If you're a member of Yahoogroups, Yahoo has changed your preferences so they can send you spam.

Go to http://www.yahoo.com/

Click 'Check Email'

Click 'Options'

Click 'Account Information'

Verify your password

You're now on the page that says, 'Review My Account Information'. About half way down the page, Click 'Edit your marketing preferences.' Click 'no' for all of them.

Be sure to go all the way down to 'Other Delivery' and click 'no' for 'via U.S. mail' and 'via phone.'

And be sure to complete this mess by clicking 'Save Changes.'            

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), March 30, 2002

Answers

Thank you for the "heads up" on that,Rogo.

-- LaDena,Tx9 (littledena77458@yahoo.com), March 30, 2002.

I get feeling Hotmail and Yahoo are in lockstep just like Ford and Chevy. Yahoo recently announced it will discontinue free pop3 service although they will sell it to you. Hotmail has also been pushing more storage space at big price.

I recently found Hotmail had simularly added permission to share info with other companies (apparently they sold live account addresses to porn outfits). I changed info there. It lowered spam but guess i was on lot of lists already as I still get it. I then signed up with GMX mail as it was suppose to be super reliable and offer pop3 service. Works flawlessly but they turn out to be connected to pornographers also. Somebody pointed out that there was an "erotica" option. If this option is selected then all web pages have porno ads. Give me a break, is every web company so damn greedy they have to go this route. I mean a free pop3 email account cant be all that expensive to maintain as many under $10 isps give you multiple pop3 accounts when you sign up. I just dont like using isp email as isps come and go. Free web account ideally should be there for longhaul no matter which isp is used.

-- HermitJohn (Hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), March 30, 2002.

Rogo, you are one decent human being. You have made my day. Buddy in east Georgia

-- Buddy (Buddybud@csranet.com), March 30, 2002.

thank you "rogo" i couldn't understand why i got a solictitaion for a porno site when i opened yahoo this morning. i have now changed all my settings. may god bless//happy easter to you

-- paul (vonmantik@yahoo.com), March 30, 2002.

Not only did Yahoo change our preferences, but when we changed them all to "No" we weren't able to use our POP3 email any longer at all. Guess that's their way of getting the money ahead of time from a person. Pretty suckie business ethics if you ask me!

If anyone finds a good free email place that offers POP3 access, PLEASE let me know ... I like being able to use my Outlook to keep everything organized!

-- Phil in KS (pemccoy@yahoo.com), March 30, 2002.

I think this sucks that websites can get away with this kind of &^% $. Does anyone know anything about Gator? Tonight when my computer was on I noticed my hard drive was clicking like something was being downloaded. Sure enough I somehow downloaded Gator software and it self installed. Now this is scarey as I did not do anything to install it. When I went into Programs I could see I had installed new software in WinXP. I did a search on Google and found a program that scans your HD and deletes the spyware. It showed 35 different spyware files. I deleted it all.

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 31, 2002.

Phil in KS. You unchecked one too many boxes. To get pop on Yahoo you need to agree to "yahoo delivers". Doesnt matter much as pop is pay-only option after April 24. There is also the option of using 3rd party shareware called Web2Pop which allows you to use your favorite pop3 email client to access any webmail, not just that offering pop3 service. Its shareware and I think around $18 one time price. Its little slower than using a true pop3 email account, but not objectionable.

I am also in search for new pop3 email service. ZZN.com has been reliable (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com) but want second one to replace hotmail and yahoo. They both will soon be pay only I would imagine even using web2pop as stopgap measure. After finding GMX was porn connected, I did more research and found what I think is a fast and clean pop3 email. Its called yilan.net and is available at: http://eo.yifan.net/ I read good things about them, signed up and they certainly are fast in my experiments. Can also use their SMTP server as they offer a non-standard smtp port 1025. Most isps block standard port 25 making you use their smtp server with whatever email you use. Just change smtp port setting in your pop3 client from 25 to 1025.

-- HermitJohn (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), March 31, 2002.

Kent in WA, I've never used XP but assume you may be using a version of IE simular to IE4, IE5 or IE5.5. Those versions of IE had a default checked box called "load on demand". Another sneaky little joy by M$. On IE5, go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, and uncheck the box. I dont know about IE6 or whatever they force on you with XP. Be aware you do have option of using other browsers such as Opera6.0 or Mozilla. Can also use a 3rd party firewall which will force any program wanting to communicate thru internet to ask permission. Notice though that spyware is usually piggybacked on programs that you have to give internet access. Really sleazy if you ask me.

-- HermitJohn (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), March 31, 2002.

Another pop3 email that I just signed up for to try out is at www.zapo.net Its fast so far and 12meg storage. Easy signup also. No huge questionaires. Looks like a potential winner. Time will tell on both zapo and yifan.

-- HermitJOhn (hermit@hilltop_homestead.zzn.com), March 31, 2002.

"oy vey", you also have to hit 'continue' then 'finished' to save your changes -beware-! thank you ms. rogo for the heads up!

spam,spam,spam,wonderful,spam,spam...

-- bj pepper ,in central MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), April 01, 2002.

bj, I love your sense of humor! :o)

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), April 01, 2002.

'taint me mr.bren, 'tis the bloody brits that i love to qoute that are so droll! ;) spam,spam,spam, marvelous, SPAM! that reminds me, i read recently in the paper that two whackos were caught stealing loads of spam from a store, nope, that was not the only food on the shelves for them to steal...

-- bj pepper ,in central MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), April 02, 2002.

Kent - Could you give more details on how you found the program to remove "the spys" on the Google search?? Thanks a bunch

-- cheryl pickering (clpick57@hotmail.com), April 06, 2002.