05PM

    by ArhcAngel (654) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @05:05PM (#11517)

    You mean I can no longer log into my facebook account using my Yahoo ID so I can log into my Yahoo account using facebook?